What in god's name is going on here

SUMIMASEN / EXCUSE ME 

With all due respect:::::::----> What the hell kind of language am I learning right now? 

What even is this? KORE WA NAN DESU KA

I watched the first episode of "Kimi No Petto" on the DramaJapan Youtube. I've watched "Japanese Dramas" before on this channel* but this was the first I've watched with English subtitles to display the meaning. (*if that's even what they show, which I have further questions about... I'm misled but I'm ok with it) 

I had so many thoughts and questions while watching the episode. So many that I was kind of glad that youtube now shows unskippable ads, because I needed a few minutes to process what in the hell I just heard. Not saw, no: Heard.

Having spent a whole (single.) entire (only 1 single one.) year in the general .... Japanese .... learning... sphere(?), I've heard some intro stuff enough that it when it comes across again, I try to consider it more deeply. Because why do they keep saying this stuff? They're trying to tell us really difficult STUFF guys but we're so foreign that they have to do it in an INTRO WAY. And doesn't that make you a little ... scared? Excited?
OMOSHIROI / FUNNY, INTERESTING

Either I'm just weirding out on the general fact that all GO / LANGUAGE is is slapping our mouthy bits around to move air in clicks and "HO HO HOs" ほほほ in agreed-upon patterns so that the 
Blessed Listener, 
by context and general accumulated knowledge of being a NINGEN / HUMAN BEING, 
can take that fleshy, droplet-infested pattering (#covid) and translate it into something 
real, something 
that grants WAKARIMAS / UNDERSTANDING in the
Blessed Listener
wherein there is a meeting of 
real 
and eternal 
HUMAN EMOTIONAL EXCHANGE.

OR, I am coming to appreciate being alive as a human myself, with a deeper understanding?

See also: """BOTH/AND?""" <----

INTRO STUFF we learn:
- The word for I is "Watashi"
- But like, don't even say WATASHI / I
- Because Japanese understand the context
- You don't have to keep saying "I". It's not like in English. It gets repetitive. 
- There is no WATASHI.
- There is no I. (Not here, anyway!)
- Hey kid: Japanese use these things called "particles"
- Hey there kid: Japanese have two kinds of speech, polite and informal (work and friends?)
- Hey kid, listen: Japanese use honorifics. SAN SAMA CHAN KUN SENSEI 
- And you need to know when to use those. And we'll teach you how to do that. But until then "DON WORRY ABAHT IT, OK??"

Like, what does that all even MEAN? Because my only understanding of the words they are telling me is based on and entirely rooted in 
BEING A HUMAN BEING RAISED IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

PS: 
- If you always use polite phrasing, your friends will think you are being distant.
- Japanese have a social hierarchy. All older women are my aunts? I don't call my younger brother "Joe"? I call him 'Younger Brother"?? But.. aren't we 'friends' and close enough to use real names, or is my understanding of it reversed?
- YOUR BUSINESS CARD CONTAINS A PART OF YOUR SOUL AKA IS A LEGIT HORCRUX

I have this idea that English is somehow more... expressive? As if, in our dictionary, we have more ways to say "The wind feels nice today" than they do in Japanese would? Am I commiting the sin of overly mystifying the language? How much mystery is too much? Because it seems like there are a LOT OF MYSTERIES IN THE NIHONGO BOX...>!

But I swear the exchanges on this Kimi no Petto are weirding me out though. It was so... short. As if context was everything in a way that I will only learn how to navigate through over a very
very
long time.

Does it change you? Give you a residency in the moment, an ever-present understanding of your Place against the person you are meeting, a sense of honor and respect, but also to terrifying degrees, a servitude to the job, a dedication to the craft, be it kneading the octopus or filing papers all day long in an office from 8am to 8pm, and
hey kid, by the way
 if you leave first 
you must apologize 
to the whole group: 
I AM DOING A RUDE THING !
(English translation: "Goodbye")

Because some things don't just translate. Some things must be lived, understood, felt, and spoken. (But haven't we all felt the same things? TABEMAS / EAT / TABETAI / I WISH TO EAT / TABENAI / DO NOT EAT / TABE KA / DID YOU EAT / TABE NO / DID YOU EAT / TABE / EAT
What I am as a human is influenced by my society, which has a culture. Look at my culture: that culture tells me I am JUYO / IMPORTANT, that what I want for MYself is important over all. MY AMERICAN DREAM. And that whatever I owe family or country or nature itself is secondary to my Manifest Destiny, my claim to some momentary fleck of real estate on the great cosmic wave, baby. You can't take it with you when you go, until we do, I'm just a walking talking lizard who stood upright and lost his scales in that warm summer sun many many many years ago, 
so let's go swimming baby, 
the water feels good when it's hot, 
NE / DON'T YOU AGREE
SO SO / YES I AGREE, IT IS SO

🐊🌞🐊

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