When I used to be a Weeaboo

Between the ages of 18 to 22, I used to be

a massive weeb, and during that time I was

completely obsessed with anything related

to Japan. It wasn't even just a mild

interest. I was completely obsessed with

the country, and it was my life goal to

someday move to Japan and live out some

kind of Japanese lifestyle that I saw so

much on anime. I don't really know why I

was so obsessed with the country. I think

as soon as I watched anime, I just

instantly felt attracted to how weird and

wacky the culture and the language and the

people seemed to be. At the time, I was

feeling kind of bored with my own country.

I didn't really feel like I belonged here

in England. I didn't really feel like I

could connect or relate to my own culture

in my own country. And when I saw this new

weird alien culture from Japan, it just

instantly hooked me in. So at the age of

17, I decided that I definitely wanted to

move to Japan and live there. So I made it

my life goal to become really, really good

at learning Japanese and speaking

Japanese. For about 2 years, I used to

watch anime every single day, all day

long, and Japanese TV shows, Japanese

drama and movies, and I'd be studying

Japanese nonstop. I even set all of my

electronic devices, my Xbox, my computer,

my phone, everything that had a language

setting, I would set to Japanese. And then

whenever my family wanted to borrow one of

my electronic devices, I would feel all

smug and superior because I had to help

them navigate my electronic devices,

which were all in Japanese. At the time,

I felt like that was my entire identity.

My identity was, I'm Daniel, I'm really

good at speaking Japanese, and I know

pretty much everything about Japan, and

I'm gonna move there someday, so screw

you, I'm better than you. That was how I

used to think when I was about 17 or 18,

and I look back at my weeb days and my

weeb attitude And I just feel kind

of embarrassed about myself, to be honest.

I genuinely had this weird fantasy in my

head that I would go to Japan and I'd live

out this kind of anime lifestyle where I'd

be this interesting foreigner that

everyone loves because I'm from England,

and they'd be instantly interested in me,

and everyone would like me, and everyone

would respect me and think I'm really cool

because I spoke perfect Japanese. I

remember my first encounter with a

Japanese person. One day my sister came

home from school and she told us all about

how her school was doing some kind of

homestay exchange student program,

and I begged her to sign up for it. And I

wanted 2 Japanese girls to come to our

house to stay, but we could only get one.

And I was honestly thinking that this

Japanese homestay exchange student would

come to our house and then We would fall

in love and then become a thing, get into

a relationship, and it would be all

magical like in the animes. Well, none of

that happened, and it turned out she had a

boyfriend. When I found out she had a

boyfriend, I felt so crushed inside. She

stayed for about 2 weeks, and she was a

nice person, and it was nice to finally

practice my Japanese with a real living

person in real life. At first, it was

really awkward, and I didn't really have

the confidence to talk in Japanese in

front of my family. Because I still felt

like it was kind of a weird thing. Why did

I suddenly become really interested in

Japan and learning Japanese? I actually

kept the fact that I was studying Japanese

a secret from my family for a long time

because I thought it was kind of random

and weird. And I used to listen to

Japanese music when I was in my bedroom.

And as soon as I heard one of my family

members coming near my room, I would

quickly— I would quickly turn the volume

down and then minimize any websites I was

using to study Japanese. I would even hide

my Japanese books. I don't know why I was

so ashamed. Of it. One time I was

listening to Japanese music quite loudly

and one of my friends from school came

over and my mum let him in. I didn't hear

him come up the stairs and I felt so

embarrassed when he came into my bedroom.

I quickly turned off the music as fast as

I could, but I'm pretty sure he could hear

it. He found out I was studying Japanese

and then he asked me, why are you studying

Japanese? Aren't you half Malaysian? And I

said, yes, and I'm not sure why I'm

studying Japanese. I couldn't really

explain to him the whole anime thing and

the anime girls obsession thing. I thought

that was too embarrassing to have to

explain, so I just said, um, I don't know.

During my obsession with learning

Japanese, I refused to watch or listen to

any kind of English media. I didn't watch

English movies or American drama or TV

shows or American movies, or I didn't

listen to any kind of English music.

Everything I did had to be in Japanese.

Japanese music, Japanese movies, Japanese

anime— everything had to be in the

Japanese language. I thought to myself,

if it wasn't in Japanese, then it's not

helping me achieve my goal of wanting to

become fluent at Japanese. Even though I

look back at my weeb days and I kind of

feel embarrassed, I also kind of miss

those days because I think that was one of

the only times when I was so motivated and

inspired to try and achieve something that

was really difficult. Learning a second

language is difficult. It takes a lot of

time, a lot of motivation, a lot of

discipline. And back then, I had so much

motivation, so much discipline. I was just

completely dedicated to becoming good at

this skill that I wanted to become good

at. And to be honest, I haven't really

felt that way about anything in such a

long time. I can't remember the last time

I felt like, wow, I really want to become

good at this certain skill. I'm going to

dedicate myself to learning it. I think

spending so much time and energy on

learning Japanese and then realizing that

it wasn't really worth it kind of burned

me out. And now I'm just against the idea

of learning something new because I feel

like, what if I spend years and years and

years and loads of effort, time, and

resources learning this skill, and then it

turns out that I lose interest, or it's

not a useful skill, or I stop caring

anymore? I think after the second time I

went to Japan, that was when I completely

lost interest in anime and being a weeb

and being really, really good at Japanese.

I'm not sure why, but I guess after living

in Japan for a couple months, maybe nearly

half a year, and being exposed to what

Japan was actually like, the magic just

wore off. And I don't know why, it just

didn't really seem as interesting as I

thought it would be after watching all

that anime. My entire perception of Japan

was based off of anime and TV shows and

movies. And when you don't know what

something is actually like, I think your

brain starts filling in the blank spaces,

the missing spaces, with how you expect it

to be, how you hope it would be. And then

you get to this point where your

expectations are so insanely high, when

you do find out what it's actually like in

reality, you just can't help but feel