Well, it's halfway over.
It's really gone by fast. I'm not sure how to even feel about it. There's part of me that is so ready to have a normal life again...to be able to have a day off and go home and sleep in my own bed. And then there's a small part of me that feels like I haven't learned enough yet...I know I will miss these students very much when they leave. I wish they were all staying here. Out of 24 students, only one is staying. The rest will go to the east coast.
It's been an interesting week. I've learned a lot more about their culture. Mostly because culture shock is starting to set in for some of them.
The director of the program came this week. She talked with all of the students about their plans for after the program. During these interviews, the students raised several concerns, none of which had ever been brought to our attention. They were pretty minor things...wanting different breakfast items, wanting us to post a bulletin board for announcements...little things like that. But they never mentioned those things to us.
Turns out this passiveness is very prevalent in Japanese culture. They are so used to being told what to do and never given a chance to express themselves. They are also used to having a group to fall back on.
That's not how things work here. You're expected to be responsible for yourself...nobody to fall back on, really, and nobody to tell you what to do. If you have a problem, you have to confront it yourself to make it better. I think this is hard for them to understand. I had to tell them that they need to let me know if they have a problem so we can fix it.
Here are my observations this week:
1) The students have a hard time comprehending that participation is important in classes. In American universities, it's usually part of your grade. In Japan, participation is not required. Students are never asked their opinion, so they are not used to having to speak in class or raise their hand to answer questions.
2) The students are soooo shy. I'm a very shy person, but I guess that only works on an American scale because I am outgoing in comparison to these students. This explains a lot of their passiveness.
3) Japanese students seem to be afraid of making mistakes. They will spend hours just staring at their textbooks. I tried to tell them to grasp concepts and ideas rather than try to study things word for word, but it hasn't seemed to catch on yet. They either want to speak grammatically correct or not speak English at all. This is a major setback for language learners. You have to get used to the idea that you WILL mess up and that it's ok because you will learn from it. Some students have gotten better about this and have improved...others are still too afraid to speak.
4) They slurp their food really loudly. I have pretty extreme noise anxiety, especially with eating noises, so when I ordered Chinese food one night and they were all slurping lo mein I thought I was going to set the entire building on fire. It drove me INSANE. I found out that it is a cultural thing. The slurping noise is to make other people around them think that they are really enjoying their food. It made it impossible for me to enjoy mine.
5) The idea of food coloring disgusts most of the students. I tried to explain that it doesn't change the taste of the food...they still didn't go for it. They cringed when I mentioned making blue rice.
6) Christmas is very different in Japan than it is here. With children, it is celebrated somewhat similarly...you spend the day with your family and decorate the tree...et cetera. When you get older, however, it is celebrated much more like Valentine's Day. Usually you spend the day with whoever you are dating, exchange gifts, and eat KFC. The girl I was talking to about it was shocked when I told her that KFC was not traditional Christmas food...haha.
7) A lot of Americans would consider Japanese guys to be somewhat feminine. It's normal for them to spend a lot of time styling their hair and to wear pink. When we went to the mall last weekend, several of them were sampling Victoria's Secret scents. When we got to the bus, I noticed one of them carrying the familiar pink striped bag. It's actually kind of a nice change. I think American men are way too preoccupied with advertising their masculinity, which usually results in them having no personality.
We went to Worlds of Fun yesterday. I wasn't overly impressed. Some of the rides were a lot of fun, but it was waaaaaaaay overpriced and the weather was terrible. I felt like I was in an oven.
It just doesn't feel like 4th of July. No fireworks, no cookout food, no family. I at least hope we can see some fireworks from the dorms. I also hope that next week goes by fast. We'll see.
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