It is a stormy day in Round Rock, Texas today. My Japanese teacher has decided that she now only wants to speak to the small group of people I learn with, in Japanese. I don’t like this, but I think it may be necessary. I’ve been feeling a little stuck lately – and I have no confidence in anything but the most basic written and spoken Japanese – so I don’t want to. But I’m going to see what I can do. That means, I think that it’s probably time… Read More »It is time.
When I first created this blog, I had a nearly infinite choice of things to call it. I could have called it, oh, I dunno… “Musings on Japanese”, or “My Japanese Journey”, or a whole bunch of stuff. But I settled on this one. In fact, it really wasn’t even all that much of a decision. This was the right name. But why, when the word “gaijin” had less than savory origins, and some may still find it offensive? The literal meaning of gaijin (外人) is “outsider”, or, literally, “outside… Read More »Gaijin?