A nice birthday surprise for Haruka on this morning's NHK drama -- and the surprise return of Masami! Great stuff! What really surprised me, though, is that I felt that I could understand about 50% of the program. Which isn't too bad, but I think it's mainly because of the acting.

"Kaze No Haruka" is mostly set in the countryside. In the boonies, in the sticks, or "inaka" as I understand it's sometimes referred to in Japanese. The countryside, of course, is the best place to learn Japanese. Many of the foreigners that I know who speak Japanese fluently were first sent to the countryside on the JET program. They were surrounded by people who didn't speak any English, and there were very few other foreigners around. (And a wild night out meant an extra cup of green tea before going to bed...)They had to learn Japanese to survive.

My experience was completely different. When I arrived I worked for an English School and everything was explained to me in English. Everyone around me spoke English and my students wanted me to teach them English. When I went out, it was with other foreigners, or Japanese people whose English was excellent or those who just wanted to improve their English. This was just fine for me!

Later on, when I started my own company here, I only employed people who could speak English and since then have almost never had to speak any Japanese. Most weeks, I only speak Japanese to taxi drivers. I'm quite good at "migi", "hidari" and "kono hen de ii desu", but the rest of my Japanese is terrible -- and I really regret that.

Well, that's going to change!

In addition to my 90-day purity drive (35 days to go!), I'm now going to get serious about learning Japanese! I might even frighten my staff and start speaking to them in Japanese sometimes. I'll tell you all about it next week.

Have a nice weekend!

countryside - 田舎、地方 in the boonies - 奥地で in the sticks - 片田舎で、辺地で refer to - 言及する a wild night out - 夜遊び in addition to 〜 - 〜に加えて frighten - 怖がらせる、ギョッとさせる、ドキッとさせる