Sometimes it’s my students, sometimes it’s my coworkers, but regardless, I know I introduce people to surprising cultural differences.
- I don’t eat rice every day.
Heck, when I eat Japanese cuisine all day, I eat rice every meal. One of the few exceptions during kyushoku is when we have a bread roll instead. The idea that we don’t eat rice (or the exception bread) every day back home is hard to grasp.
- My text messages are all in English.
My kids seem to forget that a language is (hopefully) easy for the native speaker. From reading and speaking at a normal speed to viewing my LINE text messages which are all in English, it shocks my students someone can be that good at English.
- I don’t know how to make onigiri
Ok. I don’t know how to make most Japanese dishes. But onigiri is the simplest of them all. When I first told my coworkers, it made them pause. “Literally, all you have to do is form rice into a triangle though…?” With my JTE’s help, I explained rice isn’t near as sticky back home and just falls apart. I’ve also never tried before as it’s not a common snack to make back home.
- English names commonly don’t have meaning
I LOVE Japanese names. Any kind of name whether it be a person’s or city’s or business’s has a meaning in Japanese. One of the common questions I get is what does my name mean.
“English names don’t mean anything.”
“Eh???? How do people choose names then?”
“They pick something that… sounds… nice.”
“What makes it sound nice?”
“Umm…”
Although English names may have original meanings, it’s not the same as names like Cherry Blossom, Seven Seas, or Clear Weather.
- My cheeks get rosy when it’s cold outside
One of my coworkers asked if I was ok when I came in with a red-splashed face. My JTE piped up to explain a lot of foreigners’ faces do that in the winter.
- Mark helps with household chores
Japan isn’t quite on the same level with de-genderizing roles. The woman is supposed to cook and clean. The man is supposed to work and drink beer. It blows my female coworkers’ minds Mark often cooks and does most of the chores around the house. Even though he is home all day and I go off to ALT world. They highly praise him and say how nice it would be to have a foreigner husband. We of course assured them not all men are like that back home, but Mark and I both view work like that as something to be split evenly.
I love learning about different cultures which is the big reason why I applied for the JET Program in the first place. Sometimes, it can be just as fun to be that culture shock for other people.
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