Sports

I get hit up about sports a lot in my teaching. I get asked about my favorite teams, my favorite players, my favorite sport overall, and the like. Because I can’t tell the truth about my favorite sport (let’s face it, a female teacher talking about how much she loves target shooting is not really promoting a positive stereotype of America here.) As a native Southern Californian, I’m geographically obligated to support the Dodgers and Angels, which spawns questions about the Dodgers’ Japanese player. Or is it the Angels? This is my dad’s field, not mine.

Pun unintended.

Gender

What an interesting prompt. I say that because even in America I don’t think of gender. Being pretty apathetic to gender and sexuality as a whole I never really thought about the social implications of gender in Japan. Other than not being able to use masculine mannerisms in speaking, I haven’t noticed anything different about being female in Japan. I get treated pretty well, never talked down to, and in fact I’ve found that I can be pitied a lot faster just because I’m female, and it’s rather fantastic when you’re lost and a whimpering mess, I won’t lie.

Globalization

Japan is a surprisingly bilingual country. The road signs have both Japanese and English, many packages have English, and most Japanese know at least one English word. It’s quite interesting since we have prepared, studied, and toiled for this moment when we could finally come to Japan and expected to be able to hit the ground running language wise. Yet we are rather enabled. It’s so tempting and, while it’s easy to just take the bait and use English, I know I’m here to learn Japanese and I feel guilty I take the easy route. It’s a conflict that I deal with everyday living with someone who can speak English quite well. Easy isn’t always the most educational.

Religion

I know I’m a little fish in a big pond, even though I live next door to a church (I believe my host brother said it was a Catholic church) but I see “religion” as Westerners call it all over Japan. The butsudan, or shrine in the family’s home, leaving offerings at local shrines hidden by shrubs in front of malls, tea as a whole, it seems that religion is everywhere in Japan. Yet if you ask a Japanese person “are you religious” more often than not you’ll get “no” as an answer. That does not surprise me in the slightest.

In my opinion, the idea of what religion entails is a very Western idea. We have a concept of what a religion is, how it works, and its purpose and it’s not an entirely one-size-fits-all idea that translates well outside the US border. Shinto is so rich and ingrained in the culture of Japan it’s barely noticeable. Which is unfortunate, since there is so much beauty in Shinto.

Pop Culture

I would like to take a moment to soapbox. I would like to soapbox about something small; “otaku.” This spawned from a small conversation with my host sister, in which I explained that there were some American fans of Japanese animation that wore the otaku label with pride. She was baffled as to why people would willingly call themselves a basement dwelling loser with no social life. I explained that the American definition and Japanese definition were very different. This did not settle her confusion, but the subject was left at that.

Many anime fans are shocked to find out that they are calling themselves losers. After all, in America, anime is a hobby of the worldly geek. They are the geek who transcends national boundaries for their geekery, learning a new language to feed their hobby.

That’s the problem.

While anime is a great way to gateway into learning about Japanese (not pop) culture, several people just… stagnate. That’s the only way I can describe it. If only we could push them.

People

Living in a ryokan, I tend to meet a lot of people in the evenings when I have dinner in the dining hall. I have seen all ages, all genders, and a healthy variety of occupations. I have spoken briefly with a calligrapher who specializes in the calligraphy on sake bottles, a photographer, multiple teachers from both Iwate University and a local business school, and many businessmen. Several foreigners have also come through the ryokan; tourists from Quebec, a volunteer worker from Chicago, and physicists from Germany and Turkey. It seems as if the ryokan is a stop for just about anyone coming by, guest or not. Several patrons are regulars and sometimes bring omiyage.