Japanese study

It seems as though there was a wave of advertised jobs when I got here and then everything just stopped. There's probably a lull between New Year and April, the fiscal year start in Japan.

I've used the down time to study kanji using flash cards. I'm surprised that the characters I'm learning actually appear in real life, like on headlines and train station signs. There are a couple of thousands characters and I probably only know just over 100 (most of those being throwbacks from my Chinese days).

The importance of learning Japanese is pretty clear to me now. Last time I was here back in 2005 a friend of mine from church gave me advice about living in Tokyo. It was in the context of a job search, but he said, "There are two Japans: the one for people who speak Japanese and the one for people who don't". Being a person of the latter category is okay only for a while (which is a lot shorter than how long I'm planning on staying), and only when your stay in Japan is not taken too seriously. Well folks, the time has come to get serious.

Motivation is difficult because there are no immediate tangible effects of not knowing the language. It doesn't prevent you from getting work, socialising, or enjoying the city. It's a grind, and one that you have to whip yourself into doing on a daily basis. I read an article a few weeks ago that quite accurately pointed out that "nothing is fun until you're good at it". How true.

So yeah... Here we go with the flashcards.

Also, I've made updates to the travel map. This time I actually went somewhere interesting.