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ookiimarukochan posted:It was also fairly popular when it aired in Japan!
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Mar 9, 2013 10:30
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Protocol 5 posted:Rising Sun by Michael Crichton is pretty much the gold-standard for contemporary hysterical anti-Japanese racism in America. The ironic thing is that it paints Japan as the most racist country on Earth, while simultaneously characterizing protectionist government policies and commercial practices as essential elements of the Japanese devious racial character and a valid justification for hating and fearing them. Not only that, but it was published right on the heels of the recession in 1991 that was caused by the savings and loan crisis. Rising Sun the book was just another example of Micheal Crichton's terrible political opinions influencing his writing. Rising Sun the movie was a hilarious depiction of white people trying to understand Japanese people and use their ways against them.
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Mar 9, 2013 10:36
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Not to be that guy, but there comes a point where it's just not worth dealing with all this stuff any more and it makes more sense to just leave Japan. I did, and I haven't looked back.
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Mar 9, 2013 14:36
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I just keep telling my self that every place is poo poo. There doesn't exist a magical paradise [country] where everything is perfect. The decision you make on where to live is based entirely on what things you are willing to tolerate in exchange for things you don't get elsewhere. As a really stupid example, I enjoy not being bombarded by Christian rhetoric in Japan. Its fun explaining Christmas in Japan to people in the US; "What?! You mean theres no mention of Jesus Christ anywhere in Japan during Christmas?! " (I grew up in a bible belt in the US south, so that may help put some perspective on this)
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Mar 9, 2013 17:04
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When I was living in Japan, before I stepped on U.S soil, I sort of accepted the Japanese perception of Westerners as true. Now when I watch these commercials, it doesn't feel right because I have never met a white person who can't speak Japanese talk that way, ever. So instead of thinking "yeah I've met someone like that", I thought "what planet are these people from?". I've met enough people "ching chong ding dong" me enough in the U.S that those commercials in Japan just feels cute.
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Mar 9, 2013 19:27
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The response about expecting more of such a developed culture rings pretty true. I also think that if I were a non-full blooded child born as a citizen and treated unequally, or an economic migrant looked down upon, I'd be pretty pissy. Mostly I've tried not to respond because this is a debate that I've had going back about ten years with the O.G. Western expat in Japan, Hangly Man, and I don't have a ton to contribute. One thing I've often wondered about, since I live in what is never thought of, but actually is Japan's sleepy, tropical little ethnic monoculture of a Buddhist cousin, is that the amount of cultural exclusivity and pull a country exerts seems to vary directly with the amount of effort that expats put into assimilation and the amount of disenchantment that is felt over the inevitable lack of acceptance. I'm not sure if all of that's accurate, but I am sure that expats in countries like China and Japan seem to care a lot more about learning, and integrating into the local culture and language than expats in countries like Thailand or Malaysia and I've also noticed a lot more anger at the more subtle signs of non-acceptance like goofball racial ads. I suspect a substantial part of this is that most expats here actually can't understand the old lady next to them when she says, "Oh white people don't know anything" or "white people stink" (both of which I hear with enough frequency to make me chuckle), but I also think it probably has to do with some other quality that's related to the seriousness with which the cultures take themselves and expats take the cultures - like, "Man, I've really worked my rear end off here and you people still won't accept me?" when, in one's home culture in a country like Canada, one would never think of looking at an Asian person in public and saying out loud in English, "Haha, I bet the yellow man there has a tiny penis!" or [insert rude cultural stereotype] with the assumption that they aren't a citizen and don't speak the language. Here, most people just get wound up about dual pricing and more obvious things like that (another thing that doesn't bother me, really). Sure, there's a cosmic moral balance of racism to be concerned about, but that's not how people's brains work when it comes to having hurt feelings. In any case, the broader topic interests me and you guys have such wildly different expat experiences that it's fascinating to read the Japan, China and Korea threads (also because in our threads there are only ever 2-3 people living here). ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Mar 9, 2013 |
