bikurishita

just an quick update about racism in japan..

yesterday a couple friends and i were at the station buying out train tickets to go to the next city over to see a movie. a japanese man comes out from no where and slaps my blonde friends arm and tells her to leave japan. he then continues to make a fuss and tell my other friend to go back to his country because foreigners don't belong in japan.

the man then went on and told the ticket takers at the station that we, foreigners shouldnt be there because, well, we're foreign.

and thats the story for yuh, racism exists!

too bad you cant pick where you were born, or how you were born!

four months!

I haven’t written on this blog in a while, I kept wanting to update with something but I’ve just been so busy living that I’ve had no time to sit down and write about everything I do all day!

This December has been a very crazy month. I moved host families and that’s a really hard thing. I’ve never experienced it before – but moving into my new host family made me really homesick for my first host family. I didn’t realize how good that family was to me until I started to live in a different situation. Because of all this, homesickness settled in. But not homesickness for Canada – homesickness for my first host family! So I started to do more things – tried to at least. I got a gym membership, hung out with friends after school. Tried to fill up my time rather than being at home all the time. It kind of worked – I’m feeling better about the whole sitch now – but the whole reason I still feel so down is that this family isn’t very Japanese. They don’t take me anywhere and don’t do anything with me. The house is small

and they don’t do many Japanese things. I just feel like there are so many other families that could be giving me a more cultural experience about Japan and Japanese life. So that is still bothering me about living here – but you also can’t forget, as an exchange student, your host family had a life before knowing you. They just can’t drop everything and make life revolve around you. That's a big thing that exchange students learn while on exchange – how life doesn’t revolve around them. But then again, there do end up being the exchange students who have amazing host families all the time who pamper them and treat them amazingly and that doesn’t end up helping them in the end. It just sucks when you have a member of your host family who you just have a complete personality difference with – but, that’s life. And its hard! And an exchange student life is no exception.

I hung out with all the other exchange students a lot this month - both Rotary and AFS. I’m writing this without internet right now and can’t remember if I told you about the other AFS exchange students of not – but there are two other kids in Kanazawa, my city. A guy from Germany and one girl from France – they're really nice, and both speak English – they’re a lot of fun. The difference between hanging out with another exchange student or students means we always go out for a meal and actually do something substanstially fun compared to hanging out with just my Japanese friends. The culture in Japan is that when you hang out with your friends from school after school or on the weekend – you go put on some makeup, go for tapioca, take pictures and go home before dinner. I love hanging out with my Japanese friends – they’re great, and it’s fun, and it’s why I came to japan – to learn Japanese from native speakers – but it’s definitley a lot of fun just hanging out with us exchange students. I speak a lot of English because I hang out with them so much – but I think that's fine. My Japanese is getting there . My host family only speaks Japanese and at school all day, I only speak Japanese. I’m trying so hard to learn this language – but it’s so very hard. You need a lot of determination to learn Japanese that’s for sure. The grammar structure is opposite from English – on top of that, any new language is hard with creating a whole new vocabulary . Plus, writing and reading Japanese

is a whole other language on top of that – the writing system, Kanji, is even difficult for native speakers! I’m trying my hardest and I can see how much I’ve improved. I mean I am able to speak and understand a majority of things now a days – but I’m still basically close to illiterate. I’m trying so hard to learn new kanji, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day for all of the stuff that I have written in my hello kitty schedule book.

Earlier in the month, a really nice woman took me and another exchange student Mari out for the day. The woman was an exchange student to America about 30 years ago! It’s always such a great time when someone takes me out for the day, and these people have definitely inspired me to host and take out the exchange students back home in Canada in the future! This lady was so nice – she took us out for a beautiful lunch, then we went and decorated chopsticks and boxes and obento’s with gold leaf paper – which is kind of a traditional thing about my city, Kanazawa. It was really interesting! The gold leaf paper is so thin and delicate, it was really difficult - and definitely gave me an appreciation for all of the beautiful pieces of artwork and plates and house decorations that are decorated with gold leaf! After all that, she took us out to a beautiful buffet dinner with her family. And by the way in Japanese, buffet is “biking” so she said, in English, “we’re going to a biking” – because she didn’t know the world buffet in English. Those thing always happen with the mix of Japanese and English, always make me laugh. But yeah – it was a great day and I’m always so appreciative of when people take out us exchange students J!

