Summer break is nearly over, but I'm still homesick, although it's definitely less intense than it was before. I've figured out that a big part of my feeling this way has to do with the fact that I'm living alone alone for the first time ever. I always had roommates in college. Even though it was just the three of us back at our little house in California (four, if you count the cat ;P), I was never really by myself. And my best friend lived a five-minute drive away from me. I feel very thankful and blessed to have made friends and gotten close to my relatives out here, but there's a sense of familiarity and the known that I've been really missing lately.
I had wanted to write a post about this for a while now and was inspired by my friend Manami to do it today. When I applied for the JET Program for the first time, one of the questions that I was asked during the interview was, "How will you react if a Japanese person comes up to you and assumes or insists that you're Japanese?" I can't remember my answer, but this situation happens all the damn time to the point of it pissing me off a bit. I know I have an American accent/incorrect intonations/say the wrong word when I speak Japanese. I also know that I don't look 100% Japanese. But people still assume, even after talking to me, that I'm freakin' Japanese just because I have an Asian face! A lot of the time I actually have to explicitly say that they need to speak slower since I'm a foreigner, but the reaction I get after that is usually, "Oh, really? But your face looks Japanese and you speak so well!" むかつく。And even after explaining my situation, my ethnic background, et cetera, some people still insist that I'm lying!
At the same time, I do admittedly enjoy blending in. I don't stick out as much as other gaijin. It's probably good practice for my studying of the language, and it's incredibly interesting to observe this strange country as an outsider while appearing to be an insider. But sometimes I wish I could look more hapa. I had thought that I appear less Japanese when I wear my contacts instead of my glasses (a lot of my foreign friends have told me this) but several recent events have proved this theory completely wrong, haha.
I'm still enjoying my time out here (I'll post a more positive entry about my adventures at some point, I swear!), and I know that whenever I move back to the US, I'll miss Japan like crazy. But for now, letting this all out for everyone to see is very cathartic and has eased those remaining feelings of homesickness a bit :)