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Mar 9, 2013 20:51
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ReindeerF posted:"white people stink" (both of which I hear with enough frequency to make me chuckle) Actually part of the "Banzai" thing was me wondering at WoWoW's programming decisions in general. As a rule they're the only people to show UK programmes (OK, NHK showed Red Dwarf about 15 years ago, and then Dr Who after Korea picked it up - but only late at night as it was so scary/violent!) and they make some WEIRD decisions. Showing Ashes to Ashes but not Life On Mars for instance - if you've not watched the show that's basically skipping the first 2 series of a 5 series heavily serialised drama. Oh and no-one at NHK actually watches TV, they're all too "grown up" for it (more or less direct quote) - it was set up as a clone of the BBC but they never seem to have quite gotten what Lord Reith was trying to do. Not angry at them though, it is literally the only company I have worked for in Japan where no-one did any overtime, ever. ookiimarukochan fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Mar 9, 2013 |
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Mar 9, 2013 22:23
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ReindeerF posted:The response about expecting more of such a developed culture rings pretty true. I also think that if I were a non-full blooded child born as a citizen and treated unequally, or an economic migrant looked down upon, I'd be pretty pissy. My children will be Japanese citizens, but I'll be damned if I'm raising or letting them go to school here. The stories all my friends with kids have are just like parenting worst nightmare scenarios - daycare workers looking on while all the other kids bully your child, schools refusing to admit that your child is being bullied and attacked for being foreign (despite the recent bullying scandals in the news, even), and constantly being singled out their entire lives as foreigners despite being citizens who were born here, speak Japanese as their first language, and being directly descended from a national, etc. I've got a lot of respect for the people that do stay and try to raise kids here, but it's just something I could never actually bring myself to do. Edit: they would of course be free to study abroad or whatever, but primary education is right out. Also a new loving Borudo commercial came on while I was typing this. Sheep fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 00:10
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To me, she doesn't seem to be making the traditional silly Japanese mistakes that westerners supposedly make, but more realistic ones. She's still acting like a buffoon but I'm totally used to that by now. Not that I'm in charge or anything but I feel like this thread has gotten way off track since I posted that thing about Japanese prisons or something like five pages ago. Does anyone have any recent stories of old men loving each other?
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Mar 10, 2013 00:56
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Working on translating some op/eds about Abenomics from Nikkei Business but man is it dry stuff. (And I got finals to worry about on top of it.) There hasn't been a whole lot happening politics-wise aside from the courts ruling against the elections, saying they were illegal, but that the results will stand. Err... Anyway, for those who read Japanese, here is a story about a mother of two on welfare: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20130307-00000009-jct-soci And for those who don't, well, be happy to know that the welfare queen image is well and alive in Japan!
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Mar 10, 2013 01:06
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So how's Japan going to pull it self out of its pit? Anime 50B Yen ($521M USD) being given to the "Cool Japan" fund. ---- Also not politics but it is economic-ish. Colleges seeking to double foreign students They're adding more English courses which signals to me they want more Westerners, but with no financial aid resources, I can't help but wonder how effective this will be. Kenishi fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 05:34
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Reverend Cheddar posted:And for those who don't, well, be happy to know that the welfare queen image is well and alive in Japan! Don't forget "never-reported-my-parents'-death-15-years-ago-and-have-been-collecting-their-pensions-ever-since queens" too. Been a rash of those lately. Kenishi posted:So how's Japan going to pull it self out of its pit? We didn't need that Fukushima reconstruction anyways.
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Mar 10, 2013 05:35
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Kenishi posted:Colleges seeking to double foreign students Or maybe you meant assistance to students there? I ain't heard many complaints from those of my friends who decided to go out but then again none of them were lacking money.
