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Travelers to / Residents of JAPAN

Rhea

Rhea

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My daughter is going on a week-long exchange to Japan. Later in the summer we will host a student in return.

She is so excited, she can't wait.
So what do you think she might want to read/see/study/practice before she goes?

She's fully hosted, so she doesn't _need_ to prepare at all. But she'd like to, to maximize her experience.
 
The major regrets I have from the times I travelled while young, was not having a robust understanding of the cultures I was visiting. When I was 16, at one point I was standing in line to visit the Vatican and made a comment, something like 'why are we here again?'. Later, I did a study abroad in England with little to no understanding of European history.

Now, when I travel my understanding of history and culture makes the experience so much more fulfilling. So if I could recommend something to your daughter I'd tell her to do some brief reading via Wikipedia on the culture and history of Japan, and try to understand why it is the way it is today. That way when she goes she'll have a reference point to understand what she's seeing.

Outside of that, I'd have her do some research on things she wants to do while there. Japan is quite the outlier culture with tons of weird, idiosyncratic stuff, so she'll want to know what she wants to see and do before she gets there.
 
I visited Japan three times, for my job, although only in Tokyo and Nagoya. We met our Japanese counterparts there as we already had in Europe or even in the States. We also had a few traditional Japanese restaurants and meals. I also stayed each time a few days on my own in traditional inns. Perfect strangers can readily talk to you and even accompany you on your errands (essentially to practice their English) so it gives a relaxed feel to walking the streets. I still feel lucky to have had this experience. I discovered that Japanese people were much more considerate of their peers than we tend to believe in the West. They have a great sense of humour and some are prepared to speak freely after you got to know them. They are readily prepared to express empathy. And it's definitely a great culture to discover, with also more diversity than most people probably think. Guidebooks, even Japanese ones, are very nearly useless in this respect (but they are essential for practical things). And it proved way more exotic and fascinating than I expected. So, my best advice would be to start with positive expectations while being mindful there is a cultural gulf you won't cross even in a lifetime, let alone in a week. But that's a start. I assume your daughter speaks and read some Japanese because language is definitely a problem as the Japanese are notoriously bad at English. Watching modern comedies set in Japan may be the best way to prepare. And you need to have a grasp of the main aspects of Japanese culture and history so documentaries can only help.
EB
 
Yea, if your daughter hasn't traveled much yet, she can probably expect a sizable chunk of culture shock. Kids are usually resilient and stuff like that doesn't bother them, but she should at least be aware that Japan is probably one of the most unique modern economies in the world.
 
Thanks for the great advice. I'll encourage her to read up more.

She doesn't speak much (any?) Japanese. She's tried learning on-line, so she probably has a small handful of useful words, and she practiced some writing. She did ask for a language-on-tape series to listen to for the next month.

I don't know how much current culture she knows, but she's prepared for differences and she's expressed an eagerness to watch and learn all she can there. One of her close friends is Korean and she's spent nights at her house with her Korean parents, so she's very aware that cultures can be very different, and another American friend of hers grew up in Taiwan, so she hears about that first-hand, too. She's also a huge fan of anime and manga which causes her to follow lots of Japanese bloggers and youtubers. She did a big literature project on a book about ancient Japanese culture diving in for many weeks to produce a 50-page treatise on it. Plus I've been there, if only for 3 weeks. So all that adds up to "she's not afraid to explore and discover differences," so I'll encourage her to do more of that.

I don't know how much flexibility she's have to ask for sights to see, but It will be a good idea for her to know some and ask about them.

I really appreciate the tips! Keep em coming.
 
If she's only going to be there for a week I wouldn't put too much focus on the language. It'll for sure be hard to communicate, but she'll certainly be able to get by, hands are a surprisingly good mode of communication. If she does want to help herself that way she might want to focus on simple phrases:

- what time is it?
- numbers
- which way to [x]
- where is the bathroom

That type of thing. She should be able to find handbooks that will compile common phrases.
 
rousseau said:
Yea, if your daughter hasn't traveled much yet, she can probably expect a sizable chunk of culture shock. Kids are usually resilient and stuff like that doesn't bother them, but she should at least be aware that Japan is probably one of the most unique modern economies in the world.
Click to expand...

Second the culture shock. I don't think anything can prepare you for it other than experiencing it.
 
Unlike most countries I've visited, signage in Japan doesn't come with English subtitles. It's pretty easy though, she should make an effort to learn it rather than rely on her host. One Japanese character goes a long way.
If she's at a sushi bar, don't put the plates back on the conveyor belt. You're supposed to keep them and take them to the cash register when you're finished. Plate color indicates price.
 
