when different cultures meet...

i was gonna write about what ive done in this past week, but then it somehow transformed into my observations about what happens when different cultures interact with each other... i guess the fact that when i was in primary school, i wanted to be an anthropologist (someone who studies, among other things, differnet cultures) may have something to do with it...

today i went with Ando-san to a lady's house to watch the gospel group shes involved in practise and to help them with pronouncing the english lyrics... they were really good at both english and singing, but of course watching them try to say certain words was bound to be entertaining- like "truths"... hahaha

one thing ive noticed which i find amusing is that ive suddenly become "australia". like everything i do or think or like is representative of every single australian. for example, i eat kiwi fruit with the skin on (which even in australia is pretty weird) and cathy, yuichi and the gospel group presumed that australians all do that. so im trying to be extra careful of if i do or say anything really unconventional (like that) so i dont make people develop inaccurate stereotypes about australia, especially cos i know that people are more likely to develop negative stereotypes rather than positive stereotypes of different cultures...

one thing i learned today from cathy and yuichi is that Star Wars is partly a tribute by George Lucas to a famous Japanese movie director, Akira Kurosawa, who worked from the 1940s to the 1960s. for example, Darth Vaders helmet is based off the samurais helmet and the light sabre is based of a samurai sword (apparently). also apparently in episode 3 (revenge of the sith), yoda often strokes his head which, yuichi tells me, is a famous action from Kurosawa's film, the Seven Samurai.

we had the last lesson at the local primary school where we did english and international understanding yesterday. we made grilled cheese sandwiches (a Western food), using herby margarine so it was delicious, then they also made English-style tea. i sat at one bench-table in the home economics room with a group of girls and they made me laugh so hard, they couldnt stand the taste of the tea (Japanese tea is milder), they kept complaining about how bitter it was, so they filled their tea with sugar. and when i say fill, the girl next to me told me her cup was approximately half sugar. anyway after this, she tasted it and kept shouting "ama sugiru!! ama sugiru!!" (which means "its too sweet!" and she still had half her cup left, so she tried to fish out the sugar with her spoon (i wanted to explain to her that it was dissolved but didnt have the vocab). hahaha

one thing i expected to find when i came to japan was that everyone would be like "aaaargh a foreigner!" but ive been pleasantly surprised to find that this isnt very common. i did catch someone walk past me snatching glimpses at me from the corner of their eyes, then turn around when they walked past me to find them staring back at me- boy did that give them a fright! but yeah overall everyones been pretty good...
the kids at the local primary school make me laugh so hard though- when u go indoors anywhere in japan (including school), you take off your shoes and wear slippers. when cathy and me arrived yesterday, a crowd of year 1-2s surrounded us, offering to take our shoes and asking us questions like what nationality we were etc. then we had the opposite reaction, when we were leaving, cathy said "konnichiwa" to a cute little yr 1 girl and she returned a look of pure terror, before sprinting back behind her. unfortunately for her, she ran into her friend, so she then starting clutching her friends elbow and there were now two 6 year olds looking terrified out of their brains to see me and cathy. we took the hint.

when the gospel ladies heard i was coming over, they panicked cos they presumed i would hate japanese food, so bought bread instead specially for me. i was a bit relieved when ando-san told them that i didnt like japanese bread- i hastily added that i loved Japanese food which i think pleased them. thats another thing ive noticed being here- a lot of people expect you to act like the stereotype of a Westerner overseas- not wanting to try different food, not bothering to learn different languages and expecting everyone to know English... i find that attitude a bit disappointing more than anything i think, because i think its disappointing that you do hear stories about many Western tourists overseas acting like that and then giving the rest of us a bad name, but also disappointing because its frustrating to have someone judge you before youve even said anything cos youre appearance... prejudice in all its forms sucks.

im really enjoying japan though. like it is insanely good.