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Mar 10, 2013 05:45
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I don't know if they're necessarily targeting Westerners. The people that actually come to Japan to do the full 4 years of university tend to come from countries with less uh ... academically prestigious? education systems like China, Korea, SE Asia, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and so on. There's really no point for any Westerner to come to Japan unless you just really really like Japan - the education you'd receive would almost without a doubt be worse than whatever you'd get at a local university back home, and it'll cost you way more than if you were to go to school in America or especially Europe. There just aren't nearly enough bonuses unless they're offering free rides and monthly stipends along with. You might get lucky and get a JASSO scholarship along with whatever MEXT is offering these days but it's such a gigantic pain compared to going somewhere closer to home that I just can't see 99% of people who would normally consider university overseas bothering with it. They definitely want more exchange students though, because that allows them to too their "look at us we're so international" horns. Edit: the lingua franca among almost all international students in Japan, aside from insular groups like "the Chinese students" or "the Korean students" or whatever is going to be English, which is why those classes are being offered - either they have classes in English or expect foreigners to come to Japan with strong enough Japanese to be able to take regular classes in Japanese, and since foreigners can't speak Japanese because Japan, there you go. Sheep fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 06:48
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I'd vaguely considered wanting to do research later in my academic career in Japan and it turned out to be easier for me to get grants and poo poo by going into Anthropology and finishing that than to try and go through the whole "Learn Japanese, go as exchange student to Japanese Uni" thing, 'cause that was only for the language. Sheep posted:I don't know if they're necessarily targeting Westerners. And honestly, if you are looking to get "street-cred" for your school's diversity; having mostly students from China/India/SE Asia doesn't say much when you consider most Western schools generally have more.
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Mar 10, 2013 07:11
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The Japanese universities are supposed to be pretty solid, no? I don't read too much into rankings but the fact that they're usually pretty high placed implies they have some degree of credibility. The few scholarships they offer to international students are fairly competitive. Not saying I think English courses taught by Japanese professors are going to in any way rival the native-language equivalents.
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Mar 10, 2013 07:54
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My understanding of Japanese universities, and someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, is that they're basically a joke. At the undergraduate level, at least. Even the good ones. Hard to get in, but once you're there it's pretty much a cakewalk.
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Mar 10, 2013 08:08
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When I see schools talking about wanting to raise international student levels I rarely think of "undergraduate student levels." I generally think of grad level stuff which involves researchers. The results of research work will bring prestige to the school plus money that might come through grants; plus you can get free labor. Undergrad in Japan varies by program and school, but honestly, most businesses aren't looking to see what grades a student made during undergrad. They just want to see a degree.
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Mar 10, 2013 08:14
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Sheep posted:Edit: the lingua franca among almost all international students in Japan, aside from insular groups like "the Chinese students" or "the Korean students" or whatever is going to be English, which is why those classes are being offered - either they have classes in English or expect foreigners to come to Japan with strong enough Japanese to be able to take regular classes in Japanese, and since foreigners can't speak Japanese because Japan, there you go. From personal experience at Kyoto University I have to say I'm not so sure about this. First of all, it's impossible to say that Chinese and Korean students are "insular" when they are the vast majority of foreign students in Japan. If anything the non-East Asian students are the insular group (Yes they come from more countries but they are a minority of students). Second, the lingua franca between these groups is just as likely to be Japanese as it is to be English. Since they came to Japan to study, they pretty much all have some level of competency in Japanese, especially considering how it is closer to their native languages than English. That being said, it remains the case that English is considered to be the WORLD's lingua franca, so any "international" programs at Japanese universities are likely to include a lot of English language instruction, although there is no guarantee that anglophone teachers will not be hired on as non-research sessional track instructors.
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Mar 10, 2013 09:42
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Don't read too much into my lovely wording - I'm just saying that people from a bunch of random countries are more likely to share some level of English as a common tongue than something like German or Also my experience in Hiroshima was the non-Asian students (excepting the Thais) were the ones trying to be non-insular and everyone else couldn't give a gently caress as they'd already had their circles/clubs/groups of friends for a few years. Language didn't even begin to figure into the equation honestly because they were always off doing their own thing, and of the short-term students on study abroad and what have you, only maybe 5-10% had decent enough Japanese to hold a conversation when they got there. ReidRansom posted:My understanding of Japanese universities, and someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, is that they're basically a joke. At the undergraduate level, at least. Even the good ones. Hard to get in, but once you're there it's pretty much a cakewalk. This was my experience taking undergraduate classes aimed at Japanese students. There's some goon (Lemmi Caution I think?) who is properly enrolled as a 4 year undergrad at Sophia or something and speaks highly of it, but his situation seems to be the exception. Kenishi posted:And honestly, if you are looking to get "street-cred" for your school's diversity; having mostly students from China/India/SE Asia doesn't say much when you consider most Western schools generally have more. That's actually a good point, but Japanese schools are probably competing more within Japan, not with foreign universities so much. Sheep fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 09:49
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Sheep posted:This was my experience taking undergraduate classes aimed at Japanese students. There's some goon (Lemmi Caution I think?) who is properly enrolled as a 4 year undergrad at Sophia or something and speaks highly of it, but his situation seems to be the exception. I'm a doctoral student at Kyoto University, and so far I would say the experience is more or less equivalent to attending a mid-tier research university in North America (Although on average there is less support from supervisors). It isn't outstanding, but it is fairly respectable. Also you don't have to turn into a stunted mole person who does nothing but study from dawn until dusk (Unlike some Ivy League doctoral programs) which I think actually has some benefits for quality of research.
