Change of image

I had imagined Japan to be a place full of hot springs and beautiful blossoms and Japanese people eat only fish. But after living in Japan for a while, my image of Japan changed. I'm sure it differs for each season in Japan. But hot springs and all, one can only find it in rural areas..those we see on Channel News Asia. The Japanese eats all kinds food and the young especially like Western food. Of course, they still love fish. No doubt about that. And not just fish, but fresh fish. I guessed you can say that Japan has lost alot of its traditional Japan kinda stuff, which many of us are more interested in since that would be what makes Japan more outstanding than others.

We've always seen and thought that Japanese men are bossy and chauvinistic. The fact is, the older Japanese are still the way we imagined them to be but there are also Japanese men who are gentle. In fact, I had experienced this sort of guy and have gone out with a guy like that. It's a very pleasant feeling. Then again, once married, they may still be chauvinistic.

For me, I am in love with the Japanese language and it fascinates me with its different levels of speech, based on different level of politeness. Keigo, Japanese honorific is what i've been trained to use when speaking to customers, teachers etc. Mostly, I get confused by the usage of Keigo, Colloquial and more polite Japanese. To express the same thing, different words are being used and sometimes, we are not quite sure which is the correct word to use in the situation. To customers, it's easy. Just use Keigo. But to friends or just someone whom you are not close to, you want to be polite but it maybe too weird to use Keigo.

Even for Keigo, I just learnt that there are different types! - sonkeigo, kenjougo and teineigo

All these just makes me want to go back to studying Japanese again.