Shogun

Sometimes I like to push myself to test the limit. Often I find that I can actually go beyond what I thought is my limit.

One good example is acquiring a new language. As I have blogged before, I am currently learning Japanese. Initially I came into the lessons without expecting much. But thanks to my sensei, after only four one-hour lessons, I've actually surprised myself that I can identify and write characters considerably well.

The fact that the hiragana table reminds me of the Periodic Table of Elements probably helped a lot. Next week, I'll be practising more hiragana, picking up some new vocabulary, polish my pronunciation and hopefully be able to improve further on my quest to learn the language that I first heard after watching the miniseries "Shogun" on television way back in 1982. The miniseries was an adaptation of the famous James Clavell's novel which is a part of the Asian Saga that starred Richard Chamberlain. And I can still remember my first Japanese word that I picked up from the television miniseries, and it was anjin-san.

Let's see whether I can push myself to pick up Japanese as well as John Blackthorne.