Foreword

 

Foreword

Today is 30 June 2023. 

On 19 June 2023, I met a bunch of people that (hopefully) changed my life for the better:

• Hikaru Wakabayashi
• Nobaman
• Kimeko & Sueko-san
• Nephrite
• Pocky

I was lucky enough to be leading a part of the Olympic eSports Week in Singapore, where these YouTube creators and their partner manager were flown in by the International Olympic Committee to have fun in Singapore and to promote the health of eSports as a "real" competitive sports for Olympians to compete. Truth to be told, I didn't really care about the event at first, and I was just trying to do my job, but a few things happened.

1. I fell in love with these people. They are kind, funny and overall just very lovely to be around. Hikaru is my work colleague, but I've always treated her as a close friend and we talk about almost everything. Nobaman is a kind of guy that is just weirdly charming. I bet he could break a lot of people's hearts if he actually stepped outside of his house in Tokyo. Kimeko was just radiating, smiling all the time, and along with Sueko-san (her mother), they were really enjoying the experience of exploring Singapore. Kimeko actually wants to just move here for good, which I was super surprised to hear. Their connection genuinely made me feel that my mother, whom passed away due to cancer about a year back, was still with me in this life adventure. Pocky & Nephrite were also funny in their own ways, and I was also surprised that Pocky (1 out of 4 Japanese people probably knows him - Hikaru) FOLLOWED me on Instagram, which is a big cornerstone for me to realize that I've made it in this lifetime.
2. I had no clue of what they were talking about except when they talked in English. 

So, on 29 June 2023, when Hikaru went back to Tokyo, I've decided that I will dedicate 2-3 hours every day to start learning Japanese, with the hope to be able to talk to them in their own language the next time that I see them in person, whenever that's gonna be.

As a nerd myself, I took some of my hours yesterday to plan out my strategy for this ambitious plan with the steps below:

1. Very briefly learn the Hiragana and Katakana in 2 days, using https://www.readthekanji.com/user/study. Just brushing the surface is good enough because I'm gonna see these characters way too often, hence it's not really necessary to learn them by heart right at the start. 
2. At the same time, start to learn the basics of grammar by Minna No Nihongo and its workbook. The aim is to run through 1 chapter per day/2 days. 
3. At the same time, set up Anki deck cards & run through Heisig's Remember the Kanji. The aim is to learn 15-20 kanji typefaces per day, understand the meaning behind, with no focus on pronunciation at the moment. 
4. After I'm done with Minna no Nihongo & Remember the Kanji (which will take approximately 6-7 months), start to immerse myself in Japanese with readings, shows, YT Videos & Netflix movies. 

This blog is created with the intention of documenting my journey from day 1. I will be treating this as a journal, with each day documenting what I learned everyday, what I was doing right, what I was wrong about. This will also help to motivate myself to do better everyday and to stop doubting myself and my journey (which will definitely happen at some point from now). 

All in all, there's nothing better than enjoying the process. My goal in this lifetime is to be able to tell the people I love that I love them, and if they're Japanese, I would love to do that in their language. I hope that it's gonna be an exciting ride!