![\"IMG_8849\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_8849.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI finally discovered a hint toward the inexplicable feeling I keep having here in Japan; a certain sense of significance that I hadn\u2019t, until now, been able to pin down.<\/p>\n
Regardless of Tokyo\u2019s bold aesthetics, I understood that everything seems shiny and new and exciting to me because, the fact is, living abroad makes a child of us all.<\/p>\n
Think of any time you\u2019ve traveled to a foreign country and asked a local where you need to go: no matter what age, everyone feels like a lost child, searching for a sense of security without having the slightest idea of how to find it.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, knowing that I\u2019ll be living with the Suzuki family who already accept me as their own (both parents insist on my calling them \u201cMama and Papa\u201d), I realized that I\u2019m lucky enough to undergo a second childhood through their wisdom.<\/p>\n
The sincerity through which they pursue this endeavor is constantly made clear to me through their affectionate use of \u201cchan\u201d in conjunction with my name and their friendly offers to go running, shopping and even drinking with me as their equal.<\/p>\n Somehow, in America, I doubt that we are usually so respectful to our foreign guests.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve said before, I feel tremendously lucky, especially as a Japanese major, to have this opportunity to spend so much bonding time with a people whom I have admired for so long.<\/p>\n At different moments in my life, people have told me that my enthusiasm for Japanese culture is almost childlike and I\u2019m glad to say they\u2019re right, considering my current silly, giddy state.<\/p>\n At least for me, childishness does not strike me as a necessarily bad trait.<\/p>\n Not to sound trite in borrowing the phrase, but \u201cignorance is,\u201d indeed, \u201cbliss.\u201d<\/p>\n Therefore, whether or not you\u2019re reading this from home or abroad, consider ways to spontaneously tap into that \u201clost self,\u201d or, in other words, your \u201cchild self.\u201d<\/p>\n Cynics, skeptics, nihilists, all, heed this advice because it\u2019s never too late to continue your childhood\u2014there are simply different phases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tonight, I had nothing short of a revelation\u2014one that thankfully applies to other people. I finally discovered a hint toward the inexplicable feeling I keep having here in Japan; a certain sense of significance that I hadn\u2019t, until now, been … Continue reading <\/a>Due to their eagerness to both teach me and learn from me, the Suzukis seem happy to raise me, along with my surrogate brother and sister, Remon and Raimu (Japanese adaptations of the English words, \u201clemon\u201d and \u201clime\u201d), not only to help me understand Japan but to ultimately understand the world at large.<\/p>\n<\/a>As time spent with my new little brother has taught me, there is a sort of purity in not knowing, a blank void to be filled in with colors of every kind.<\/p>\n