Before Christmas, I went out for dinner with my first host mom. We went out for Tempura and we had a really nice chat about all of the things causing the emotional roller coaster ride I was on this month because of all the changes with my family and everything! My first host mom is definitely someone I would consider a second mother and it’s so amazing to be able to have that. That’s definitely a cool part of being an exchange student – being able to have two or six moms or 7 host sisters and 4 dads all around the world – it’s pretty cool, and it’s definitely even better when your host families or members of your host families become people part of your real family in your heart J

The week or so of school before Christmas break was really fun. The students in my class all want to be kindergarten teachers – so we went on a trip to a University in a city near by and for two days, we just played children’s games and sang children’s songs in order to learn what children would like to do! It was a lot of fun. We also had sports day – for two days. There was volleyball, basketball, soccer, and dodge ball. It was a big tournament between all the classes in each grade – it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of new people and a lot of people I don’t ever get the chance to talk to came and talked to me. I probably took pictures with like 60 people – it was like my first day of school again, when they’re seeing a foreign girl with gold hair for the first time! It was a lot of fun, and it made me realize how much I love my school and how friendly and great everyone is J I will definitely miss these kids when I go back to Canada.

Christmas was the most, different and un-meaningful Christmas I’ve ever had. My family all had work and both host sisters had school on Christmas eve day. That night we went out for, another, buffet. Had some Christmas cake and that was it. No cute family activities, no sitting around the fireplace watching family videos or watching Rudolph on TV. I recall my host sister was on the computer – he other playing with a nitendo ds, my host dad watching some American drama on television with Japanese subtitles. So my Christmas activity for the night was painting snowmen on my fingernails and toes. Christmas morning – both host parents went to work and one sister had school. Just that in itself made Christmas not Christmas. I work up and said goodbye to my host dad who was leaving for work – and then, I skyped my family back in Canada for their Christmas eve.

They sent me a huge package of gifts for Christmas to open over skype – and I did the same. So we watched each other open up gifts over skype. That technology is so amazing, to be able to talk and see someone all the way across the world and it’s as if you’re just sitting in the same room as them!

Christmas day also happened to be TWO of my exchange student friends’ 19^th birthday! So instead of it being Christmas – it basically turned into a birthday party. We went out for lunch, and karaoke for a few hours. We ate a lot of snacks – including a gianormous milk chocolate bar and then after, went out for dinner. Not to forget, took some more purikura too. Purikura is just, something you do – its just a rite of passage to take puikura pictures every time you go out!

On the 26^th, we had a Rotary Orientation. We met al of the exchange students going out from Japan on exchange next year an we saw all our friends who came to our districts last year or the year before on exchange J It was a lot of just, information sessions and talking – not quite as fun as the Rotary weekends we had in Canada.. but it was nice to hang out with everyone J

It’s now the 28^th of December 2009. It’s almost 2010! I can not believe how much time has passed, and how fast it’s gone by! I’ve lived here for four months already! It seems like I just got here last week - but then again, I can barely even remember my life before living in Japan! And I can barely remember my English.. writing this was a pain in the neck because keep forgetting how to properly word my English phrases, hah, great.

it's december already?

As I'm sitting here in my school's computer lab, bored stiff while everyone else writes tests.. I reread all of my blogs I wrote in Japan. And it's amazing how much I can see I've changed! My style, my taste and my opinions! Food I wrote about not liking, I now love. Like dango - its a japanese sweet. Japanese sweets aren't very sweet my the way, most are bland and flavoured with matcha or sweet bean. But don't be fooled, sweet beans are just sort of sweet. But yeah! and the things I didn't understand or I didn't know what they were, I know now and use them daily and can't even remember life without them! Such as the vending machines here. Before you come to Japan it's like a legend, "the amazing japanese vending machines" and for the first while I was here I thought so too, but now they've just become so common and just a part of my life!

So it's December, unbelieveable! I've moved host families.. I was really sad to leave my first host family, but I didn't feel sad until the moment my new host family came to pick me up from my old house and I had to rush off. So, obviously, my old host mom chocked up, I cried, I left, it still makes me sad to think about it! I had a great host family for my first three months :) My new hostfamily lives in an apartment, which is new for me. It's really small. I have a host mom, dad and two sisters. One sister came to Canada last year! So it's nice to already know her. The parking garage at my apartment is really cool, you park your car, and then the platform you parked it on lowers down into the ground so the next person parks on top of your car! It's pretty cool! They do this because Japan is so small and there really isn't alot of space, so they build up and down.

Christmas here isn't the same as in Canada. All my fmaily will do is eat a cake. No decorations, no music, no big dinners or parties.. I find that kind of sad and I know I will become more homesick this month - but I think I will skype home for their Christmas morning. Because by that time, Christmas will be over here.
Yeah, kind of sad. But I guess I can deal with it. It's just so different living ina culture where they don't celebrate any of the same holidays you grew up with as a kid and are a big part of your culture!

I have to get writing a speech in Japanese for my Rotary meeting.. so I should get on that.
Questions? Concerns? Holiday Wishes? Give me a comment :)