one of the cultural differences that many Westerners observe when they go to Japan (myself included- this was one of my biggest challenges last time I came) is that Japanese people don't say what they really think, and the result is that it can come across as a bit fake... i know for myself, people thinking one thing and saying another is something i get frustrated by in Australia- so im trying to use this experience as a lesson for me to become more patient...
for example, if you say to a Japanese person "konnichiwa" in the strongest Australian accent you can possibly manage, they are probably likely to still tell you that you are amazingly talented with Japanese... One lesson ive learned so far is to treat this kind of thing as, rather than a compliment, a cultural ritual. Also this way, I feel more comfortable with denying it, cos otherwise I find it really deflating to my self-confidence to be constantly rubbishing myself. But if you view it as a ritual, you dont think much of it, either in a good or bad way, then dont dwell on it afterwards... well its worked for me anyway :)

im hoping all im learning culturally will help me when i get home to Australia too. in a multicultural country like australia, youre always gonna have something to do with people from other cultures, and the things imlearning about japanese culture can often be applied to other cultures that are perhaps more formal than mainstream Australian culture. of course, there will probably still be things that i find frustrating, especially those that are avoidable which isolate and exclude people, but hopefully i'll become more accepting generally thanks to this experience!

talking to cathy and yuichi though, im also becoming so much more aware and stuff about how we should really try to help people in developing countries, and those who are generally in whatever sense, less well-off than us. cathy was saying that feeling sympathy for these people is really important, but its really important as a step, whats even better is to go from there to actually helping those in other countries (eg knitting jumpers for children in Mongolia through Guardian pharmacies, donating money, becoming a member of the ONE campaign which writes petitions to various politicians etc and was started by Bono (www.one.org), joining charities' Facebook groups...)
anyway its really opened my eyes even more and this experience is so far making me want to consider living somewhere overseas at some stage during the rest of my life

yes, there are challenges involved with being overseas, and also moving to other areas in Australia, but taking that first step out of your comfort zone is so insanely worth it.
as we learned so much in yr 11 & 12 English, taking a step out of your comfort zone (in whatever way), or even experiencing adversity is essential if you want to really grow as a human being.

“The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens”

- Bahá'u'lláh

i thought i understood this quote before i came here, but the longer im here, the more and more i find myself understanding it... culture is something you learn as you get older, but each one of us has so many inherent similarities that transcend any political borders that man has created.


food for thought?

xx

busy busy busy

hello all

its been a while since i last posted anything here- main reason is cos im so busy and want to limit my time spent on the computer. and im tiiiired prob cos of a mixture of my brain becoming japaneseified and doing a lot of housework which is surprisingly tiring. i suddenly have a newfound respect for women from the 1950s!

the other day i went with ando-san to a place called Aji which used to be a separate town but then recently became part of Takamatsu. a famous Japanese movie, called "Sekai no chuushin de, ai wo sakebu" of which the English title is "Socrates in Love", was filmed in Aji. we had lunch at the bay where the film was shot, it was incredibly beautiful- unfortunately i didnt bring my camera but were going again next week so hopefully ill get a chance then.
the main reason we went to Aji was for a study circle with a woman whose children used to go to childrens classes in Aji until they were stopped last year. we had lunch with this woman on the bay and she and Ando-san ate "yaki soba-pan" which is a white bread roll with fried noodles in the middle. apparently the main character of that movie liked yaki soba-pan so its now really popular in Aji.

after that, we went to a local Buddhist temple to see the monk there whos friends with the Takamatsu Bahais. the monk, who seemed to be in his late 30s, had studied psychology in Chicago and had suffered a lot of prejudice there from some religious people there who told him he was going to Hell for being Buddhist. but there was a Bahai man there who was the only one who was nice to him so he holds the Bahai Faith in high esteem. he seemed so nice and i asked him some questions about Buddhism there. apparently Japanese Buddhist are not vegetarian and can marry and are not monks for their entire lives, its more like an occupation. he said the Meiji dynasty (the one which opened Japan to the West) were responsible for making the change to allow Buddhist monks to eat meet and marry. He belongs to the Pure-Land School of Buddhism, which is really popular in Japan. The main Buddha of this school is called Amitabha, or Amida in Japanese. Amit (wikipedia tells me) means infinite and Abha means splendour or light in Sanskrit, so it means Infinite Light. Amitabha says that anyone at all who wishes to be reborn into his Pure Land just has to say his name as little as 10 times. very interesting i think.

