Changing impression of Japan

 When I came back to Japan from the United States, after finishing studying abroad, I had culture shock towards Japan. I felt strange about many things. First thing I noticed was that how close Japanese housings are next to its neighbors. Even though I had lived Japan for a long time, I felt uneasy about it, because the place where I stayed in America had more nature and it made me feel relaxed. I also thought it is strange to say "Sumimasen(I am sorry or Excuse me.)" all the time, even they are not doing anything bad or wrong to other people. I understood that they said so, because they would like to be polite and show respect to others, but it was still strange to me. I had a difficult time  adapting to Japanese style's of living again after coming back from the United States.

 During those time I had been straggled with my problem, I sometimes thought I would like to go back to America and I even thought that I dislike Japan. What I did not like the most about Japan was that, people are always working, including weekends. In America, people seemed like they work really hard on week days and play hard on weekends. I really liked the atmosphere of the U.S. On the contrary, Japanese people seemed like they are always working including weekends. I had school on Saturday and  salalymen look always tired on a train.

 After I graduated high school and entered to Kansai Gaidai University, however, I begun to like Japan a lot. I think it is due to an interactions with new friends who came from all over Japan and other countries. As I communicate with them, I discovered that Japan has a lot of interesting things that should be introduced to people who are not familiar with Japan. Since exchange students have different perspectives from me, they think Japanese culture, which is very normal to me, is very unique.

Tower in Kyoto



My home town's cherry blossom tree

 I really enjoyed the Visual Anthropology of Japan class, even I did not have enough knowledge about blogging or photography. Through this class, I learned what kind of things foreign people are interested about Japan. I knew that they think Japanese traditional and modern pop culture are interesting. I, however, was surprised when classmate told me that she is interested in a people's lives in rural part of Japan. I was very happy to hear that, because I am from rural part of Japan.

 I am going to study abroad from this fall and have chance to introduce about Japan to people outside of Japan. I will introduce "basic things" about Japan, but at the same time, I decided to introduce Japanese culture which has not shown to people so much, such as rural lives in Japan, host clubs, diversities of fashion style and school lives.

River in Kyoto