More good tips - thanks! I'll have her practice a character or two. She'd enjoy that and so the sharing would be sincere. When I was there one of the most useful characters was "temple" since that was the bulk of our tourism destinations. That and "Bus station". We'd write down the character for our destination that day so we could check signs and get off the bus at the right place. It was a fun challenge to detect it before our helpful bus driver told us to get off (they always smiled and signaled, "show me your paper" and would help us get off at the right place.)

She will be staying with a host family that has a teenager, and then we will have someone here for a week later in the summer. The program says that our rural farmhouse will be a fun cultural switch for them. I don't know if we get the same teenager back, but it would be fun to have that.
 
Rhea said:
More good tips - thanks! I'll have her practice a character or two. She'd enjoy that and so the sharing would be sincere. When I was there one of the most useful characters was "temple" since that was the bulk of our tourism destinations. That and "Bus station". We'd write down the character for our destination that day so we could check signs and get off the bus at the right place. It was a fun challenge to detect it before our helpful bus driver told us to get off (they always smiled and signaled, "show me your paper" and would help us get off at the right place.)

She will be staying with a host family that has a teenager, and then we will have someone here for a week later in the summer. The program says that our rural farmhouse will be a fun cultural switch for them. I don't know if we get the same teenager back, but it would be fun to have that.
Click to expand...

The Japanese definitely have some different customs than the US. Here's a few things she should know:

Always burp after the host family cooks a meal. It means it was good food and you appreciate the cooking effort.
Stay silent after a good movie, play, etc. It means you like it. Don't clap.
Whenever possible, fart when someone tells a funny joke. It means you like it.

At least these were the customs a few years ago. Might want to double check that they're still valid.:)
 
Best time ever. She adored it and can't wait for her turn to host next month. She is plotting now to get back for a school year exchange.

Great success on getting the traditional hotels, and it worked perfectly to put her phone on google locate so we could watch where she was going on street view. Plus when they had 2 days before their hotspots allowed them to contact us, we at least knew her phone was in the right hotel, even if we didn't know about her.
 
seyorni said:
Show her some of these You Tube videos. Lots of cultural commentary, etiquette, rules, &c. You tube's got millions of them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIyIZZQnuDQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgNng7r_Dow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rIAsDMR1U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWJG6wjiHyc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sjA8I4GVxo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMmJzL3PKmY
Click to expand...

I've been a host to various exchange students, and for the most part, it was pretty smooth and tremendously enjoyable. Only one seemed to experience much culture shock.

I haven't watched any of these videos but I would heartily recommend anything that would help her with etiquette. Some things may be very obvious, some may be much more subtle. For example, in the US, we often will touch or stroke the top of a young child's head, as a sign of affection, but in some SE Asian cultures, touching someone's head is considered deeply disrespectful. In the US, we value looking someone directly in the eyes and see it as an expression of honesty and respect, and tend to think anyone who won't look us in the eye is perhaps lying or hiding something. In some cultures, looking someone in the eye would be seen as being disrespectful and challenging authority, especially a younger person looking an adult or authority figure directly in the eyes.

I would expect that the host family is at least somewhat familiar with American social conventions and will not be appalled at differences but would be eager to learn and share. It shouldn't be a big problem but she might more easily find that she gets over some initial hurtles if she knows some of the social conventions.

I would also suggest that you help your daughter pick out a nice gift for the woman/mother of the household, as well as something for each member of the family and maybe a few other items that could be given as gifts to people she meets, as appropriate. Presentation (i.e. nicely wrapped) would be important and would show that she recognizes and respects this aspect of the culture.

It could well be that everyone will want to practice their English with her but I would guess that she will score big points for attempting even a little amount of Japanese.
 
Rhea said:
Best time ever. She adored it and can't wait for her turn to host next month. She is plotting now to get back for a school year exchange.

Great success on getting the traditional hotels, and it worked perfectly to put her phone on google locate so we could watch where she was going on street view. Plus when they had 2 days before their hotspots allowed them to contact us, we at least knew her phone was in the right hotel, even if we didn't know about her.
Click to expand...

Glad she had fun. Looking back I think travelling when I was younger may have been, in a certain light, some of the best travelling I've done. At 16 I toured Italy, didn't have a clue about it's history, but because I was so ignorant of it at the time everything caused a huge sense of wonder and astonishment. I still recall touring the Vatican and being absolutely awestruck (which now I understand is the point). I imagine it must have been much of the same for your daughter (although presumably she was a little more prepared than I was going in).

These days, now that I have such a deep understanding of history and culture oddly enough traveling doesn't appeal to me as much anymore. There's just no longer any mystery. I'd rather spend my time reading about the world than spending money to go look at it.
 
She was enchanted, for sure. She wants to repeat her senior year of high school in a Japanese school.
 
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