yesterday we went out to lunch with ando-san, her daughter haruna and a group of women who are participating in study circles at the moment and are friends with cathy and ando-san to celebrate an award cathy recently received. Cathy is a Japanese to English translator and she recently translated a book called Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. its really big in japan and is part of a series of more than 10 written by a Japanese woman who is an assistant professor in anthropology and main area is Australian Aborigines. but yeah the award cathy one is called the Mildred Batcheldor Award and is an American award for the best translated childrens literature each year. its not a money award, but it means the book will get more attention from non-japanese speakers and is good for japaneseliterature generally as most of the books which win that prize are european cos its cheaper and easier to translate european languages.

but yeah the restaurant we went to was posh! it was french cuisine and was on the top of this mini-mountain outside takamatsu. we arrived there at about 12.00 and were there till after 3! it was interesting cos it was french but mixed with japanese cuisine like one thing i got served was battered little skinny fish, but they were whole. it was horrible cos u could see their eyes and tail and you had to eat them anyway- to be honest they didnt taste bad but it was a little offputting. i decided after that that im not really made for fine dining, esp when the table conversation is all in japanese!

yuichis gone to tokyo for the weekend, so its just me and cathy here at the moment. yuichis on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Japanese Bahais, which is the national administrative body of the bahais of each country, so he has to go to tokyo once a month for its meetings. its insane though- the bus trip takes 9 hours and then he has to concentrate at meetings and stuff immediately after that! wow

cathys host parents from when she first came to japan 31? years ago are visiting over the weekend, so i spent the day today doing a lot of housework so im pretty tired. cathys best friend from school in canada was japanese-canadian and when they were 20, her best friends dad got offered a job at Kyoto University which he accepted. her best friend didnt want to go to japan alone (shed never been before) so she asked cathy to go with her, which cathy said she would. anyway the best friend ended up not wanting to come, and did a homestay with cathy's parents, while cathy did a homestay with her best friends parents and ended up never leaving japan!

xoxo

another post

hello everyone

wow i have been doing so much interesting stuff lately!

first- some interesting facts ive learned:

1. Shikoku (the island im on) is often in drought. i must be honest i thought that it was like a japanese-version of a drought, i was like haha "come to australia and ull learn what a drought is"... but i learned today that last year Shikokus dam got down to 0%. yes 0%. apparently u were only allowed to use water for 2-3 hrs a day so they used the water in the bath for heaps of things
2. takamatsu's grey water is not filtered at all, it goes directly into the local rivers. (they look disgusting). so if ur cooking with lettuce and noodles and u wash ur bowl down the sink, guess what ends up in the river? apparently the government cant afford to introduce proper treatmet systems for grey water

the other day me and cathy went to a primary school in the outskirts of takamatsu where cathy was going to give a talk on international understanding. cos it was in japanese and i know about that kind of stuff already, i spent the hour and a half at a lovely, big Shinto shrine near the school. (Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan). after that being in the shrines grounds which i really enjoyed cos its the one place in japan that nature is preserved, there was a lovely mini-forest there, i went back to the primary school. there,me and cathy were talking to the schools principal who told us that the area the school is in is a traditional area of the burakumin. the burakumin, i have learned, are at the bottom of the traditional japanese caste system and were originally in the days of the samurai, people who dealed with death- eg executioners, leather-makers etc. there was a lot of prejudice against them until recently, and some even persists today. the principal said that this has influenced a lot of the kids attitudes in the classroom and stuff.
cathy told me later that mainly its people who are 60+ yrs old who still feel prejudiced against the burakumin and other minority groups like the Koreans. but she said that if u have burakumin blood in you and you live in your hometown, everyone knows it by your surname and discriminates against u (eg a Bahai with burakumin blood told cathy that no matter how good he is at his job, how high in status his job is, hell always be the 1st to be fired). i find that really sad. and the family of cathys friends in the 80s or so hired private investigators when their kids got married to ensure there was no burakumin blood in the other person.

