World as a Melting Point

My Adolescence Period in Japan

Eunhye Cho

   To me, adolescence happened in my middle school year which was later than all my friends around me. I noticed this by what I wrote on my diary and started to wonder about my future. Especially during my middle school year, I was interested in the philosophical book, and also the ancient history and science as well. I started to question myself how we came to be in this world.

   During my adolescence period, my family and I suddenly moved to a native country or Japan. This was when I was 14 years old and didn't know how to speak Japanese. Although I was studying Japanese a little, because I was interested in a native language, I only learned it for fun and could only get to a beginners level. In grammatical terms, Korean and Japanese are similar and said to be easy to obtain the languages.

   However, it was nothing like that. Maybe it was because the school I transferred, a municipal school in Kobe, was speaking in gKansaiben.h Either way, I didn't understand what was being taught in the class and couldn't comprehend more of my friends' conversations. Why were they laughing so loudly? I just naturally laughed when everyone else was laughing. I anticipated that I would soon be able to speak Japanese but even after one or two years, I still could not speak well. It was heartbreaking for me that I couldn't express my thoughts out in Japanese. During my high school years, I was speaking Japanese for 24 hours, compared to my middle school years, so I started to lose my ability to speak Korean. My body didn't feel good and I started to get very stressful when I experienced the gap between the reality and my imagination, emotional changes which occurred many times in a day, and feeling very worrisome as to why I am here in Japan. My high school teacher said a person's value and personality will change according to the country they wish to live. My teacher also told me that depending on where and how I spend my last minute of the adolescence period will become important in the way I think when I become an adult. In other words, my teacher advised me to experience as many things as possible! Even though I was the only foreigner at my school, I have obtained many things there. For example, I got to understand the social problems between Japan and Korea in a neutral point of view, and I could understand Japanese much better than before. Not only that, but I learned the importance of learning a new language, understand and respect others and achieve an international way of thinking in any situations. I was also an immature inside and wondered all the time, but looking through my adolescence period as the base, I want to challenge myself in many things through the rest of my life.

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