9/3/08
Ishida House, Matsudo

This is gonna be a short entry, it's really late and I'm really tired. My Suica card threw kind've a fit at Shinjuku, but the staff fixed it in a matter of seconds.

We did a "Japanese Culture Workshop" with Ariel today. We went over some basic Japanese values, customs, etc. The idea is that even though we don't have the cultural experience to fit in, we can at least have some context as to why we don't fit in.

As for class, it went ok. We went over to the nihongo institute to "interview" some innocent staff. I learned that if it goes in an office tool, it's called しん. Pencil lead, staples, even ink cartridges. Fun stuff.

On the way home, Emma, Katie, and I stopped at the Bic Camera. They bought some adaptors to remove their ground plugs, and I picked up a cell phone. It's green, and does everything you can imagine save for having english menus. There are a lot of options and menus to get through on a phone that has everything. The manual is bigger than some schoolbooks I've had, full of kanji. There are two pages of english that explain that to make a call I need to punch in the numbers and hit the button.

1 comments:

Jeff said...

I am still curious about this Suica card thing... and why it might be epileptic.

Did your culture class provide any insight as to why the "gaijin-san"'s presence baffled the old lady? Was it that the place you were in was related to employment? If so, one can imagine that if the employment rate for Japanese people is lower than they are used to, your presence might be regarded with some resentment. But while my mind invents explanations, I don't really know how far off I am... so if you gain some insight later it would be nice to get a follow-up.