Language and Autonomy

I strongly feel that one of the most important things you can give a conscious being is autonomy. I always see autonomy meaning a mix of independence and freedom. I want to be able to be free to do and act as I please, and have the ability to do the things I want on my own without the help of others. I am rather kantian in my beliefs and put such independence is how to define morality. It is also what has been robbed of me by living in a country in which I don't speak the language. This is not unique to Japan. Living anywhere that you can't speak the language would evoke similar feelings. I would like to share my thoughts of how my freedom and independence have been hampered by living in a foreign country.

I am illiterate in Japan. I can not read any of the signs around me. This means I am unable to navigate, buy groceries or understand what I am ordering at a restaurant. Simply being unable to read wouldn't be so bad except I also can not speak the language, so anything too complex to explain with hand signals I am unable to communicate. It is like becoming a child. I feel strange as just finished my advanced education and now I live somewhere that I can only express basic wants like food and toilet as if I were a 2 year old.

However it is not hard to survive. Everyone is very willing to help. The problem is the need for help. I am unable to do anything independently. Finding my new apartment was done with the help the secretary driving me around showing my places and asking my questions to the landlord. My phone service was set up by asking friends and coworkers to translate things for me to understand what to do. Everything I do, I need help from someone as I don't know how they normally work, or I am unable to read any of the relevant information.

When I moved here I thought I would have lots of fun exploring new places. Everything is exotic and new and different. I enjoy trying new things, new foods, and I like exploring new places. However I found myself frustrated rather than enjoying the experience.

I have moved to new places before. When I moved to Pittsburgh, and SD, I didn't have any friends, I didn't know places to go. I was lost, but exploring them was fun. Those moves were about expressing my autonomy. When I moved to pittsburgh I found bars and restaurants that I enjoyed all on my own. Simply by looking on google and going to places that looked interesting. Finding places on my own made them feel like an accomplishment. They were my places. It allowed me to be even more independent than I had been in college. Not having anyone to help me while living in the unknown forced me to figure it all out myself. Exploring alone can be rewarding because not only do you find places you like but you learn about yourself of what you like and what you don't like. Finding what you are looking for want what to avoid. I loved it, so what was so different about this move.

I realized one of the biggest things was my reliance on tools such as google maps. In san diego, if I wanted to find a restaurant, I would look at all of the restaurants on google which were near me and pick one in driving or walking distance. I didn't need to ask anyone "where is a grocery store" or "where can I buy a trashcan" because google gave me all of that info. So maybe I wasn't as independant as I thought, but I felt independant. I was simply asking google for help instead of asking other people for help. However here I have neither option. Google maps, and other such tools are far inferior in Japan. The bus that I need to get to work does not have its schedule on google maps. The bigger problem is the lack of english on the maps. I can't search for a bar, I need to search for "居酒屋" which I don't even know how to TYPE. Then when I get to a grocery store, I don't know how to buy any of the things I want. It took me over a week to figure out where to buy reusable grocery bags. I knew I needed reusable grocery bags, but I didn't know how to solve the problem. I couldn't look up where to get them and I didn't even know how to ask.

Here I am unable to do what I want, because of lack of knowledge. I want to go to a bar, but I don't know what bars look like or how to find one. I don't want to walk into a dentists office and ask for a beer, but I am unable to read the sign out front. This drastically hinders exploration as I can't even recognize what I am looking for if I walked past one. I will be unstatisfied as long as I can't find what I am looking for.

The bigger issue is knowing that I can't solve any of my own problems. There are small problems, like needing garbage bags, which I have to seek help to resolve. However having to ask someone to help with every small issue makes me feel like a child. I don't feel empowered. I know that if I had a major problem, I would have no idea what to do. Instead I find myself just dealing with inconvenience rather than solving the problems. "I can't buy a reusable grocery bag, so since I can only carry a small amount I will make more trips to the grocery store." However that only works for small issues. I know that if I had bigger issues I couldn't solve them but bigger issues I may not be able to be ignored. I want to feel like I can handle things, even if problems crop up. Requiring my secretary to read half of my emails does not give me that feeling. I have to live in fear that everything goes smoothly because I couldn't fix it if something were to go wrong. About anything.

Sorry for the depressing posts. I just needed to get some of that out, and really this post didn't turn out how I hoped it would. I need to just start posting what I think rather than worry about if they are well written because I really have lots of things I want to share about my experience here. I promise my next post will be more fun, my new apartment.

Japanese Lesson:
daijobu
"It's ok"
When someone asks you something you say this, because you don't actually know how to express what you want so you say you are ok with what you have instead.