JET Programme Series: Home is a routine; home is Hitachiota - Amrita Mahabir
2023/2/7
JET Programme Series: Home is a routine; home is Hitachiota - Amrita Mahabir
When asked to write a second piece about all the exciting things I’ve done since moving to Japan, I genuinely could not think of anything. I mean, there’s nothing exciting about going to work every day, travelling by train, or going to the grocery and buying things I never would have eaten in Trinidad. Even going to Tokyo by bus for a weekend is quite routine now.
Life in a small town in Japan is certainly not as exciting as some would imagine it to be. I am sure, just like me, many current JETs thought they would be travelling every month or two, and generally living a super exciting life in Japan. While many of us do travel, I’ve found that it’s the little everyday things that make life in Japan worth it. Your students yelling “konnichiwa!” whenever and wherever they see you, and random people trying to help you in the grocery because they know you cannot read kanji. The little things.
In thinking about these things, I realized that perhaps this is what it means to have settled in a new place and to think of it as home. According to Boccagni and Vargas-Silva (2021), the feeling of home is regarded as the emotional engagement with one’s social environment that evolves over time – our social environment being our workspace and community in which we live – and I must say I agree with this statement. The isolation that comes with being alone in a new country would have been much more difficult to deal with if it were not for the kindness of the teachers at my school and my fellow Ibaraki JETs. Not to mention the people of Hitachiota, who speak to me in Japanese, I reply in English and somehow, we understand each other. They are however most excited when I can say anything in Japanese.
Life certainly isn’t as exciting and spontaneous as I thought it would be, and honestly that’s perfect for me. A quiet countryside life where home is a comfortable routine.
JET Series: Home is routine; home is Hitachiota! (Japanese Embassy's Facebook)
JET Programme Series Archives
Life in a small town in Japan is certainly not as exciting as some would imagine it to be. I am sure, just like me, many current JETs thought they would be travelling every month or two, and generally living a super exciting life in Japan. While many of us do travel, I’ve found that it’s the little everyday things that make life in Japan worth it. Your students yelling “konnichiwa!” whenever and wherever they see you, and random people trying to help you in the grocery because they know you cannot read kanji. The little things.
In thinking about these things, I realized that perhaps this is what it means to have settled in a new place and to think of it as home. According to Boccagni and Vargas-Silva (2021), the feeling of home is regarded as the emotional engagement with one’s social environment that evolves over time – our social environment being our workspace and community in which we live – and I must say I agree with this statement. The isolation that comes with being alone in a new country would have been much more difficult to deal with if it were not for the kindness of the teachers at my school and my fellow Ibaraki JETs. Not to mention the people of Hitachiota, who speak to me in Japanese, I reply in English and somehow, we understand each other. They are however most excited when I can say anything in Japanese.
Life certainly isn’t as exciting and spontaneous as I thought it would be, and honestly that’s perfect for me. A quiet countryside life where home is a comfortable routine.
JET Series: Home is routine; home is Hitachiota! (Japanese Embassy's Facebook)
JET Programme Series Archives