Last year I promised myself to start learning Japanese — and I did it.
After first five lessons with my Japanese teacher, after learning hiragana, katakana and a little over 20 kanji (tomorrow it will be more), after two completed lessons in the Genki textbook… When I finished doing my exercises and watched the last of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ) movies (now I’ve seen them all), when my special Japanese frame for calligraphy finally arrived from Norway (something with proper characteristics for the shikishi format was discovered only far up North, in the fjords)… Now I can can admit that I’m learning Japanese.
I still can’t read what’s written on the above-mentioned shikishi board (Czech Japanese says that it means «Waki šó wo itasu» («Harmonie přináší štěstí»); and who am I not to agree with it, because at the moment, my skills are just enough to not place it upside down) but, yeah, I’m learning Japanese.
Now this is the life Godzilla always wanted for me.
I also continue to read books about Japan. So that my texts regarding this subject become better.
Thanks to the Internet Archive, I’ve now been able to get to Kaempfer, whose writings are way more exciting than Robinson Crusoe or One Piece.
Next will be Sansom’s three-volume work (I hope it’s not so full of the mistakes made in implementing the Chinese model of governance during the feudal era as in Japan: A Short Cultural History — an endless rondo that added nothing new).
Because we all need to become better versions of ourselves every day (and, which is more important, because now I want to have a scientific basis for all that gibberish I’m spouting here).
