Homesickness and Difficulties Abroad

I'll admit it. I'm getting homesick.

As bad as it sounds, it's not so much the individual people that I'm missing -- I can see them over webcam (thuogh I've been slacking on that, too). It's the overall sense of being in a place where you can feel "at home" and relaxed without worrying about not being able to communicate with folks on the bus trying to talk to you, your coworkers at work, or even grocery store clerks.

It's not all bad, though.

When I visit my schools, the students are usually quite excited to see me. I often hear them saying "Andrew da!" (It's Andrew!) or something along the lines of that. Middle schoolers are less energetic in the classroom, but they always say hello to me as I pass through the halls, and I give them high-fives in return (JPN: hai tatchi; high touch). There have been occassions where some students have stopped me for a short conversation inbetween classes, but even that is a struggle at times because there's so much more that I want to say (probably the same case for the student), but we just have such a large language barrier.

Elementary schoolers are genki all the time. In and outside the classroom. They scream "hello!!!" to me as I pass through the halls and stick their hands out for high-fives as well. Them being energetic in the classrooms, and the teachers generally being more laid back takes some stress off my shoulders as well, but I just wish there was a way that I can magically be fluent in Japanese, or my teachers in English.

Also, there are some coworkers of mine in a few of my visit schools that are absolutely amazing. Today for example, I was talking to my visit junior high school janitor who was waiting at the same bus stop that I was. His knowledge of English was about the same if not more than my knowledge in Japanese. I feel like there is no tension or anything when talking to him, so I don't hesitate to say hello and engage in conversation. The whole conversation is in Japanese, with the exception of a few English words when I don't know it in Japanese. He corrects my Japanese when I say something incorrect, and makes small talk at school when I'm there. At that same school, my teachers are better at English than my base school, so I speak to them and they speak to me. There's also a person at the front gate (who I guess might be like the school clerk) who is comparatively very good at English and we talk as well.

I think most of the stress appears when I'm at my base school, but I do have moments where I silently get stressed out and frustrated at the other schools. Half of time it's during the 5 minute discussions with the teachers before class. The elementary school teachers explain it in Japanese, but there is a resource setup where we can print the lesson plans in English. However, they still add small changes to the lesson plan, and those changes are hard to understand at times. I can probably understand around 30-40% of what they're saying, but it's not enough. The second half is from general communication with coworkers during work. I've been here only for 2 weeks. I don't know the office culture, and I don't have a strong grasp on the language. If I were to speak up, I would only be able to ask simple questions in Japanese. Furthermore, people engrained in our heads that Japanese schoolteathers work 10+ hours a day and are very busy so I feel like there is no time to chat. Another part of it is nerves, which I have a lot of. I'm a bit too shy for my own good -- but there are still times where I do engage in simple conversations.

I think that this feeling that I've been having for around a week or so is akin to the feeling that I had when I first left for college. It's textbook homesickness. It's the sort of feeling where, if I went home, I'd feel like I'd become 50 pounds lighter. Like a giant weight has been lifted and I can finally relax.

Getting into this slump also sort of creates a chain reaction. Just before writing this, I was thinking about what songs there are about California or San Francisco, so I listened to a few songs on YouTube. And just now I was thinking about how warm it must be in the Bay Area right now, comparatively.

That being said, there's obviously a list of things that I could do to "fix" this. I put fix in quotations just becuase I'm honestly a bit skeptic that it'd fix the problem. I think the "fixes" would be short term fixes, but the feelings would once again appear in time. For example, I can reach out to the other ALTs and hang out with them to get my fix of English in for the day, but then what about after that? I could be advised to just speak with my coworkers and not be afraid of making mistakes or interrupting them, but I'm quite shy with folks that I don't really feel comfortable with, so it's easier said than done. It's not like someone could tell the folks in my base school to just speak more English with me -- I wouldn't really want to force that on them just to make my life easier. I'm the sort of person that, as bad as it might be on myself, doesn't want to "burden" others by asking favors, or asking them to do something on my behalf. So, I'm sort of in a pickle.

But rather than being cynical and talking about all the negativity about my situation, I need to just find a way to change my mindset, or simply gamansuru (ENG: to endure) because I know, in time, this feeling'll pass.

Apart from all the ranting, there are some key takeaways for people who are thinking about living abroad in a non-English speaking country or doing the JET Program.

1. Homesickness is real - don't assume that you won't get it. You'll see it pop up in different forms. You might not miss people... you might miss your hometown in general and just the general feeling of being in your comfort zone. You'll be finding yourself in your awesome, inexpensive apartment thinking that it's way too quiet, it's way too cold, and that you wish you were home.
2. Don't expect that your Japanese coworkers or EVEN YOUR JTEs will have conversational English. This is something I assumed prior to the JET program, and while I wasn't entirely wrong, the JTEs don't have the English level that I was expecting, and they weren't as excited for me to be there as I was expecting either. What I expected from the JET Program didn't match up exactly with what I am now experiencing. You might be finding yourself at your desk inbetween classes just looking at your desk if you didn't bring work to do / don't have any work to do since you don't want to disturb your coworkers / cannot speak English.
3. Assume a certain level of uncomfortability at the workplace and in day-to-day life if you can't speak or read Japanese. There is a chance that you'll be placed in a small city, town, or village that doesn't have many accommodations for those who speak English. You'll need to get accustomed to what your bus stop's kanji looks like and how it sounds just to get to and from home, you'll probably be trying to look for something at a grocery store, going aisle to aisle just to find it, and if you meet some nice old lady who's speaking your region's dialect you might not be able to respond. It's pretty stressful.

As a parting gift, here's one of the songs I was just listening to before I wrote this post... I actually have never heard of them before, but I really enjoy the song / music video!