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Mar 10, 2013 16:45
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ReidRansom posted:My understanding of Japanese universities, and someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, is that they're basically a joke. At the undergraduate level, at least. Even the good ones. Hard to get in, but once you're there it's pretty much a cakewalk. I've studied one year in Osaka University and I completely agree. I've been in a post-grad social sciences/humanities program and the quality of the classes was abysmally low. I felt like I was being a guinea pig for their "Global 10" program or something; Most classes were given in (an absolutely mangled and simplified) English and were so insipid they felt like a reading of a Wikipedia article (in one instance, it actually was!). Most of the time, teachers were unable to answer any live questions and seemed to be deeply disturbed by the fact students actually had any! The culture classes I had attended were, like some people already mentioned on this thread, very counter-productive; they were veeery heavy-handed with stereotypes, and basically consisted in comparing everyone's country of origin's eating, clothing and partying habits with those of Japan ("THE JAPANESE eat sushi, what do your kind eat?? Let's communication very much!!"). Never issues such as the treatment of Koreans or Chinese and their descendents, The fact that every goddamn foreigner had the privilege of having to carry ID cards or being arrested, the status of foreign spouses and their children and the weight of race in Japanese law etc.. were ever discussed. There WERE classes about politics and media, but their focus was more on the idiosyncrasies of the system and how it makes sense due to the insularity of Japan and the uniqueness of its culture and people (to the point that some teachers went full Nihonjinron and started blabbering about loving biological differences) Some Japanese students took part in these classes, mostly to improve their English/make foreign friends for bonus prestige; they were incredibly silent and when prompted to give their opinion on stuff, they tended to say "I don't really have one". I really pity them, the school system must be ruthless in curbing personal development. Academically, it was a disaster. After that year, I felt dumbed down. Attendance was sometimes half the grade. Essays were mostly under 3 pages long (1.5 spaced, fellas), and the assignments were so easy I have no doubts an 11th grader could have passed with flying colors. Teachers were really lazy : One of them had given me a grade for an optional report before I had even done it. I had to insist for him to accept my work! 'twas good fun though.
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Mar 10, 2013 16:45
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MaterialConceptual posted:I'm a doctoral student at Kyoto University, and so far I would say the experience is more or less equivalent to attending a mid-tier research university in North America (Although on average there is less support from supervisors). It isn't outstanding, but it is fairly respectable. Also you don't have to turn into a stunted mole person who does nothing but study from dawn until dusk (Unlike some Ivy League doctoral programs) which I think actually has some benefits for quality of research. Postgrad studies tend do indeed tend to be a different game, but as Sorgrid stated, undergrad is very likely going to be a waste of time for anyone from a developed nation unless you get incredibly lucky and/or devote an inordinate amount of time to researching professors and classes beforehand. Everyone I know doing graduate work here tends to practically live in the study/research rooms though so I'm surprised you've managed to avoid that.
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Mar 10, 2013 22:43
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Sheep posted:Everyone I know doing graduate work here tends to practically live in the study/research rooms though so I'm surprised you've managed to avoid that. The grad students I know had pretty tough schedules and spent a lot of time in the labs doing research and on top of that they usually had to help the Japanese students with papers in English. My friend is enjoying the research but hates the fact that he has to do a lot of English proofreading and hand holding even though he comes from a non English-speaking country.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:41
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Repeatedly complaining about Japan and the Japanese way of doing things, then wondering why Japanese society doesn't accept you. ~The gaijin lyfe~
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Mar 11, 2013 02:02
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A sexy submarine posted:Repeatedly complaining about Japan and the Japanese way of doing things, then wondering why Japanese society doesn't accept you. Is it okay if I complain about Japan and it's backasswards ways if I don't care about not being accepted? It's one of my favorite pastimes. 
