Seminar III 自己紹介 and 今日の議論

自己紹介
始めましたカーリーです。熊本学園大学の２１歳留学生です。イギリスから来ました。リバプールジョンモーズ大学で専門は日本語と国際ビジネスです。私の町は「ノチンハム」と言います。今年、熊本に住んでいます。楽しみです！熊本が好きです！日本で旅行したり日本語が上手になりたいです。友達になりたい人は、会った時に「こんにちは」と言って下さい。よろしくお願いします。

Hello, my name is Carly. I am 21 year old exchange student at Kumamoto Gakuen University. I am from England and study Japanese and International Business Studies at Liverpool John Moore's University. My hometown is Nottingham, but this year I will be living in Kumamoto. I love Kumamoto! Whilst in Japan I would like to travel and become excellent at Japanese! I'd like to make lots of friends so if you see me please say hi!

Today's Discussion: ...................

Our topic of conversation initially came from Alexa who noticed that Japanese people tend to look at us foreigners weird, they may point and laugh, giggle under their breath. Sometimes they stare in shock, or look at us in disgust. There are varied reactions but the fact is, from just being a foreign student in Kumamoto, we will get reactions just by walking down the street.

My friend Kie is from Thailand and also studies Japanese. She had an amusing experience when asking where a shop was in Camitori, Downtown. She approached a middle-aged woman and despite asking directions in Japanese, the woman actually ran away from her. I think experiences like this we must not get offended, as it is just the langauge barrier and unfamiliarity that may intimidate non-English speaking Japanese people. And besides, it was hilarious to watch! However, I can't help to wonder that the situation would be very different in England. Due to our multi-cultural society I don't the the above incident would have occured.

There are other occassions when small children have wispered 'gaijin' and giggled amongst each other, sometimes they say 'hello' and its very cute, and they are always surprised when we answer back especially in Japanese. Yes, we are walking AND talking gaijin :o) However,adults seem to be slightly hostile and seem to just stare at us because we look so strange.

An interesting point was raised about the school education system and because pre WWII English classes did not exist, the older generation (70/80+ year olds) are willing to talk quite happily to us once they realise we know some Japanese and don't attempt to speak in English. During my homestay weekend I stayed with a family, including the grandmother who also lived there. She was so pleased to just be able to speak to me, although here dialect was very difficult to understand so conversation was limited! Below this age range there seems to be an emphasis on Japanese people having to talk English to a foreigner, and so the stress on this would obviously cause anxiety about their own langauge skills and may feel inadequate to talk to foreign people, therefore resulting in someone running away! The sad situation is, I want to speak Japanese!I'm here to learn and speak Japanese, and I really don't want people to be scared of me :o( I'm nice really!