The Power of Joy
By Leina Fieleke ‘21, JFOU Fellow 2021-2023
I’ll let you in on a secret. I used to hate learning Japanese.
What other language has two alphabets AND 3,000+ Chinese characters, each of which can be read multiple different ways depending on the context? And why the need for polite language, respectful language, AND humble language?! For years, I saw all of these unique differences as deliberate sadistic challenges created by the Japanese language to torture me. So why didn’t I quit?
For nearly 20 years of my life, my Japanese studies were driven by a sense of duty, an unfortunate hurdle necessary to become the Japanese person I was “supposed” to be. Such pressure was immense, and the process, totally unenjoyable. This changed, however, when I met a group of students who studied Japanese because they loved Japanese. The reasons they loved it? For all the same reasons I didn’t. Polite, respectful, and humble language were an opportunity to take a simple request and learn how to say it in many ways with different nuances. I remember feeling shocked when a classmate remarked that he found levels of formality “fun to study because we don’t have anything similar in English.” It sounds obvious now, but at the time, I was surprised that something I found so bothersome and seemingly unnecessary was the exact reason for another’s curiosity and enjoyment.
Thanks to my classmates, I began to feel less frustrated and more intrigued when I spent hours a day studying Japanese. I couldn’t help but sigh the first time I read 12 different ways to ask the same request (each way had a different level of formality), but in my current daily life, it’s a stimulating puzzle to find the level of formality that accurately corresponds to a situation. Despite my many failures, I learned to enjoy this uniquely difficult and therefore interesting challenge, because it requires both linguistic and social-cultural knowledge. These challenges led me to change how I speak to give credit to those that helped me rather than my own accomplishments, and I was better able to recognize the importance and beauty of interdependence.
I even began to enjoy studying Chinese characters, something I had despised and cried over from the day they were introduced to me at 5 years old. I decided to focus more on how Chinese characters that were a pain to memorize were also a visual language for the words we speak. In my mind, one of the Chinese characters for "love" was once just a character with 13 ordered brush strokes and three separate readings depending on the context. Now, it's also a character that was created from the pictogram of a person looking behind them, a person's legs, and a person’s heart, combined to mean "a person whose feet stops when their heart shakes." Not just the visual nature of Chinese characters, but also their different readings could become a playground for Japanese poets.
This change in perspective taught me the importance of choosing joy during challenges. After my Japanese course, I went on to study Japanese on my own to eventually pass the highest level of the Japanese language test, and not only the studying, but the exam was fun. I learned that something I hated doing for years could become joyful. That simple fact, in and of itself, I found incredibly hopeful. Additionally, I learned that how I choose to think about something can almost entirely define my experiences. Things that seem unenjoyable or like great hassles could become moments of gratitude and discovery with the right mindset. This was an invaluable lesson because - I’ll let you in on another secret - I used to dislike teaching.
Growing up, I loved school, and I was lucky to be educated in environments that supported my needs and love for learning. Now obviously, I don’t need to say that not everybody has the same experience. I walked into my first classroom as a teacher to a group of students that wanted to be literally anywhere but there. Students routinely fell asleep, others would never get off their phone. The students, terrified of making mistakes, never asked questions, nor volunteered answers to any of mine. Months went by where I couldn’t eat before class because my stomach was doing cartwheels. During class, I would hold my hands behind my back so my students wouldn’t see them shaking. My first month, I spent eleven hours preparing for each lesson and still floundered everyday in class.
This was a tough time for me work-wise, and I was, above all, most frustrated with myself. But I stayed consistent, and celebrated every small victory. After a couple of months, I could finish a lesson plan in six hours instead of eleven. I would get nods from a couple of students when I explained a concept. As my teaching improved and we spent more time together, I could feel my students’ trust in me strengthen. And as I worked, I thought about why I work. Looking back on my life, I realized I was able to get through challenges when I had a strong “why.” Without it, I never reached the level of depth required and my efforts often went to waste. So regardless of difficulties, I tried to think of the purpose of my job.
To me, my purpose at work was to make students feel comfortable to make mistakes, to learn English and team-working skills, and to have a good time. I was lacking as a classroom teacher in many ways, so at first I wanted to improve by creating a goal that was small, attainable, and contributed to my larger purpose. Therefore, the first goal I set for myself was to make every student in the class smile at least once. I could walk away from a class frustrated that I wasn’t able to teach coordinating conjunctions well, but also satisfied that I had made them smile more than once. I could tell myself, at the very least, “I had some kind of positive impact today.” As time went on, and I became more used to teaching and my students, my goals in the classroom became more skill-based and complex. After class, I would write down in a journal everything that worked and didn’t work, and why. Each week I came to the classroom with new ideas, and a different angle to try.
After a year of trial and error, while reflecting on an ordinary week, I realized that all of the best parts of my last few days were in the classroom. At the same time, I realized that I had learned to enjoy teaching. A shy student who got excited and showed me a photo of his motorcycle while speaking English could make my day. Even despite the many challenges of teaching, with a strong “why,” I now wake up everyday with great gratitude for the opportunity to work with students. I grinned ear-to-ear when an anonymous evaluation said “I used to hate English, but now I think it’s fun,” and “I learned that even if you make mistakes, the most important thing is to just try.” At least for some students, what had been an “intention” that I had written in my journal had become a reality after a full year of dedicated efforts.
Living in Japan, I have faced a wide variety of challenges, and I have had many difficult moments both inside and outside of work. My greatest lesson through my time here was that I could not only survive these challenges, but with enough patience and a purposeful mindset, I could even learn to enjoy the process. Even in the hardest times, I could choose happiness and care. In fact, I needed to in order to get through those difficulties. As I’m wrapping up my last six months here, I know that these lessons and my newfound strength will guide me through the challenges I will face on my next path. I have the past year and half to thank for the fact that I am better equipped to take on future challenges tactfully, and most importantly, with joy.
