Well hot damn, my life just completely changed in an instant.
And it all started when I received a phone call from my mom a few days ago.
“You got some mail here!” she informed me.
“I told you Mom, those issues of Playgirl are not mine!”
“No, it’s from the Japan Foundation of America.”
My blood ran cold. I knew what she held. And I knew how nosy she could be. All I hoped was that she didn’t open it. But I also knew my mom all too well.
“So I opened it, and…”
“Mom. MOM. I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me. Throw it away. Please.”
For what my mom held, and what I had tried desperately to avoid for the last three months, were none other than my test results…
No idiot, not like an AIDS test or anything; nothing medical, in fact. The results for my Japanese language proficiency test, the JLPT, of which I had just made my second attempt at taking after failing it horrendously the year prior. The N1 level of the test, which I won’t reiterate how hard it is (see previous blogs for more info), but has a forgiving pass-fail minimum (60% and up passes), and a huge number of people fail anyway.
The whole reason I moved to LA last November was to immerse myself in a environment featuring actual Japanese people, to do away with distractions, and throw everything I had into passing this test. The test is only once a year too, so I had told myself that this was it, my final attempt, pass or fail. The time investment required to prepare for this test is simply not worth it. It is sheer hell.
So a year later, you’d think I’d have a fighting chance at passing this thing, no matter how hard it was. Perhaps, I’d learn from my mistakes the first time around. I knew what to expect now… right?
I walked in confident, and well, that confidence didn’t last long. In the middle of the fucking test, I broke down and basically resolved to changing my focus in life, giving up on my life dream for working as a translator for Nintendo (who require the N1 certificate to even consider you as a candidate), and do something else, preferably involving people and not copious amounts of text.
“So yeah, there’s a lot of Japanese written in here, but I think it’s saying that you passed,” my Mom informed me.
“Whu—what!?” My mom has reading problems and never graduated from the 3rd grade Hooked on Phonics reading program, but she was making a claim almost too big to fuck up. I demanded proof.
She sent it to my e-mail, I opened it up, and scrolled right down to the overall score.
レベル Level: N1
総合得点 Total Score: 107/180
パーセンタイル順位 Percentile Rank: 74.8
結果 Result: 合格 Passed
I sat in awe, utter amazement, and a touch of disbelief at what I was seeing.
The test that had consumed nearly two years of my life, which had been so difficult it had caused me to reevaluate my entire LIFE—I had somehow passed.
On top of that, I would have NEVER known that I had passed had it not been for my Mom’s nosiness in opening my mail. I had actively decided to to avoid my test scores. When I got notified via e-mail that the results were out last month, I deleted the e-mail and deleted all intentions of ever knowing. So, Mom?
Thank you. Nosy your nose off. Read all my mail you want…
But I assure you, those Playgirls are not mine. They must’ve been intended for another guy with the same name who lives at the same address in the same city. Yeah… That’s it.
But hold on a second because this story gets even crazier.
In the period after I had taken this test, supposedly failed, and had my revelation, I realized that I would need to start seeking work elsewhere. And so I started shopping around, looking into other fields that interested me, and I decided to shoot for the stars.
As much as I loved Nintendo, they were a company that I would continue to love… from a distance. I didn’t need to work there to appreciate their entertainment and innovation.
Yet there was another company, also Japanese, that I always had a deep appreciation and respect for. They seemed so wholesome, so driven, and so educational, that I would have easily listed them as my “other” dream job:
NHK. Japan’s national public broadcasting organization. Responsible for the realest news I had ever seen, weird and zany talk shows, and the most engrossing nature documentaries ever contrived. Everything about them screamed quality, and they didn’t seem tainted by the forces of evil, unlike, well, possibly every major US news outlet out there. Also, they don’t air commercials. And lord knows how much I despise commercials.
I decided to apply to work for them, because, well, why the fuck not?
In the weeks following the test I had applied for a handful of jobs with other Japanese companies, had a few memorable interviews, and had been slowly moving in a direction that catered to my interests. I was figuring out what I wanted to do. It was like starting over. I had freelanced a ton over the last several years, but this was a new launching point. It would take more time until I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but this was a growing process, and I would come out of it with a sense of clarity… eventually.
So imagine my amazement when NHK contacted me to come to their Santa Monica studio for an interview.
That interview took place three weeks ago, and it was either the greatest interview of my life or the worst. I couldn’t decide.
The day of the interview, it was drizzling when I left the house. I had an umbrella packed, but my roommate took it out of my bag right before I left the house. When I got to the studio, it was pouring harder than I’ve ever seen it rain in California. And since Santa Monica is a city on the ocean, the wind was repulsively strong. Although I had dressed nicely to the interview, I rolled into their office looking like a wet poodle.
My three interviewers were sympathetic to my condition. They let me wear a newscaster’s outfit and graced me with towels and hot tea. But I was so cold and my teeth were chattering nonstop throughout the interview that I could hardly answer their questions, let alone speak to them in a foreign language. Phlegm clogged my throat and I watched the effects of a cold instantly grip my body.
If I were able to do anything right, it was be myself. I didn’t need to hide who I was. In the absence of professionalism, that was my strongest selling point; my personality. Yet, the chances of that being suffice were… not likely.
It was all up to fate…
And fate, as it appeared, was on my side.
They called me back for a second interview.
This was it. This was my chance. This was my time to shine.
I knew very little about what to expect the second time around, other than I would be meeting with some important figure flying out from their headquarters in New York. I also surmised that, rather than my Japanese skills, they would be examining my Spanish skills. In my first interview, they wanted to know about my time in South America and if I would be fine with “long drives”, including driving to the border of Mexico.
My hunch was right. Fifteen minutes into the interview they called their news correspondent in Mexico, Gabriella, asked me to translate everything she said to me in Spanish. It went swimmingly. The whole interview went swimmingly. And then there was the guy from New York, the head of the HR department. I was prepared to meet with your typical Japanese businessman, stiff, over-worked, and a face showing no signs of happiness (which is a completely true stereotype, btw), but with just my luck he was a super cool dude.
In fact, they all were. The NHK people I met with were all extremely amiable, friendly, and open-minded. I didn’t need to hide my sense of humor around them. They were the kind of people that I would love to work with.
The kind of people I will be working with.
A day after I had received news that I had passed the N1, I received a call from the chief of the NHK branch in Santa Monica, telling me, “Congratulations. You did it.”
It was all too surreal. All of my hard work over the years paying off at once. After so long of being down, drifting, aimless, everything came together in an instant. My life had forever changed. My future is now the brightest it has ever been.
If anything, sometimes you just have to laugh at life. Little decisions you make in your life, which may seem inconsequential, can rear up and become of extreme importance later. For me, I’ve spent more than half of my life studying Japanese, yet I got a job primarily for my Spanish skills, which were gained over a two year period I spent in South America. The N1 test, also a two year ordeal, I had finally passed… and yet the certificate is of little to no importance to me in my new career. What has helped me get to where I was has been a curiosity in the world. Traveling, language, people… it has all paid dividends.
I’m not really sure how to end this, because this story doesn’t end here—it begins. Life is a series of twists and turns, and sometimes the irony is too strong to believe. But keep going forward. Don’t compromise yourself. Keep fighting the good fight, and you will be rewarded.
Godspeed, and see you on the other side.
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