March 05, 2012

It All Began With Sailor Moon.


This is me, in 1996, at the tender age of 5.
Why am I showing you this seemingly ordinary, blurred, unfocused, awkward portrait from my childhood album?
Because you need to understand.
Look closer. Notice those little buns on top of my head, and the pigtails. You might just be able to make out a locket hanging around my neck. Admire my little red socks, pulled up as high as they could go.
This was my uniform. I forced Mum to twist my hair up into those 'meatballs' on a regular basis. I made my friends call me 'Serena' instead of 'Siobhan'. The locket was a magical weapon I got for Christmas, used to fight evil... by the moonlight.
I was obsessed with Sailor Moon.
I remember the day that I first made the connection between Sailor Moon and Japan. A girl in my class had just come back from a trip to Japan, and was doing a show and tell - with real, actual copies of the Sailor Moon manga in Japanese. You had to read them back to front! And the words looked all funny! But there was my idol, winking up at me from the pages of the comic.  In the 6 years of my life, I had never been so intrigued.
People usually have good reasons for doing what they do. Most foreign language majors, for example, have an intrinsic love of linguistics. Or, they appreciate the history and culture of their chosen country, and hope that by pursuing their language studies, they will come to understand the country at an intimate societal level.
When I tell people why I chose to study Japanese, I usually spin the 'interested in the language and culture' yarn.
It just doesn't sound right to say that you have racked up a $20,000 student loan because you really liked Sailor Moon as a child.

9 comments:

  1. Hilarous. Nice to see someone put a childhood interest to work. Good luck with the blog!

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    1. Cheers! Are you at morethingsjapanese.com? Just had a wee look, your blog is wicked!

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  2. This is so cute! I'm with you, my love for Japan all started with Sailor Moon but it branched out to all these other different aspects of Japanese culture. Especially the music. I will continue to follow your blog, I love it so far :]

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    1. I'm glad I'm not the only Sailor Moon otaku =) Thanks heaps!

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  3. That was a hilarious post, I really like the way you write. Good luck with your travels, I'll be following the blog.

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  4. Sailor Moon was a great roll model :) She was mine to as a child, stay true to your dreams (and your friends)

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  6. I became interested in Japanese and made several trips to Japan because of Sailor Moon as well. :)

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