i’m in a relatively terrible group for my intermediate japanese final project. our task is writing about a pressing social issue in japan, which is going about as well as you can imagine it would given that i’m the most fluent member of my group and i can write at about a first-grade level, give or a take a grade. part of our requirements for this final project is getting the draft reviewed by either our professor or a tutor. naturally, our group elected to have a tutor look over the essay rather than our professor because hearing criticism out loud from the latter seems much scarier than the former.

every other week, we have a virtual or in-person drop-in tutor session with a japanese international student. i logged onto the tutor zoom meeting today and was met with the face of my professor instead of a tired twenty-something.

what are you doing here? she asked.

what are you doing here? i asked in return.

it turned out i had logged into the zoom call early, but that it turned out the tutor wasn’t planning to show up at all. instead, my professor explained that she would look over our essay. my heart was falling up into my throat at this point. but i tend to worry too much—always have, always will—and my professor only gave two or three comments on the draft. and then we spent the next ten to fifteen minutes just… talking.

i guess she did most of the talking; i only pitched an “ありがとうございます” (thank you very much) every now and then. but it was nice, against all odds. she was nice, which i guess isn’t against all odds, because i’m blessed to have had two japanese professors who are angels now.

“you need to tell yourself, ‘i’m proud of you!’ because i know you’re trying so hard,” she said to me. she talked about her korean american husband’s experience relearning and speaking korean as adult. when he goes to korea, even though he’s near fluent, people don’t think of him as korean. but that’s okay, my professor emphasized, because he’s both korean and american, not one or the other. she then revealed that most of her friends and family back home say she’s not really japanese anymore. (「日本人らしくない。」）and i guess it made me feel good to remember that i’m not alone. that many asian americans struggle with the same cultural dissonance and lack of fluency in their native language and internal dilemma that fluency equates to heritage.

“you may think that people are judging you when you speak japanese,” my professor continued, “but they probably aren’t. and even if they are, who cares?”

she’s right. i tried to maintain that mentality more when i was in japan over winter break, but it was still hard. there was one point where i walked into a 3CE makeup store and a store attendant immediately said something to me at lightning-speed. i bolted out. my father, upon sensing something was probably wrong, asked me if i wanted him to go in with him; i shook my head, lying and saying i’d lost interest. but i wish i could turn back time to that moment. because maybe now i wouldn’t have been so nervous about being judged. maybe i would have swallowed my pride and said, 「すみません。私はアメリカ人ですからもう一度おしゃって頂けませんか。」(“apologies. i’m an american, so would you mind saying that again one more time for me?”)

my professor told me it’s a good thing i ended up staying in this intermediate level japanese that i forecasted for rather than dropping down to the second half of the beginner course as she originally suggested just to build confidence.

“you’re the best in the class,” she told me, “and it’s not because you’re japanese. it’s because you try. it’s because you’re trying.”

i felt a little guilty because i regularly shirk my lab day homework and have studied kanji on my own a grand total of maybe one time this semester, but i also felt a little bit seen. because i do try. i’m trying more now to speak with my dad fully in japanese, to speak with the japanese jiichan cook at my work, and to watch silly japanese television dramas. i’m involved with the japanese american and japanese clubs on campus, and with the nikkei community at large. i am trying so hard.

“remember that you’re only going to get better at japanese from here on out,” my professor concluded. “so start looking in the mirror more often and saying to yourself: 私はすごい!“ (i’m amazing!)

i wanted to cry at her kindness.

after the zoom call ended, i shut down laptop, walked over to the mirror on the right side of my dorm room, and shouted at the top of my lungs, “私すごい!”

if i keep saying that to my reflection, maybe one day I’ll believe it.