To clarify
Normally when trying to describe one's experiences with another culture, one has to worry about misrepresenting the "other," not oneself, but, just to make things from my last entry clear...
I do not make a point of acting in rude or overtly/stereotypical American ways. I removed my leg from my desk, precisely because I realized (due to Sensei suddenly looking in my direction) what I was doing. Sometimes it's too late, but, gee, aren't I allowed a slip every once in a while? And for the record, I think that was the first time I did that in Japanese class, because the atmosphere in Japanese class is very different from the atmosphere in Shoji class - where one professor is American and most of the students are foreigners and many of the ones who aren't have lived outside Japan at some time or other - so I try to be really careful about speaking politely (i.e. "masu" form instead of plain), not forgetting my trash, handing things to Sensei with two hands or standing up to take her my work instead of making her run across the classroom for it... my biggest mistake though (correct me if you've noticed something worse, Phil) I think is yesterday I ate something in class.
So, in short, I *do* recognize and try to accommodate the various cultural differences I encounter, but obviously, I'm not going to blog about my success, because that's just not interesting.
The test today was a little stressful, but it's over, so I'm not going to say anything more about it.
I just returned from the library, trying to find sources for the sarai article and the Shoji class project and whatever else. I actually found some interesting-looking books, in particular (what I think translates as) "In America, how has Japanese anime come to be seen/watched?" The cover has words like "Digimon" and "Yu-gi-oh" sprawled across it, and the first sentence is something like "After all, Spirited Away won an Academy Award..." so it looks promising. Unfortunately, I didn't have any protective plastic with me and it was drizzling, so I left everything I found in the library. Will return tomorrow, dattebayo!
And now, time to think about dinner...
I do not make a point of acting in rude or overtly/stereotypical American ways. I removed my leg from my desk, precisely because I realized (due to Sensei suddenly looking in my direction) what I was doing. Sometimes it's too late, but, gee, aren't I allowed a slip every once in a while? And for the record, I think that was the first time I did that in Japanese class, because the atmosphere in Japanese class is very different from the atmosphere in Shoji class - where one professor is American and most of the students are foreigners and many of the ones who aren't have lived outside Japan at some time or other - so I try to be really careful about speaking politely (i.e. "masu" form instead of plain), not forgetting my trash, handing things to Sensei with two hands or standing up to take her my work instead of making her run across the classroom for it... my biggest mistake though (correct me if you've noticed something worse, Phil) I think is yesterday I ate something in class.
So, in short, I *do* recognize and try to accommodate the various cultural differences I encounter, but obviously, I'm not going to blog about my success, because that's just not interesting.
The test today was a little stressful, but it's over, so I'm not going to say anything more about it.
I just returned from the library, trying to find sources for the sarai article and the Shoji class project and whatever else. I actually found some interesting-looking books, in particular (what I think translates as) "In America, how has Japanese anime come to be seen/watched?" The cover has words like "Digimon" and "Yu-gi-oh" sprawled across it, and the first sentence is something like "After all, Spirited Away won an Academy Award..." so it looks promising. Unfortunately, I didn't have any protective plastic with me and it was drizzling, so I left everything I found in the library. Will return tomorrow, dattebayo!
And now, time to think about dinner...
posted by Bibhatsu at 04:31
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home