Thank you everyone who's been reading my blog, no matter how rarely- it's so nice when you're in a far-away foreign country that people you love back home care enough about you to want to see what you're doing. Thank you!
I've been fairly busy recently since there's only a week left till I go home- I'm trying to do as much as I can! Yesterday I went souvenir shopping (due to luggage weight constrictions I haven't been able to get that many sorry!) and I found a Studio Ghibli merchandise store! For those of you who don't know, Studio Ghibli is a Japanese film company? or something that produce high-quality "anime" movies. Their works are very popular in the West and the most famous member of Studio Ghibli is none other than Hayao Miyazaki, maker of Spirited Away which won an Oscar.
Anyway I was like in love!- it was fairly expensive, but I love Hayao Miyazaki and all the merchandise I looked at had "only sold in Japan" written on it. As if I needed any more persuasion!
Today we had another house party which are always popular and I really enjoy. We were celebrating a Baha'i Holy Day, and also thought it might be a good opportunity for people who weren't able to come to my farewell party on Saturday to say goodbye to me. We had 19 people attend, which was the most there's been while I've been here- although apparently once 40 people turned up which I can't even imagine! Anyway, after using a couple of the quotes that were in Monday night's social night (This week's theme: Healing), I did a powerpoint presentation looking back on my 6 months in Japan. I was fairly nervous the last night and this morning, because (as those who know me know) public speaking isn't my favourite pasttime, and coupled with the fact that I had to do it in Japanese... Ha. Ha.
Anyway somehow I managed to get through it- and thankfully everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Afterwards, we had a "question time" about my presentation, and I was really impressed with the thoughtfulness of the questions that came up. Things like whether I'd experienced culture shock (no), whether I got homesick (not really), in more detail what were study circles like...
For the last question, I tried to emphasise how much I'd learned from all the other study circle participants' views- ie that it wasn't a "I know this, you don't and what I believe IS right" (haha), I found that by listening to what other people believed I was often like "Wow, that is so true!". I asked some of the study circle participants who were there today what they thought. A lady who is in Book 3 (Children's education) at the moment said she'd been thinking about study circles lately and realised that it's more group brainstorming than anything. ie Rather than there being a "teacher" who tells everyone what is "right" and what is "wrong", everyone says what they think- which is treated as important and really MAKES the group.
Anyway, I was thinking it might be nice to have a "welcome back" party or something when I get back and use a similar Powerpoint (about what I did when I was here and maybe also about Japan in general). I guess any kind of excuse to see my friends all together again :)
Japanese Culture
I thought on my (probably) last blog, I might talk a bit about Japanese culture. To me, Japanese and Western culture seem in many ways fairly opposite. Of course neither one is "good" or "bad", just different in many ways (and in some ways similar!). The differences between the 2 cultures to me come down to one central difference: GROUP vs INDIVIDUAL
Western culture to me seems to value the importance of the individual. This can be good (freedom of opinion, basically freedom to be different in any way) or bad (being too opinionated, not thinking of others or society, basically focusing on the self)
Japanese culture, instead seems to value the importance of the group. This can also be good (caring about others- even strangers, importance of unity) or bad (excessive conformity, not questioning what the group thinks & automatically thinking that)
I think the idea of unity in diversity is really important, ie having everyone in the world united, while still retaining their respective individual cultures. Treating the world as "one country" is really important, but to make everyone the same would make everything VERY boring!
Just like probably most other countries, culture in Japan varies markedly from place to place. While not nearly as pronounced as those in China, it has regional dialects, for example. The Tokyo dialect is chosen as "standard" Japanese used on TV and at school. This has lead to middle-aged and younger Japanese people's speech being fairly understandable throughout the country. Elderly people, like Obaa-chan (Osaka dialect) though, who grew up before TV are not so.
Every prefecture, city, town... in Japan has it's specialty- Kagawa's being udon noodles for example. Wasanbon, a handmade specialty sugar, is also one- as is lacquerware.
Then just the way people act varies from place to place. Ando-san, who is originally from Yamaguchi prefecture on mainland Japan talks about the cultural differences between her and her husband's Shikokuan family and how that was sometimes a bit of a struggle. There's even a TV show here which goes to different places around Japan and highlights each one's interesting feature. My favourite example is Osaka. Osakan people are renowned for their sense of humour. The TV show had been told that if you went up to a random on the street in Osaka and mimed shooting them, they would fall down "dead". When I heard this, I thought it was the wildest stereotype I had ever heard, until I heard the rest. They actually went to Osaka and did it- and the person they did it to DID fall down "dead" hahaha.
The other one they did in Osaka was they went up to a stranger, carrying an inflatable world globe. They then asked him that they wanted to go to "... Park (in Osaka)" and would he show them where it was on the globe? HAHAHa! The guy they asked took them really seriously and proceeded to pretend to think seriously, then pointed in the vague area of Osaka on the globe. We could see his girlfriend in the background in hysterics.
I'm sure everyone reading this knows someone (or it may be yourself) who needs some form of healing in their life- whether physically or emotionally. I'll leave you with this prayer from our Monday night social night on "Healing":
Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succour in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
-Baha'u'llah
Sonia
