Cultural Collision

It's been a full week, with a billion orientations in classic Japanese style and the beginning of classes.

Over the weekend I met Saori-san, who is the host sister of one of the IES students. She is fluent in German after spending a year studying in Vienna and speaks English with a German accent. Whenever she tried to tell something to her host brother, she'd start in English, get confused, mutter to herself in rapid German, and then give up and continue in Japanese. I feel a little bad for laughing at that, but it's an amusing sign of this century, and it made me think of David.

I already feel a little bit of homesickness and cultural friction, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it's going to get worse before it gets better. The three biggest issues for me are:

Gender roles. My host parents' daughter brought her family over for dinner, including the 6-year old daughter, Mei-chan (so cute!), and the 7-year son, Kei-kun. When we were setting up for dinner, Mei's mother had her help out while Kei just sat on his butt watching TV. What really got to me was how they were talking up Kei, telling him he was going to Tokyo University (the best in Japan), while my host father, almost as an afterthought said, "Mei, you're going to college, too, right?" To what extent should I consider Asian gender roles as simply different, and to what extent should I judge it as unfair? It seems that the concepts of fair and unfair aren't the same here.

Polytheism. It feels weird to call Shinto that, there's no way around it. In the back of my mind, polytheism is something that only existed thousands of years ago, even though I know it's practiced in quite a few places today. Most Japanese people are relatively agnostic, but there's a shrine to a mountain god in my house. Given all the strong pronouncements against idolatry and polytheism in the Hebrew Scriptures, it makes me uncomfortable.

Not fitting in. I'm fine in the city, but as soon as I take the train out to the boonies, I get self-conscious that I'm not Japanese. There's no possible way for me to blend in with commuters, and moreover, my face carries with me all the stereotypes (good, bad, and weird) of Americans. This is just for a semester - I can't imagine how hard it would be for someone to pick up everything and go to a completely different culture. And I think I'm beginning to understand why minorities in America tend to group off from the majority population, it's tempting to spend all my time online or with the other Americans.

These are all hard to deal, but I'd much rather face them than having to go to middle school again, as Luke mentioned.

On a less serious note, I really like the trash cans here. There are typically four in close proximity: two for burnable and non-burnable trash, and two recycling cans. Overall, Japan is much more into conservation than the States - you don't heat or cool rooms you're not using, and you don't keep them at the temperature extremes we do. If I was a sea turtle, I would live around here!


P.S. Does the sun ever really set (ala the British Empire) on the four of us and Steve? I think it must somewhere over the Pacific.