[Part II about the decision my wife and I made to start taking Japanese language classes.] 

A few days before our first class we bought our books at a local bookstore. It was when it dawned on me that I was going to pay $80 for textbooks I realized I was going back to school again, and that this class, which I had originally thought of in purely theoretical terms, was actually going to happen. I really was going to make another go at learning Japanese. 

Learning Japanese always seemed so daunting and hard. The second time I tried to learn, I was in high school at the time and I was satisfying a language requirement, nothing more. I was taking Japanese because someone I never met decided that I should learn a language I would never use, something I was fully aware of. Japanese was the hardest thing I ever tried to do, and I was just not motivated.

The difference this time around is that I am motivated--I do want to learn. Unlike previous attempts this is not a purely academic requirement, and I don’t resent doing it at all; it was all my idea. I do intend to use it, to actually talk to people and find my way around Tokyo on a daily basis, researching a book. That’s the plan, anyway. 

There were two books to purchase for class, a textbook and a workbook. The textbook was published by The Japan Times, a black and white book that in many ways resembled the book I used in high school, particularly the black and white illustrations. Browsing the textbook, it became clear that we were going to learn so-called “romaji” for class. “Romaji” is term invented for Japanese written phonetically using the Latin alphabet. We could bypass--for now, anyway--learning the entire 50+ hiragana character alphabet, the most elementary of the Japanese alphabets, before learning anything else.

This always seemed to me to be the more reasonable way of learning Japanese. We could pursue the dual track process of learning hiragana and learning words and phrases simultaneously. Instead of waiting for three weeks to learn the hiragana for “neko” (cat), we could just write neko. It took the pressure off memorizing the characters as the keys to learning the language and applied it more evenly to learning characters, grammar, and verbal skills.

The workbook was locally produced by the school and showed--to my relief--just how elementary the class was going to be: the two basic alphabets, hiragana and katakana, and that was it. Inexplicably, many empty spaces in it are filled with cartoonish anti-smoking messages. They’re a bit demented but as a distraction they’re far from unwelcome. In some ways, it makes it feel even more Japanese. 

On the first night of class I left the house with my schoolbooks and, since the school was less than a mile away, made a walk out of it. I found the building, located in an alley in a residential neighborhood a short distance from San Francisco’s Japantown. I let myself in and instantly recognized that first day of class feel--the bustle, people trying to find their way around, a slight whiff of apprehension everywhere. I located the classroom on the second floor and went inside. 

No wife--she’s probably looking for parking. I nod to Sam, part of a couple we are taking the class with, and find a place for my wife and I to sit. The room is small, and the tables are arranged in a U shape, with one table at the head. It’s a small class, with room for only about twelve people at most. 

The atmosphere is weirdly tense and a bit awkward, just like the first day of class always is. There’s no reason why nobody shouldn’t talk, but nobody does. The silence is  uncomfortable and a bit oppressive. This is college, or high school, all over again. It’s always the same. 

Nothing else to do, I stare at my notebook, idly straightening my pile of books and papers. I think. Let’s have this work out. Please. I need to know that I can do this. This would be a big mid-life win. 

Three minutes after the hour the teacher breezes in and class starts.