after going to that school, me and cathy helped pack up for a local charity called Second Hand which had been having a charity bazaar at a local community centre. the charity is similar to oxfam in that it sells goods, then donates that money to places where its needed. But Second Hand only operates in Cambodia and has helped build schools, donate ambulance equipment etc to people in Cambodia, who are really impoverished.

for your entertainment, theres a japanese band which used to be quite popular called Kinki Kids. when i first heard about it i was like "do they know what theyre saying???" but Kinki is an area of Japan, so the band was saying that they were from kinki... lol

i dont know whether ive said already, but the prefecture (similar to a state but smaller) Takamatsu is in is famous for udon noodles. udon is a thick white noodle. so yeah ive been having a lot of udon lately but its yummy

i have been doing sooo many of those study circles i talked about last time. im doing the first workbook which is the one im actually up to with the childrens class fathers, then next week ill start the 2nd workbook with a friend of ando-san, i finish the 1st one with her this week, then i have another one of the 2nd workbook with a group of 4 housewives who i found to be extremely spiritual in the one we did together this week, and then theres another one of the 1st workbook which i did last night with another lady...
its so interesting to hear everyones perspectives cos theyre all so different and also to hear the culture coming through- like one of the housewives kept linking the bahai values to things shes read in haiku poems and at Shinto shrines etc, and one of fathers and another lady were talking about rank and hierarchy a lot... im really enjoying them all though, for me its such an amazing opportunity to talk about deep things like life after death etc with otherpeople i wouldnt normally interact with

i tried octopus the other day. it was horrible. it actually looked like an octopus tentacle, like the weird squingy round things that stick to things was still on its tentacle. anyway i tried it cos when in romes do as the romans do right? wrong! no amount of cultural sensitivity is worth trying octopus- its textures was rubbery and then the squingy things were crunchy ad it was a horrible experience. i gave ando-san the rest of mine and shewas so touched she gave me her fresh pineapple slices, i was like if you say this is a fair deal? actually japanese bread is pretty bad too- the only varietys are thick, medium or thin white bread and there are 6 slices in each. (i saw "brown" bread today which cathy thinks is coloured brown which had 3 slices)
to give u some idea of how the japanese like their bread, the bread i ate for brekky this morning was advertised as being "soft and sweet". yuichi laughs a lot at how bad japanese bread is so i dont feel like im being too culturally insensitive. but if you toast it its ok and the homemade strawberry jam yuichi made drowns out the taste of the bread. actually inall fairness tho i love japanese food andwith the exception of octopus and the bread, its all really nice and im eating way more then i would back in australia cos it tastes so muchbetter and feels so much healthier.

anyway i have written an insane amount especially considering i havent been doing that much (i spent the day today dusting the spare room thoroughly then mopping and vaccing it) in the last couple of days

love sonia

xx

photos

just quickly- ive put photos up but most of the ones ive been taking have just been cos i think landscapes look pretty and to take pretty photos, not photos of actual relevant things- ive actually been taking heaps of sunsets over farmland and stuff

so tomorrow ill try to take some photos of our house, the dog, my host family etc!

