ABOUT This Website
My name is Sebastian. On the picture to the right is my family; I am the eldest son and I have one father, mother, brother, and sister. I come from a tiny island off the coast of Venezuela called 'Trinidad'. As of writing this I live in Doha, Qatar and I am in the 10th grade. Ever since I have known myself I was always told about the wonders of the East side of the planet, how it is a completely different world than in the west. Even though I was told all of this I used to never really be interested to see what was this society like because had no cares for culture. However, during the 7th grade my entire opinion changed. In English (wow it's like a full circle) we were assigned and required to research a person who made their mark on history based off of their bibliography. I was assigned 'Nakahama Manjirō', someone who I had never heard of in my life; I couldn't even pronounce his name at first, and I clearly remember thinking "This is going to be so boring". It ended up being a story I enjoyed thoroughly. His story was that he was a simple fisherman during Japan's time of isolation whose boat (along with a crew) crashed into an island. Fearing that they would be punished if they returned, him and the others decided to stay at the island. Eventually after some time an American whaling boat found them and offered to take them back to America. Even if they were skeptical at first they agreed and went back to America. They then proceeded to live out their life in America, but decided they had to go back to their homeland as they could not abandon it that easily. Manjirō and a few of his crew members went back to Japan and would then later on be the reason Japan would open up its borders to the world.
Of course this assignment wasn't the only reason I started to take a liking for Japan. Later on in the 7th grade, close to the end of the year I was confronted by my friend and he nagged me to start watching this thing I had a vague idea about: 'anime'. Wow, you haven't closed off your tab yet and cleansed your history when I said that dreaded word? Thanks! Anyway, I say vague idea because the extent I had watched these were the things showing on TV; 'Pokemon', 'Yu-Gi-Oh!', and my personal favorite 'Beyblade' were all under the genre of 'anime'. I always thought that was all there was when it came to this genre, I had no Idea that it was treated like actual TV shows that each had specific fandoms. After some persuasion, I finally gave in and started to watch one episode; and after that episode I was fully converted. Throughout the years, I have watched a decent amount of shows and in each I have seen along with the fantasy elements, little bits of real life Japanese culture sprinkled in. The festivals they have and what happens, how a typical house/school is layed out, the different traditions they do, and many more things. Somewhere down the line I had realized that "The east is a completely different world than the west" and it was a place that I wanted to see with my own eyes. I am learning Japanese in hopes that I will one day see this east side and not be completely clueless once I am there; I want to interact with locals, order street food, even something as simple as reading signs would make me happy because I wouldn't feel like an outsider. And you, the person who is still reading this, I hope you stick with me through my successes and failures (probably failures) on this Japanventure.