SCHOOL LIFE: Last Tuesday and today

 The weather has gotten colder and colder throughout the last week, perhaps promising a frigid winter season. Hanging around outside on campus becomes less and less appealing than going straight to class. Still, on Tuesday I made it into first period's "Comparative Cultures" relatively late, in the midst of students who were presenting a writing assignment that had slipped my mind before. I wasn't able to fully make out the details of their reports but it had to do with opinions on human behavior between cultures. If what was being said becomes clearer, I'll make sure to post about it here. Other than that, there was a strange assignment in drawing side-by-side representations of the Tokyo Tower and the Eiffel Tower in order to compare perceptions of similar landmarks based on one's own culture.

 Following Comparative Cultures was Intercultural Communication, and this class featured a student who had live in Australia for about a year discussing her experiences with culture shock, learning English, and the value of pursuing education on a personal level. She discussed how cultural differences in touch caused discomfort for Japanese girls when Brazilian students would hug and kiss as a gesture of friendship. She also went on about how time is valued in Australia compared to Japan, saying that in Australia people find more time to relax rather than keep up a constant, nonstop pace. This difference in time and stress management could explain how rambunctious Japanese people tend to get in drinking situations, compared to the more evenly distributed leisure time in other cultures. The most important point she made, however, is that when asked about economics or business while studying in Australia, she realized she didn't have any real grasp on what she was majoring in at the University of Hyogo. Foreign students also had a better understanding of Japanese history than her. Motivated by her embarrassment, she felt it necessary to be more knowledgeable in her field of study and culture, and she imparted that wisdom onto the rest of the class. Surely, if no passion is put into studying, it will not amount to anything real.

 For "Interchanging Societies", more statistics were shown, this time in regard to highway stops in Japan. Japanese highway stops differ from other countries in that they take on a very common form, with not only restrooms and travel information but also cafeterias, convenience stores and most importantly, souvenirs or omiyage (お土産), a crucial part of Japanese culture as different prefectures offer various specialties such as fruits or confections, sometimes more generic for prefectures without any real marketable fame. Highway stops are the perfect place to sell these items for travelers in need of securing omiyage they didn't buy in the heart of where they're coming from. The Japanese highway stops were compared to ones in the United States, which take on a simpler form or are located around other businesses near highway exits.

 For today, more presentations were given in Japanese Language and Culture, this time being a whole string of students merely showing graphs and statistics about their subjects. Strangely enough, however, there seemed to be a common theme linking at least the first two presentations, something along the lines of low self-esteem or alienation. The first was about how Japanese people are overly thin because of overly idealized body images; it was a good lead-in to the next presentation about Japan having one of the highest suicide rates in Japan. The student presenting about suicide managed to do it in an unintentionally humorous way. Both presentations did little but show the construction of Japan being in these unflattering positions rather than offering real insight into the causes and cultural implications. The other two presentations involved proper manners in Japan (such as bowing and chopsticks) and a student merely presenting his favorite Japanese anime.

 Second period, Civil/Private Law, involved a test that I figured would be a lost cause for myself, as it mainly involved copying excerpts from a text book I didn't own. By not going to the class, however, I learned that many students I know who had never set foot in the classes before are actually enrolled. Apparently, credit does not count at all on attendance but rather on test scores. This explains how students come in and out of the class at their whim, while the more studious ones are in there nearly every class period.

 In Interchanging Societies, the professor moved into a discussion about Farmer's Markets in Japan and how they serve local areas that lack a supermarket. There were various statistics shown on the growth in popularity with Farmer's Markets in Japan, and at the end some slides compared Japanese Farmer's Markets with ones in Olympia, WA (as I said before, the professor, Ueno-sensei, did an exchange to teach at Evergreen).

 Seminar consisted of more presentations on research, and as it was my day to present, I explained my research that I did through a contract at Evergreen during the summer quarter of 2008. I wrote a short summary of my research in English (I will post it after this) and presented it in Japanese.