first impression

I am sitting in the soft bed of my room in Hokkaido Kokusai Hotel, finally beginning my first blog entry. Writing blog hasn’t been anything new to me—I kept a blog in Chinese for my American life since four years ago. Now I am writing in the language I have acquired since then and documenting my life in yet another foreign country. I hope one day my Japanese would get fluent enough so I could actually blog in it :)

People say once you have mastered a new language you pick up another personality. Looking back to my experience of learning English, I have to agree. While learning a language from a different culture, part of you will adapt to the culture and that part will come out when you speak the language. However, it is really hard to imagine having a Japanese side as well as an American side in your personality, since there are so many things in the two cultures that essentially oppose each other.

In China there is an idiom “礼多人不怪”, roughly translated as “you can never go wrong with being too polite”. Japanese people are definitely the walking embodiment of this idiom. In subway, on street, at hotel…wherever I went, I am treated with the most courteous manners that involve nodding, bowing, lady-first hand gestures and of course, smiling. Sarai and I went exploring the town a little and we talked to fisherman, second-hand clothing store managers, restaurant owners, junior high school students, and I was struck by the degree of politeness they carry in their manners. I was a little embarrassed at the beginning and quickly learned to react.

Also another thing that struck me was how “majime” Japanese people are. Our orientation ran perfectly according to the schedule, not one minute off; a Japanese girl stood at the street corner and waited until the light finally turned green even though there had been no car passing by for a minute; there are five recycle cans for five different kinds of trashes in our school building, each with a carefully made sticker on it explaining its usage; when you dispose a water bottle, you need to take off the plastic wrapper and dispose it separately from the bottle…a society famous for being highly organized and civilized indeed.

Everything has been good so far. Class starts on Monday and we will know the result of our placement exam (which I don’t think I did too hot in). Before that is a free weekend and we will sure go for more adventures around the town! Being quarantined in a hotel is actually kind of fun, because this way we get to know better our fellow HIF classmates during the many exploring adventures.

Pictures will come with the next post :)