#1 The Beginning

こんにちは！はじめまして！ 与那嶺です！どうぞよろしくおねがいします！

Hello! Nice to meet you! My name is Christian Yonamine, I'm from São Paulo, Brazil, and I am a freshman at the University of Notre Dame studying Psychology. I am starting a series of blog posts in which you (and future me) will be able to accompany my Japanese journey. This is my first blog post and I'll try to explain some of the reasons for why I chose to study the Japanese language.

Family: despite having Brazilian nationality (I was born there), my family is ethnically 100% Japanese, as my ancestors were all born and raised in Japan. So, even being part of the fourth generation away from Japan, I still feel a strong bond and sense of belonging to the Japanese community, culture and country.

Sport: influenced by family and by the Japanese community in Brazil, I started playing baseball at the age of 7. When I was 11 years old, I went to Japan to play representing the U-12 Brazilian National Baseball Team. I also travelled to play at North Carolina, US, and Lima, Peru, when I was 12. However, these last two weren't even close to the fascination I felt and the experience I had while in Japan. Years later, my parents told me that I even asked them if we had to go back to Brazil (couldn't we just stay there??). I loved Japan's peacefulness, organization, punctuality, cultural gestures, respectfulness, gentleness, temples, food... I loved it all. すき！

Culture: from anime to religion to customs, my interest in Japanese culture has been growing. I feel like learning more about Japan also means I'm learning more about me. Some recent animes that I've watched are Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia and Haikyu!!.

Future: as a student in Notre Dame, one of the many opportunities I plan to take advantage of is studying abroad. And my destination would be none other than Japan, of course. I'm still exploring and thinking about which one of the semester-programs would fit best for me. I'll keep you updated once I have more details on that. Anyways, I'm looking forward to this experience and to what the future might bring to me as a Japanese speaker.

I'm excited to learn more about the Japanese Language, and just after this first week of classes I'm already feeling very happy about my small but fundamental development.

Thanks a lot for reading and see you next time! :)

じゃあ、また！

与那嶺。

University of Notre Dame - August 31st, 2025.