There are movies that I like to quote, like The Stunt Man, and movies I'm not in the habit of quoting like City Slickers. But in this case, the quote (or rather, paraphrase since I don't actually remember the dialog word for word) works so well, I'm forced into it.

Sensei: There's one thing that will get you through your culture shock when you live in Japan.

Novice: What's that, Sensei?

Sensei: I don't know.

Let's back up a bit. I'm assuming that as a Novice/Yellow Belt, you have moved to Japan for more than the minimum three months. That you're in for an extended stay of (perhaps) a year or more. Then you're bound to run into culture shock.

It doesn't happen to everyone. My first translation partner was from a home life that was so suffocating that to her, Japan was freedom. But at some point, most people ask the question, "What the hell am I doing in this weird-ass country!?" Please excuse the stronger-than-normal-for-this-column words, but that is exactly the feeling you get. Or, at least, the feeling I got, and judging from the people around me, I wasn't alone.

The problem was that Japan wasn't built for me. It was built for Japanese people, and I certainly wasn't one of those. And since I was a visitor in the country, I didn't really have a right to complain. Frustration and a feeling that I didn't belong built up, and by the fourth month or so, I was not having fun in Japan. (Neither were any of the other foreigners in my program.)

The way out of it was what Curley was saying in the movie. One Thing. And his answer was the same for this situation also. That the one thing was different for everybody. However, within the differences among everyone, there was a unifying feature.

We all settled on pretty much the same therapy: obsession.

Yes, we still had some seven or eight months to get through in Japan, so for each of us, how to get through those months was to choose a goal and obsessively concentrate on it. For me, it was to self-study. I pretty much gave up on the course work presented by the program, and concentrated on learning how to translate. My roommate, an aboriginal Lappish from Sweden, concentrated on learning about the aboriginal Ainu in Japan. My other suitemates took up goals such as making money or getting a job in Japanese business for after the program was over. We all obsessed.

And it worked. Basically what the obsession provides is a direction. Before, the question was, "What the hell am I doing in this weird-ass country," and the object of obsession provides that answer. Once the answer becomes fixed in your mind, you can start pulling back from the obsession as an all-consuming thing. You still have your goal, and you are still working on it, but you can also live other parts of you life too.

I don't know if this post will help anyone get through culture shock. I have the feeling that you just have to work your own way through it. And since it's such a personal thing, no warnings or solutions will matter one bit when you're actually going through it. But maybe it will help to know that most people go through the same thing, and a large majority of people came out on the other side.