Moving back to Japan is much like getting into a Japanese bath. You burn the hell out of your privates, your back and all places that had been submerged up to the point your reacted and said, "Hang On!". One of the first things I noticed was that I had forgotten my spoken Japanese. Not all of it, just the parts that were necessary for communication. My ear for Japanese was still pretty good, I mean, I know that people are speaking Japanese, but I am just not real sure what they are talking about all the time.
I was going to go to the free Jap-go lessons at the local community center. I eagerly awaited the appointed day, April 10th, dusted off old textbooks, got some of the ones that I figured that I’d be using, and even studied to try to get used to real Japanese. I got up early, showered, put on clean levis and headed off to the testing session. I had filled out the application forms, (or thought I had anyway), and sat in a really big group of foreigners. An MC got up and announced that if you had never spoken any Japanese in your life, you would go to group I. If you had studied Japanese before, you should go to group II. If you could speak Japanese and you really wanted to study hard, go to group III. I packed up my dictionary and headed for group III.
When I got there, they played this tape really, really fast. They wanted me to identify missing particles from the sentences that this guy was reading. The guy doing the reading had a mouth full of sushi rice and he had been drinking coffee. I probably got 5 out of about 50. I was stunned. I had been to this level before and couldn’t believe that I had lost that much ability. I had resigned myself to dropping back to a lower level when one of the teachers I had studied with over 10 years ago came up to intervew me. I had never liked her before, it always sounded like she had a mouth full of sushi rice and she had been drinking sho-chu all day. I could never understand a friggin word she said, and the 10 years without speaking Japanese didn’t help me one bit. She was overly helpful explaining that I needed to go back to "Go". She refused to listen to my pitiful attempts to explain myself and my situation, and when I found that she was the chief teacher for group III, I knew that I’d not be joining in the festivities with her even if I did qualify.
I went home that day, and disenchanted and disappointed, I tried to figure out what had gone wrong. I had 4 days to do some serious study, then go back and try to find a level that I fit into. I thought about it and I decided that, "Perhaps "FREE" lessons were too expensive.". I have decided to spend a lot more time working on my Jap-go by myself, with friends. I will wait till the next time the "Free" lessons roll around, and if I pass the test and wind up in a class with the chief teacher for group III, I will probably just give up on the classes and continue to do what I have been doing.
