Student Stories
Before attending ICLC, Miika had little connection to Okinawa or other Shimanchu and believed meeting fellow Okinawans outside the islands was nearly impossible. Discovering the global diaspora online eventually led them to ICLC. Arriving with almost no Japanese background was discouraging, but supportive friends and teachers helped build a strong foundation. While Okinawa’s culture and nature were unforgettable, it was the people—friends, family, teachers, even strangers—that defined the experience. Through ICLC, Mika gained not only Japanese language skills but also a deeper understanding of Japanese values and lifestyle, encouraging future students to engage directly with locals.
Mika
“When I think of Okinawa,
I think of the people there first and foremost.
Ichariba Choode.”
Mika Naylor
BEFORE COMING TO OKINAWA
Prior to my time at ICLC, I had never been to Okinawa, visited my local kenjinkai, or even interacted with other Shimanchu outside of my family. Having moved around the world and then settled outside of Richmond, Virginia after my mother was already in college, my grandmother, and subsequently my mother, was not aware of the networks of Okinawan communities in many major cities. We didn’t even know recently what to start searching for to begin looking for other Shimanchu. On top of that, my mother and her siblings were encouraged not to learn Japanese and Uchinaaguchi growing up, so after my grandmother passed away, even our ability to contact our family back on Okinawa was limited. I truly did not understand the scope of the Shimanchu diaspora. I thought we were few and far between and that meeting someone else from Okinawa would be almost impossible outside of going to Okinawa. But, a few years ago, I began finding other Shimanchu online. The more people I followed and talked to, the more people I found. We were all over the United States, and the rest of the world! It was within this network of people that I was even able to find ICLC. An Instagram post was shared to an Instagram story that I very fortunately saw, and the rest is history.
JAPANESE STUDY JOURNEY
Like I mentioned above, outside of my grandmother, no one in my family knew Japanese or Uchinaaguchi. This meant that when I showed up to ICLC, the most Japanese I had heard was when I spent time with my grandmother, and the singular words that were passed down to my mom during her childhood. Thus, the Japanese I did have was choppy baby-talk with no ability to reach whatsoever.
Many of the friends I made at ICLC had some level of Japanese in their lives. Whether they’d taken classes for it growing up, or their families spoke it in the house, I felt like I was always the one lagging a little bit behind. “What does this ending mean?” “How do you know when to use each of these two similar words?” “Is it this particle or that particle?” “Can you pronounce that for me one more time?” I simply did not have the same intuition about the language as them. It was frustrating and sometimes downright discouraging, but I was also so lucky to have people in my life willing to take the time to rehash everything with me.
Now, even after the program has ended, I find that as long as I create opportunities for me to continue practicing Japanese, the foundation of this language program has allowed me an understanding for the language I would have been unable to gain simply from learning on my own.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS LIVING IN OKINAWA
The people will always be the most memorable part of Okinawa to me. Watching eisā performances, going to the beaches, or visiting the Yanbaru are all amazing experiences that should be had while in Okinawa, but they would all mean nothing to me without the people I visited these places with. From the teachers at ICLC, to my friends from both in the diaspora and from Okinawa, to my family who spent weekends and nights with me, to the strangers I met on the street, my love for Okinawa would be half, or even a quarter, of what it is today without them. When I think of Okinawa, I think of the people there first and foremost. Ichariba Choode.
WHAT GAIN FROM ICLC
When you study a language, you gain so much more than just the knowledge of a new grammatical system or the ways in which that language says, “apple.” You learn values and belief systems and ways of life. Studying at ICLC has given me much more than the knowledge of Japanese. It has given me a greater understanding of the Japanese way of life.
TIPS FOR FUTURE STUDENTS
Nothing will improve your Japanese like speaking with locals. When I spoke with my family and shopkeepers and children, my Japanese improved faster than any other avenue of studying. Besides that, study ritually. Studying to pass tests and studying to understand the language are two totally different hurdles.