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Mar 11, 2013 02:26
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This thread in the last few pages sure has reminded me of the talk over the water cooler (so to speak, we didn't actually have one) when I worked over there. And not completely in a good way.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:30
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A sexy submarine posted:Repeatedly complaining about Japan and the Japanese way of doing things, then wondering why Japanese society doesn't accept you. I know a fair number of people who've lived and worked in Japan for several years at least and not one of them has given them a good review as far as accepting them is concerned. Tolerance and acceptance are two different things, and I don't think it really matters how "Japanese" they act. They'll never be accepted.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:31
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I was talking with my co-workers Saturday night and they were wondering why I didn't want to live in Japan beyond my next contract year (through August of next year). Obviously that could have been a huge can of worms, so I just asked them how many hours they worked, compared it to what I'd be working in a Western country (for an equivalent if not better standard of living), and was like "yeah I like Japan, but not that much". That's really just the tip of the iceburg for why I wouldn't live here, but it's the least offensive for them to accept.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:56
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A sexy submarine posted:Repeatedly complaining about Japan and the Japanese way of doing things, then wondering why Japanese society doesn't accept you. Reppin dat gaijin pride yall shi-booyah Relevant: Today marks the two-year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/japan-earthquake-2-years-later-before-and-after/100469/ I was in Tokyo at the time. I won't bore anyone with extensive memories of this very strange time to be in Tokyo -- the most relevant would be everything being uncannily orderly even as day by day there were runs on the most un-Japanese of staple foods; and to me the most unnerving about it, passing through Shibuya Station in the thick of the 'setsuden' energy conservation and the three big TV screens outside being shut off, barely any shop lights and almost no noise but people walking (I can only compare this to being in Times Square during a massive power outage) -- but I will at least say that at the time there was a definite sense among people that this was finally going to be a wake-up point for the government, society, business, etc; that they needed to HTFU and get poo poo done. Long story short, um, Japan.  Thousands of residents are still displaced, not only are they displaced but their temporary housing two-year contracts are rapidly expiring and many have nowhere to go, Abe has scrapped plans to relieve Japan of nuclear energy despite gigantic protests. (Lots of Japan Times, I know.) A great number of people are rightly pissed off that the government really doesn't seem to care about them at all. And whatever your opinion about nuclear energy -- me, I'm tentatively for it given the lack of alternatives Japan has, seeing as how they won't breach the issue of geothermal power because mai onsens!!1 -- it's like a textbook case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, particularly as Abe basically refuses to discuss researching other options and is stubbornly concentrating on economics and constitution revision. Despite all of the bureaucracy BS though, it really is impressive to see in the first link above how Tohoku has managed to restore some normalcy to itself all on its own.
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Mar 11, 2013 03:26
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Samurai Sanders posted:This thread in the last few pages sure has reminded me of the talk over the water cooler (so to speak, we didn't actually have one) when I worked over there. And not completely in a good way. I agree. By the end of my stay, I knew I had become cynical, and I was more pissed towards myself than I was at the Japanese society. I was baffled when I heard myself saying "but we gaijin.."; my values were surreptitiously impregnated by the idea that "the Japanese" and "Everyone else" constitute two very distinct, uniform and antagonistic groups. In my defense though, the university separated dorms by gender AND foreigners from the Japanese, there were comparatively few interactions between foreign and Japanese students outside class etc. so after a while, you give up trying to adapt and it becomes very easy to fall in the trap of the us/them mentality. Ned posted:The grad students I know had pretty tough schedules and spent a lot of time in the labs doing research and on top of that they usually had to help the Japanese students with papers in English. My friend is enjoying the research but hates the fact that he has to do a lot of English proofreading and hand holding even though he comes from a non English-speaking country. The foreign students of engineering/hard sciences had MUCH tougher schedules in comparison; Some of my friends had often to spend nights in the lab, they had to deal with insane lab politics and treated pretty much like personal oompa-loompas by professors/native students (Thanks, Kouhai-Sempai relationships!) Sorgrid fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 03:32
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The thing is, I've spent a long time now talking to foreigners from completely other places in the world, and a lot of these westerner-japanese dichotomies are really just insider-outsider dichotomies, not worth framing just in the context of West vs. Japan (which is a rather dubious distinction at all if you think about it).
