Lost without Chiaki
The first day at Kansai Gaidai, the first time I checked my mailbox... I saw this beautiful pink hello kitty envelope. "Dear Marie, welcome to Japan I´m so happy to be your speaking partner." I felt her excitement in the letter. I couldn´t imagine how much fun we were going to have together and how much we could learn from eachother (and this is just in two weeks). I have to tell you, I would be lost in Japan without Chiaki. This blogpost is about me in Japan for the first time, without any preconceived thoughts, without knowing the language, Im just so curious about the people, the culture and everything in between.
Birthday child.
Tall swedish man.
The birthdayparty
Chiaki invited me and Anders to her birthdayparty at her parents house. Both me and Anders applyed for a homevisiting family but we´re still on the waitinglist so we were both very excited to see how Chiaki and her parents lived. Everyone stood in the hall and welcomed us with a big smile. Present at the party was Chiaki, her parents, her mothers friend with husband and his twin. None of them spoke a word english except from Chiakis father who new maybe ten words. Everytime he wanted to say something, he looked at me, raised his hand and said: Maliiii, question. So there we stood, almost unable to talk with eachother, but with big smiles and with Chiaki as translater the night was awsome. We had the stranges food ever ( food I never would try in Sweden, but to be polite, I had everything on the table. We talked about everything from the reasons why relations between Japan and China is how it is, to how long swedish mothers stay at home with their children. I did´nt noticed any big diffrences from Swidish familys, they were just a ordinary family with ordinary habbits. They were so friendly, happy and very curious about whats going on outside Japan. When we left after a perfect night, the hole family followed us outside of the house, huged us, begging us to come back. My first impression of Japan is that even if we don´t speak the same language or have the same culture, one can always find nice people to like and have a really good time with!
Just inhale Japan / Marie
Curly hair can be fun if you never seen it before.
Isn't it great that you can still have a great time with someone despite the language barrier? (It certainly helps to have a translator like Chiaki, though!)
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have adjusted well enough that your Japanese dinner manners are good, too. :)
It's also good to see that your cultural exchange is going both ways - like when you talked about Swedish families. It's important to remember that often the Japanese are just as curious about foreign cultures as you are about theirs. Great so far!
I am glad to see that you are having such pleasant experiences to help you deal with your initial impressions of Japan. Japanese friends and host families (and other experiences off campus and away from seminar house) can be extremely valuable in learning about the culture. And as Joe comments, cultural exchange is important, too. I look forward to reading about your experiences and cultural explorations in your future posts.
ReplyDeletePlease set your default language to English.