The Dreaded News

I don’t think people quite believed me when I said that I knew I was going to fail the JLPT.  I think they thought that I was being modest or self-deprecating.  But what they should have remembered is that I’m the first one to toot my own horn.

When I said I wouldn’t pass the JLPT, I didn’t mean it was unlikely, or that I wasn’t smart enough, or that I was afraid to hope.  I meant that I knew the level of the test, and I knew my own level, and I knew that I was short, even if I studied my butt off (which I did.)

So it was no surprise when the letter finally came and 不合格 (failure) was written at the bottom.  Rather than the pass or fail, I was much more interested in knowing how much I’d failed, since this is a new test and the scoring has changed.  The old test required a 70% to pass. Supposedly, the new one would change annually depending on the difficulty of the test, and the pass rate had not been announced when I took the test.

I looked up the new pass rate last night and found that it had been posted: 100/180.  My score: 85/180.  I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than I expected, but it calmed me a bit. I think it’s entirely feasible that I can make up those 15 points by December.

We shall meet again, JLPT.

The Dreaded Day

I’ve taken the JLPT before, so theoretically there should have been no surprises when I took the new level 1 test yesterday.  The test site in Seattle was theoretically arranged according to the Japan Foundation’s specifications, and the proctor read from the same instruction booklet.  It all should have been the same.  And yet, taking the test in Japan was utterly different. The details were the same — everyone was given a room assignment; each desk in each room was labelled with a student’s registration number; each test began at exactly the same time — and yet it somehow had the feel of an entirely different test.

In Seattle, the test took place in a single hallway of a chilly, old building.  The unmatched desks looked like they’d come from my elementary school.  The proctor, a skinny white guy in his late twenties, lounged on the desk at the front and read from the instruction manual in a sardonic tone, practically rolling his eyes at the unnecessary detail with which it had been written.  He recounted his own battles with the test and joked about the stereotypical gender roles displayed in the listening section.   Not to mention that everyone there came from more or less the same background; university students majoring in Japanese or East Asian studies, all of us nervous and trying desperately to cram one last vocabulary word or grammar structure into our heads before the test began.  Even the few exceptions – an older woman who had previously lived in Japan; an elementary school aged Japanese boy whose mother waited anxiously in the hallway outside to see if her culture had managed to bore its way into his head – somehow gave it a bizarre cohesive feeling.

While I had been dropped off by J-ko at the curb next to the test site in Seattle after making dinner plans, I walked for 25-30 minutes in the pre-noon sun after a 20 minute train ride to reach this year’s test site.  I followed the smattering of foreigners clutching curled test vouchers – identical to the one folded in my wallet – to the gated entrance of a university, where a single sign leaning against a railing proclaimed that this was the test site.  We all made our way to an enormous and apparently brand new building where hundreds of foreigners milled in the lobby while severe Japanese people in suits barred the escalators.  Rather than speak to us, they each held signs saying, “Please wait until 12:00.”

At noon, the hordes were released and we all crammed ourselves onto the escalators to our designated floors.  I was on the sixth floor, in a giant room with rows of tables, two examinees seated at each one.  Eighty-eight people sat in my test room, all of us hushed and staring at the three tidy, unsmiling Japanese people in suits with yellow “Staff” arm badges pinned to their sleeves.  One woman read from the instruction booklet while they other two – another woman and dour 30-ish man in glasses – read along in their copies.  She read in a soft, rhythmic voice particular to textbook recordings, and she delivered all the instructions without a trace of irony.  She held up the yellow “warning” card and the red “immediate failure” card without smiling, with her two silent comrades following suit.  Only one of them – the young woman with her hair in a gold trimmed scrunchie who patrolled my side of the room – smiled as she walked up and down the aisles comparing our faces to the pictures on the printout she carried.

The combination of the reserved and professional-looking staff and the hordes of Asian students chattering amongst themselves in unfamiliar syllables gave the entire experience an aloof, uncomfortable atmosphere.  Which I doubt very much affected my performance, although I did get distracted at one point when I noticed that the boys on either side of me had actually gone to sleep.

And then it was over, and we all crammed ourselves back on the escalators and out the doors – a sea of foreigners clogging the streets and sidewalks, creating, at one point, a bottleneck of cars as the road was too narrow for two lanes of traffic as well as the clump of examinees.  After another sweaty, drizzly 25-30 minute walk back to the station, the train whisked me away, and the JLPT had passed.

Old School Shenanigans

I’m really fixated on the idea of growing up. And here I mean fixated with an incredibly negative connotation that basically means I quake with terror when contemplating what seems inevitable. Adulthood and maturity, to me, means having to curb my impulses and become less interesting. It means conforming to another person’s idea of who I am.  And it worries me that more and more I’m starting to see things from an adult point of view.  The things my parents said to me as a child, the reasons they gave, have slid alarmingly into focus.

