SCHOOL LIFE: Last Tuesday and Thursday, preparing for school festival

 So, last Tuesday and Thursday were pretty sparse in anything memorable from classes. It was business as usual, but due to other business that has been particularly pressing this last week, I could not devote my full attention to classes. The other business happens to be the school festival, and due to the involvement of students, particularly those in club activities, it's incredible that it takes place during the regular academic semester and undoubtedly preoccupies students' time. So, as a member of the Folk Song Club, I have been busy with some of these arrangements. Just like a truly culturally immersed exchange student. As for the details of school festivals, as well as the festival for the University of Hyogo itself, I will get to those in other entries.

 Tuesday in "Comparative Cultures", we discussed projects that will be due in a couple weeks that focus on comparing distances between people in different situations. This involves "Man-Watching", a stalker-esque practice of observing and even taking pictures of people and studying their behavior without them being aware. The idea feels a bit creepy to me, but it also lets people indulge in that feeling for academic gain. Students were asked to give their ideas on what they would do for projects. I had no idea at the time but after class I decided to observe people in the setting of nightclubs, and how they dance. If possible I'll go to 2 or 3 night clubs, some mainly for Japanese, some mainly for foreigners, and observe the distance between people dancing and those dancing together, and how it changes between Japanese and foreigners to Japan. Whether or not I'll actually muster the will to go and watch people dance for a period of time, or if they'll even allow pictures is up in the air.

 The next class, "Intercultural Communication" was mainly about presenting information from a handout in English. It actually contains a lot of information similar to what's being taught in "Comparative Cultures". I'm supposed to present a section on "Touch" next week. The biggest discussion during class came when a Japanese student, paired with a Chinese student, read from the text to the class, while the Chinese student gave her personal thoughts and opinions on the information. The professor chastised the Japanese student for simply reading the text, but I brought up very bluntly that it can be help because "Japanese colleges are worthless for developing critical thought". While the professor agreed with the sentiment, although a little taken back at the deliberate bluntness of it, I said it to illustrate a cultural difference between Americans and Japanese, which was later discussed in the aspect of confidence in speaking, and how Japanese tend to prefer to sound unsure and vague when they state their opinions. Americans, on the other hand, are forward and appreciate confident, concrete statements. And I'm sure that the professor knew that this was the case, so I'm not worried if it caused offense or not. The issue of not developing critical thought in a large amount of Japanese colleges makes the graduation theses they are requires to write even more difficult, which is something I have taken note of in my seminar class.

 Third period was the last chance to practice with the band I'm playing with in the Folk Song Club, so I did not attend class. Even though it was the last practice, we are going to book studio time because none of the freshmen students I'm playing with are really confident enough to perform on Monday.

 Thursday I made it in late for Japanese Language and Culture, which was yet another analyzation of news articles from children's news programming. The stresses of the upcoming school festival made it hard to focus on stories about recovered Japanese cultural artifacts (swords of the emperor dating before 1000AD that had been lost a hundred years ago), a near collision of a plane and a mountain and also a nearly derailed train, and some baseball story, followed by a conclusion to the COP10 summit in Nagoya about protecting wildlife and nature.

 Second period, which should have been "Private/Civic Law" was also missed so I could get my guitar for a practice session that day. I probably missed as much as I would actually sitting in the class.

 Third period was "Interchanging Societies" which still focused on population movements to more dense, urban areas, throwing chart and graph on top one another regarding the percentages of populations during the last ten years throughout the Kobe area. The point has been that since population is trending toward being more dense around train stations and other centers of transportation and commerce, more people from rural areas will come to these densely populated places in order to have better access to services. This is largely due to the major percentage of elderly Japanese citizens who will be unable to take care of themselves in more sparsely populated areas. The lecture was informative, but mainly of forgettable facts rather than actual insight. This relates to the style of lecturing in Japan which presents a broad topic and feeds relevant information, with a much more minor focus on the interpretation of that information.

 Forth period the seminar professor was out sick.

 I'll be glad once the festival is out of the way, but do my best to enjoy it.