<p>i’m applying to some top schools… but my ecs suck. and i go to a small arts school, but am not submitting an arts supplement. i had no college guidance at my school other than “GO TO COLLEGE OR WE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN” (they love to brag about the percent of seniors going on to college… community college) anyhow, here is my essay! my english teacher didn’t say anything other than ‘very good’ so i am kind of insecure. </p>
<p>When people ask me whether Ive ever had a boyfriend, my answer is no.
However, Ive experienced love, lust, passion and obsession in an intimate relationship.
My feisty significant other? Kanji. A kanji is a Japanese pictograph, used in a system like
the English alphabet, except each symbol has a certain meaning (or five), at least 2
different readings, and there are over 2000 kanji. Its a little different. Someone once
asked me incredulously, They dont actually use all 2000, right? My answer was that
2000 doesnt even begin to touch on all the poetic kanji used in prose or the myriad
others which are used in only one word, occasionally, in the back of a newspaper,
somewhere. Loving kanji is a challenge, to say the least, but its a challenge Im wild
about.
I remember learning my first characters freshman year. Not the characters anyone
can recognize, like tree or mountain, but real kanji that I saw all the time in the various
Japanese books and magazines lying around my house. After learning the initial fifty or
so which first graders learn, I was hooked. Learning them was as exciting to me as
cracking an ancient, secret code of a long lost dynasty. Id spend hours at home combing
my kanji dictionary, and for each character Id learn the vocabulary words, practice
stroke order, write it over and over, repeating the reading and meaning in my head until I
knew it perfectly. Then Id move on to the next one. Id watch movies Id already seen
with Japanese subtitles to practice speed-reading. Id spend all my money on magazines
from the local Asian food store and try to read Japanese articles on fashion and culture,
getting a little buzz of accomplishment each time I read an entire sentence, paragraph, or
page correctly. For Petes sake, I doodled kanji.
I could say that learning characters was the catalyst for motivating me to spend a
year in Japan. The idea had always been fermenting in the back of my brain, little old me
in a uniform, riding the famed subways to school, discussing foreign policy and hip hop
culture in Japanese. Once I realized I could read all the basic signs and understand some
degree of conversation, I had to go. Id never forgive myself if I didnt spend one of my
school years in my birth country. I lived there till I was 6, so how hard could it be?
The answer: extremely, brutally hard. I was actually rejected from the first
program I applied with, as if God Himself was screaming, Escape while you can!
However, I ended up winning one of 10 full scholarships to study in Japan for a school
year; so naturally I was packed and ready by March. Throughout the wait, kanji were
always there beside me, exciting me even more every time I learned a new, more difficult
character, coaching me through my reading and writing, keeping me up at night
imagining what life would be like while I interpreted yet another magazine.
After I got to Japan, kanjis prevalence deepened our puppy love into true
romance. They helped me write an apology letter to my first host mom after a big blow
out, which resulted in us having long conversations and becoming friends. They
comforted me after my long-time Japanese teacher died in an arbor accident. They kept
me sane through long bouts of depression and homesickness, when learning them was
one of the only remaining thrills of being in Japan. They challenged me in class, where
what was initially an impregnable fortress wall of kanji became a friendly hedge of the
various religions practiced in ancient India. I knew that kanji and I were becoming
intimate when my host sister began asking me for help on her homework, and I knew the
right answers.
However, before long my intense relationship with the characters began to
weaken. After all, I hadnt come to Japan just to learn how to read. Going to the city with
my friends, telling stories with my host family, and soaking up the experience of being a
foreigner became my main focus. Before long, kanji were just symbols that allowed me
to study and to understand what was going on while I lived my life as a gaijin. Today,
besides enabling me to learn more Japanese and to write letters to my host family (not to
mention making me feel smart), kanji and I have a strictly platonic relationship
but I
occasionally reminisce about the days when we were in the deepest throes of romance.</p>