I don t think you can fake Japanese I remember after my first failed attempt at Japanese and the entire spring semester of my sopho year my father told me something that would stick with me through the next twelve years I spent trying to become one with Japan and its language I don t think you can fake Japanese From then on I dedicated every fiber of my being to not faking it Everyone always said it takes ten years to read a newspaper but I didn t have ten years I had two before I graduated college So one day I sat down and developed my own method of learning kanji that had me seated at the translation desk of the US embassy just four years after I sat down in the first Japanese class I passed There was an entire year in graduate school in Tokyo where I refused to read English I was determined to take all of my classes in Japanese and write my master s thesis in the world s hardest language After that internship at the US Embassy I wrote translated and interpreted interviews for The Financial Times sitting across from high ranking members of Japanese government and industry alongside some of the world s best reporters But that still wasn t enough I had to work as a Japanese person in a Japanese company doing work that was difficult even for Japanese people I gave it my all my all to speak like a Japanese person read and write like a Japanese person work like a Japanese person to be Japanese I was invited to weddings and to soccer games on the weekend to native only yakitori bars by random Shinjuku gangsters golf in the mountains with bartenders and middle managers 1000 hostess bars with buddy salarymen and on dates to Tokyo Disneyland I took minutes at board meetings of a multi million dollar Japanese investment company transcribed a speech by Condoleezza Rice appeared on a pamphlet for a car laser alignment system lost in the first round of a karate tournament woke up at the end of a 100 cab ride with no money in my pocket passed a securities broker examination in Japanese and learned both the kind of Japanese that allows you to pick up 20 somethings in hundred yen standing bars in Ginza and read memoirs from WWII field commanders In the end I think I did everything I could not to fake it But was it enough Was all of that enough to crack into what it means to be Japanese to see Japan from the inside Japan Stories from the Inside is my search for that answer Japan Stories from the Insidejust terrible I think his editor proofreader was the computers spellcheck the summary sounded good but the actual book was a disjointed mess at least it was short and didn t take that long to read English As a Japanophile or would that be Nihonophile I enjoyed this short book for the most part It started out stronger than it finished I also would have liked to learn a little bit about Japan and felt like there was opportunities missed for really delving into Japanese culture English rjyrjryf English

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