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Mar 11, 2013 03:41
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Samurai Sanders posted:The thing is, I've spent a long time now talking to foreigners from completely other places in the world, and a lot of these westerner-japanese dichotomies are really just insider-outsider dichotomies, not worth framing just in the context of West vs. Japan (which is a rather dubious distinction at all if you think about it). Definitely, that's why I used "Everyone else". I think that people are used to call foreigners "gaijin" instead of "gaikokujin" is no mere coincidence or ease of pronunciation, and that "ihoujin" is only rarely used because of its extreme strength.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:01
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Sorgrid posted:I agree. By the end of my stay, I knew I had become cynical, and I was more pissed towards myself than I was at the Japanese society. I was baffled when I heard myself saying "but we gaijin.."; my values were surreptitiously impregnated by the idea that "the Japanese" and "Everyone else" constitute two very distinct, uniform and antagonistic groups. The dorm situation seems to be the norm. Opposite sexes don't mix in JHS or SHS, or even really at work unless necessary most of the time. I'm sure you had the occasion of being seen simply walking with someone of the opposite sex and having every Japanese person be like "oh my god is that your girlfriend?!" Relations between the sexes here are like permanently stuck in middle school. And FWIW Hiroshima's dorms were exactly the same - we couldn't even have people of the opposite sex inside the building according to the rules. I'm surprised you say you were cynical by the time you finished your study abroad though, that seems quite quick.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:07
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I dunno, I saw a healthy number of high school boys and girls walking home hand in hand when I was there, I don't think it's all that bad. On the other hand though, I dated a Japanese exchange student in college and one of her friends found out and started squealing like a middle schooler. Hell, I don't even think girls in middle school would squeal like that at the announcement that you are dating their friend.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:09
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Sheep posted:I'm surprised you say you were cynical by the time you finished your study abroad though, that seems quite quick. I think its the fact I saw an overwhelming majority of the native students, supposedly more progressive than the previous generation, that did not seem to express any criticism of the attitudes of their forebears and instead perpetuated, defended and justified such behavior. Kinda disheartening.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:28
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Sheep posted:The dorm situation seems to be the norm. Opposite sexes don't mix in JHS or SHS, or even really at work unless necessary most of the time. I'm sure you had the occasion of being seen simply walking with someone of the opposite sex and having every Japanese person be like "oh my god is that your girlfriend?!" Relations between the sexes here are like permanently stuck in middle school. And FWIW Hiroshima's dorms were exactly the same - we couldn't even have people of the opposite sex inside the building according to the rules. What? Classes are integrated in both junior and senior high school. The gender separated and especially nationally separated dorms seem really weird, but this isn't Saudi Arabia or anything. When I did white-collar work here at a company it was the same thing, no one acted surprised when they worked directly next to someone who was not the same gender.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:28
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Yeah... maybe it's just Osaka but I see people holding hands, smooching on the train platforms, sitting on each other's laps and generally being normal humans everywhere I go. I really don't know what bizarre anime universe some of you guys get off from the Pokeplane into but geez.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:36
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Mercury_Storm posted:What? Classes are integrated in both junior and senior high school. The gender separated and especially nationally separated dorms seem really weird, but this isn't Saudi Arabia or anything. When I did white-collar work here at a company it was the same thing, no one acted surprised when they worked directly next to someone who was not the same gender. I'm talking mix as in socialize together without being in a relationship, not, to use your example, some Saudi Arabian style system. If you've lived here and haven't seen the awkwardness between standard Japanese people of the opposite sexes then I don't know what to tell you. Sheep fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 05:00
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Sheep posted:I'm talking mix as in socialize together without being in a relationship, not, to use your example, some Saudi Arabian style system. If you've lived here and haven't seen the awkwardness between standard Japanese people of the opposite sexes then I don't know what to tell you. Its something I've picked up on both at work and also when I studied abroad in Osaka. I'm often left wondering whether I'm just committing a fundamental attribution error though. I can't remember my middle school and high school days well enough to say whether people were the same way when I was in high school or not. There were both girls and boys in my group of friends though, so at least for my friends and myself, it was true there was mixing.
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Mar 11, 2013 05:57
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