what ive been up to

hello everybody

ive done heaps of stuff in the last few days... one night i met a young woman called Mai who at a guess is in her early 20s and her friend. mai is friends with yuichi and she just recently came back from a year in england so wants to keep her english up and obv i want to practise japanese and i want friends my own age haha... but yeah were gonna get together sumtime for speaking practise for each other and she seems like a lovely person anyway

i went to marugame, the next "town" from takamatsu one day (i say "town" cos japanese peoples idea of a town is like half the size of cairns) cos yuichi had to do some architecture meeting thing there and i spent a few hours at marugame castle which is on the top of a hill/mountain and quite old. it had a lovely atmosphere and gardens and i didnt go in the actual thing cos im not interesting in history or sightseeing so i didnt wantto waste my money but i loved the surrounds and i got given a beautiful small painting by a lady selling paintings there, and met an old man as we were sitting on the same park bench but he talked at a million miles an hr at me in the local dialect so i was like aaaaaaahm yes. ok. hmm. but he was friendly and nice.

i spent yesterday dusting and cleaning the hirano's place which functions as the bahai centre of takamatsu in a sense so it needs lots of cleaning for people who come over esp as japanese people are very tidy. im doing lots of housework atm but i really enjoy it. prob cos its not at my own house, i dont think i would so much at home

i went to the local bahai childrens class on saturday morning which was beautiful. its held in a community centre and there were like 5 kids and then their parents also came and were really into it. they learned this prayer which is for when youre going through difficult times in your life:
Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!

but they learned it in japanese and ando-san made a beautiful song to it which was very japanese-ish.

bahais around the world are encouraged to participate in "study circles" which are supposed to help you become more spiritually insightful etc. they operate on the basis that transformation of the individual is necessary for the transformation of society. these study circles most commonly use a series of workbooks, the first of which is called "Reflections on the Life of the Spirit". anyway that took longer than i thought to explain but i started the first of those workbooks last night in a group with 2 of the fathers of the childrens classes kids and yuichi acted as tutor of it , while cathy translated for me. i got heaps out of it and was really impressed by how deep the conversation got, i like how japanese people seem to be on the whole deeper than australians.
i liked the quotes we learned too, each one seemed quite simple but conveyed so much meaning.

Say, O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.

this afternoon we went to a local primary school where cathy teaches "english and international understanding" to the grade 6s. cathys been teaching them about how there are other countries in the world where people don't even have enough to eat. today they gave us a performance which they did for the grade 5s on the weekend about what theyve been learning about different countries. i was actually really touched by their performance, you could tell for some of them it was really from the heart. at the end a few of the kids gave speeches about how they really want to make a difference in the world and how its not fair that countries arent equal when they should be. they said they were pleased that this performance was mostly organised by the kids not the teachers as per usually happens so it was from the heart. they then sung a song, "We are flowers of one garden and the leaves of one tree. Come and join us in our quest for unity, it's a way of life for you and me" It was so beautiful.
after that i gave a self-intro in basic english with pictures of my life up on a projector screen. then i answered questions of theirs about australia.
oh- and i almost forgot when asked about what australia was famous for, did they say "the harbour bridge" or the great barrier reef? no. they said wheat, wool and meat. wow they were such knowledgable grade 6s!
but yeah- it was quite funny some fo the questions they asked. "what is your favourite word in japanese?" um- whaaaat its a word not a poem or something! but they seemed to take it seriously so i said flower (hana 花) which seemed to be acceptable.
i also got asked by a boy whether i had a boyfriend and then straight after that by another boy whether i liked anyone. so much for japanese people being reserved haha.
then one boy asked me who throughout history i admired the most which i thought was a very mature question and i said probably Baha'u'llah

anyway im writing way too much again and i want to go to sleep now so i hope everyones well back home and my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the bushfires over in victoria at the moment.

love,
sonia.

xx

commenting

hello everyone me again

the reason ur comments wasnt working was
a) i had it on the setting where i was moderating comments but thats annoying and i wont be checking that often and im sure creeps wont be interested in takamatsu bahai life
b) you used to have to be a member of this blog to comment i think but im changing that too cos thats dumb

today my japanese got slightly better and i spoke more, yesterday we went to the art museum and visited a famous sculptors exhibition, the scultpors a local and apparently had a massive sculpt? in the foyer of the world trade centre which was the only thing that survived the attack but was demolished by bulldozers to get to the other bits of the building

