![\"Rokudan](\"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_20131205_194926.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSheet music for the song I’m currently learning. Reading music vertically instead of horizontally is the hardest hurdle for me to jump over at the moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
More than anything, it\u2019s only too easy to create a list of all the faux pas I\u2019ve made in one semester and how to not repeat them in the future. For instance, I spent the first few weeks being a regular Floridian and wearing flip-flops to my lessons. It was hot outside! The problem was that my lessons are held at my teacher\u2019s house, in a\u00a0washitsu<\/i>. It hadn\u2019t occurred to me that by not wearing socks, my dirty feet were seen as a social taboo in the traditional setting of\u00a0koto\u00a0<\/i>lessons. Noda-sensei never said a thing, but I was mortified when I found out from someone else that what I had been doing was quite incorrect. And up until a few weeks ago, I had been cheerfully saying, \u300c\u304a\u75b2\u308c\u3055\u307e\uff01\u300dafter Noda-sensei said it to me. I learned\u00a0not\u00a0<\/i>to do that after a linguistics class in which we discussed that is just not something you say to a teacher. Even after I feel like I\u2019ve learned so much, every week it seems I find something else to correct!<\/p>\n
However, that in of itself is rewarding, because at the next lesson, I can walk in confidently, amassing all of the formalities and\u00a0aisatsu\u00a0<\/i>I\u2019ve accumulated over the semester. I can return the sheet music my teacher and know how to politely thank her for lending it to me. I can attend her concert\u00a0<\/i>and know to bring an\u00a0omiyage\u00a0<\/i>in congratulations. I can laugh when I get lost in the unfamiliar sheet music and ask to start a passage over, and it\u2019s comforting when she laughs too, and agrees. It was difficult doing a CIP where I had to solely communicate my questions and such in a language that I\u2019m still learning, but through these lessons, I come into contact with an elegant side of Japanese culture that I would not have touched otherwise. I\u2019m looking forward to continuing this immersion next semester, while learning more How-Not-to-Be-Act-Like-a-Gaijin<\/i>\u00a0pointers as well as beautiful music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For my CIP in Fall 2013, I chose to take private\u00a0koto\u00a0lessons. Naturally, I\u2019ve learned a lot. The point of the … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080