From the age of 10, when my family moved to Australia, the idea that the world does not begin and end in that culture of which I was a part of has been firmly entrenched in my wanderings throughout the world since. I know that the opportunity to study abroad during junior is many people my age's first opportunity to realize this; I know I am one of a very lucky few who were able to understand this early on. My friends are going to places like the aforementioned Australia, London, Spain, Italy, France, and one is even staying in the same time zone, just going to a different school.
I don't mean to say that these people are not adventurous, or that where I am going is somehow superior to where they are going – it's very likely that I would feel just as much a stranger in those places (maybe except Australia) as I will in the labyrinthine, chaotically organized streets of Tokyo. All of those places, however, have accented our American culture, the one we are so comfortable in. We share a mother tongue with the Australians and the British, we live in a place which still has remnants of the Spanish culture, and we are so familiar with Italian and French cuisines and tourist sights that they sometimes seem passé.
In Japan, however, I will be constantly forced to confront my identity in ways taken much for granted for the first time – as a Caucasian, as an American, as a Jew, and as an English speaker. These are things I have held in common with nearly everybody around me my entire life. Once I step foot in Japan, I will hold almost none of these things in common with nearly everyone around me, and looking around nearly anywhere will remind me that these four things make me different as opposed to the same.
What this will require me to do is to make connections with people and places on a level beyond nationality, religion or language, beyond appearance or cultural background – they will, in other words, force me to make connections on a purely and admittedly intimidatingly human level. Being successful in such an atmosphere requires leaving those identities I'm familiar with using as cultural measuring sticks behind and proceeding with a vastly open mind.
With such a job ahead of me, it will not come as a surprise that, I hope, the more I am able to understand Japanese culture, the more I will be able to understand, appreciate and be willing to change for what I perceive to be the better, my own culture.
It's customary in Japanese homes to say ittekimasu when one leaves the home. It translates to, "I will go and come back." The former verb, to go, is shortened, in order to connect with the latter verb, to come back, which is in its full form. I leave to go on a journey yet to be fully identified, but I plan to return in full form, my travels making up but a part of the identity I will carry with me upon returning.