i met my host dads mum who speaks osaka dialect which is completely unintelligble and has a different accent but shes so funny and talkative and i said iw as from sydney shes like where? then cathy said australia. shes like is that near austria? and then cathy said no then grandma said oh is it near london? oh dear. but it gave me some perspective about australias global importance or lack thereof

i dont know whther i said before but we sleep on futons here, my host parents sleep in a tatami room and today we put the futons and blankets on the roof (the roofs are sloped so u ccan climb out of the top storeys windows onto it) to air them, apparently thats traditional

we had a Baha'i Feast today which is basically a gathering of the Baha'is in the local community every 19 days to have prayers together then talk about whats been going on and what nees to be done and just to socialise, sort of like church but not at church. okay i suck at explaining things. but yeah there were only 5 of us which was interesting cos theres like 80 plus that come in warringah and it was held in the middle of the day. one of the Baha'is, Ando-san just came back from the Baha'i World Centre in Israel on pilgrimage so she was pretty enthusiastic, shes a member of a gospel group and when i was talking about musical firesides (inviting people to your house and giving them an introduction to the Baha'i Faith in a way that involves music) she thought i meant a "musical" cos i said it in english then she started singing loudly 52600 minutes or however many that song is... anyway what a character

cant think of anything else to say but bye everyone :)

first couple of days

hello everybody

i am in takamatsu at the moment staying in a traditional looking japanese home which is 2 storeys and very cold. i cant work out how to use caps lock on a jaopanese keyboard but if i could, very would be in caps. also the keyboard is slightly smaller and some buttons are in weird places so excuse the typos

yesterday i went to my host mum, cathy`s friends place in the city to watch her do 茶道　(sadou- tea ceremony) it was really good and tasted declicious and foamy- there was also a 5 yr old girl there with her mum and she was hilarious, the only thing in english she knew was "fish or beef" cos apparently at her preschool they did a role play where they had to pretend to be waiters

the lady who hosted it, mariko, also invited us to a sushi party later in february where shell show me how to make proper sushi- i told my host father earlier that my favourite sushi is kimchee, avocado and sundried tomato and he almost had a heart attack hes like kimchee in sushi???
apparently in japan they have pizza with yaki soba (fried noodles on it which i think is way weirder but hey

the plane trip here i flied jetstar cos i was wanted to save money and i was pleasantly surprised with how good it was, the safety demonstrations were the most comprehensive ive seen so far. inflight entertainment was v.good and i was lucky to sit next to someone who was 19/20 y.o. and going to melbourne uni (hi stan if ur reading this) and we spent like the whole time talking so that was good, were both obsessed with languages and have a social conscience which was good - also an added bonus that i now know someone who lives in melbourne!

im sleeping on a futon atm in a house where all the doors are sliding so its pretty nice and traditional. also my host parents arent too formal so that took a lot of stress of me worrying about how to act- my japanese is abysmal btw. that would also be in caps if i could. liek shockingly embarassingly yr7-level bad. ie i forgot how to say good night last night. being at the tea party was good tho cos they spoke in japanese the whole time which i could understand a lot of , but i guess it will take a bit of time before my level of spoken japanese gets back to what it should be since i havent spoken it since the hsc exam in august

we rode bikes into the city as well yesterday- mum they are so much better than our bikes! like soooo much easier to ride and it was really enjoyable, about a third of the people riding bikes i saw were elderly- japanese ppl are so healthy

it was funny being on the plane, there was a limit of 20kg for luggage and 10kg for onboard so my suitacse was 19.5kg and my backpack was 9.5 and stuffed to the brim, and i was wearing a heavy warm jacket and a ski jacket that must have weighed about 4kg cos all the pocketswere crammed full of stuff in the gold coast. i got stared at alot.

japans pretty goodso far, it feels no different from being at home which is good and takamatsu isnt hilariously overly dense so i dont have to worry abou tbeing claustrophobic

thats all that i can think of to say right now, ill write something else in another few days

sonia
xoxo