One example is the existence of Sen’s puppy.  He’s an adorable little creature, and I love having animals around and it pained me to not have access to any pets when I arrived here after having them abound back home.  But puppies are made of poop. I spend entirely too much of my time recently cleaning up poop, and it’s just way too much work.  This warm squishy little pile of love that is currently snoring on my lap is not really worth the effort required to clean up after him.  So if I ever should reproduce, my children are screwed in the pet department.  “Puppies are a lot of responsibility that you are incapable of handling, and I don’t want to clean up dog poop.” I think that’s a fairly standard parent response to children wanting puppies, and I now know why.  Which isn’t to say that it’s news to me.  I’ve known for a while that I am far too lazy for a puppy, but having had one inserted into my presence, I’m more solidly against ever having one of my own.

And there you have it. An adult perspective, acquired against my will. Which just further proves that maturity is inevitable, turning my insides to jello with fear.

But recently, my high school compatriot BJ has been visiting.  And because she’s visiting, we’ve been making a greater effort to be active and do interesting things.  Last night we went drinking at a pirate themed izakaya, where we were ensconced in an actual box with a faux sail draped across the entrance to give us privacy.

Afterwards, we spent two hours at the karaoke place next door, belting out 90s songs at the top of our lungs while I flailed and danced as a spinning disco ball lit the room. We arrived home as the night was fading into morning, the lights in our neighborhood flicking on as our neighbors woke for work.

Tonight, after dinner of amazingly complicated and delicious “American style” burgers at Non Cafe (the Japanese really do think that Americans eat burgers daily, and they think we eat triple deckers ones at that. My burger at Non Cafe involved an entire wheel of Camembert cheese and was so big that I actually had to eat it with a fork and a knife, a method that shames me to my soul) we headed to Coldstone, because clearly we hadn’t consumed enough yet.  As we stood in line, BJ and I had a face off, where we started shoving each other and waggling our heads at one another and shouting threats. I can’t even remember why, but even Sen was embarrassed to be with us.  Afterwards, I was served my ice cream first, so Sen decided to try to steal a bite while I was trying to pay, resulting in an epic battle and shouts of HADOKEN and SHORYUKEN as we battled over the fate of my ice cream. (I won.)  The employees tried hard not to overtly laugh at us.  As we were sitting, Mr. Roboto started playing, so we all naturally started dancing, and while I was distracted with my dance, BJ scooped up my ice cream and ran off.  I shouted, “KAESE!” the imperative form of “return to me,” which is considered extremely rude and as close to cursing as you can get in Japanese, and ran after her.  We ran straight past a mall security guard, who didn’t even blink, before I managed to get a hold of her hood and reclaim my ice cream, only to have it go flying out of my hands seconds later. Luckily, nothing was spilled, although a few miscellaneous drops managed to make their way onto my shirt.

When we got back to the Coldstone where we’d left Sen, she told us that the entire restaurant had turned and looked at her for explanation after we’d run off. The employees continued avoiding eye contact and trying their best not to laugh.

The entire episode reminded me so strongly of high school that my fear of encroaching maturation was momentarily dispelled.  Of course, there will come a moment, I’m sure, where I do the responsible thing rather than running headlong in the wrong direction, but for now, I suppose it’s enough.

Japanese Lesson: Akiru

「いいなぁ〜」: an expression of envy, satisfaction, or nostalgia.

「あきる」：to get tired of, to lose interest in

Since my trip to the main office to get my car today was unsuccessful, I needed a ride home, and since I spent two hours cooling my heels not doing anything, I decided it was my right to demand a trip to the grocery store on the way home. And by demand I mean ask nicely.

So off I went with one of the Japanese office workers trailing behind me.  I was chattering away about the different meals I’d already tried to make and what ones I planned in the future, and he gave me a break down for making katsu-don, which is definitely high on my list.  He even showed me where I could find tsuyu, which is the base ingredient for a variety of different dishes, including ramen.  Then he indulgently helped me pick out a breakfast food, since my toast plan fell through completely when I remembered that I don’t actually have a toaster.

As we were leaving the grocery store, he looked back at me and said, 「いいなぁ。大人になったら、あきます。」 That’s so nice. When you become an adult, you get tired of it. Of what? I asked.  「日本人でいることにあきますよ」Tired of being Japanese. I laughed and hugged my bag of Japanese goods.  “It’s good to try out a new life sometimes.”  He nodded.  「ララは日本人になれると思いますよ.」I think that you can become a Japanese person.

Maybe so.