It was quite a sunny day. This morning, I've read Jhumpa Lahiri's book "In Altre Parole." This book is the one I sometimes try to read to gain a certain motivation to keep on learning English, though in this book Lahiri tells about her learning of Italian. The author Lahiri tells us how she had fallen in love with the Italian language, and the memories of her moving to Italy, and writing in that language (this book also has her short novel written in Italian within it.)
Reading her memories in this book, I started caring that Lahiri writes her trial as the exodus. How about my case? When I was a teenage student, as I have written here several times, I was already in a depression/desperate for my life itself so I just enjoyed reading books only (yes, I even wished I could live in the "Haruki wonderland"!) So, I couldn't find any meaning or reasons why I should learn English. So, borrowing Lahiri's term, I had already been doing an exodus within the Japanese language. even though I had never had that kind of feeling intentionally.
You can find plenty of English (including Japanese "unique" ones) within this Japanese society - Yes, Japan has such an English-friendly environment within it. And, when I was such a lonely teenager, I started enjoying some Japanese bands' English songs (such as Flipper's Guitar, Venus Peter, etc.) Therefore, in a way, I was a kind of virtual "gypsy" who had never had any home mentally and therefore had a strong passion for looking for any place where I could stay comfortable.
But I was wrong. That kind of virtual "wandering" must have been possible because of the basis of my thinking - it's the Japanese language. In a way, even though I had been staying on the palm of the Japanese language, I couldn't feel any thanksgiving for that gratefulness. Of course, you can choose where you live or what language you speak (or at least, you love.) But in that teenage era, within a house of the Japanese language, I had to do my lonely conflict - therefore Lahiri's attitude toward learning Italian is really shiny (or simply brilliant.) I can never have such a bright attitude, but at least I can have a certain jealousy with that.
