Internationalize this!

So I left off yesterday lamenting my lack of Japanese friends, so I was pleasantly surprised when one of the graduate students randomly came into the office where I worked and asked if I wanted to grab lunch with him. His name is Furukawa Koichi and he does research regarding using the internet and classroom exchanges with underdeveloped countries to increase international consciousness. He was particular interested when I told him about the distance learning Japanese language courses I took back in high school. Another time when we grabbed lunch he was asking me what I thought about news coverage in the US and what station most people watch, and which one I prefer. I don't have a particular news station I like so I gave a vague answer. Then he asked me what I thought about FOX, and I told him straight up what I thought of their fear mongering, supposedly "fair and balanced" coverage. This was apparently a lead-in question as he pulled out his laptop and started showing me clips from the documentary OUTFOXED, which I guess made it all the way to Japan. I had been meaning to watch it at some point, but this was the first I had seen of it. He was basically asking me if what they were claiming was accurate. He has also seen the documentary Jesus Camp (highly recommended if you haven't seen it already) so we started talking about religion and whatnot. Overall a really interesting guy to talk to, and even if it's only one person, it's that sort of deep conversation across cultural borders that I feel foments international understanding. I feel there is only so much I can do to "coordinate international relations" from my office desk.

Furukawa-san is also a past participant in JICA (Japan's equivalent of the Peace Corps) and spent a couple years in Syria. He was kind enough to invite me to a weekend gathering of JICA alumni for a workshop and a barbecue. I figured it would be other folks his age (i.e. only a couple years older than me) and a good chance to meet Japanese folks who have a broader perspective and some interesting experiences under their belt. I was a little put off when I met Furukawa-san at Gifu station and the other folks waiting were all in their 50s or above. It was a little awkward at first. I rode in Furukawa-san's car up to the cabin we were staying at, which was about an hour north. The cabin itself was amazingly nice, complete with an old school coal/ash cooking pit.

After checking out the place, we all set up some tables and then had a workshop that was supposed to help us examine our experiences abroad and better relay what we had learned to other people. The brunt of the workshop involved taking a picture and making up questions about the pictures to ask the others in our group to get them to imagine what the circumstances of the picture might have been. Then we gave them the answers and what we learned from the situation in the picture, or how it changed our way of thought. Although overall not terribly interesting, it succeeded a bit in getting me thinking about my experiences abroad. One lady in our group came to the realization that her consciousness as a Japanese person was lacking, and that she needed to form her identity as a Japanese person properly in order to bring "Japanese flavor" to the internationalization table. I don't know if I agree completely, but I liked the idea, mainly because I myself certainly don't spend much time, if any, thinking about how I identify as an American. Being abroad, it is extremely easy to lose touch with your home culture/identity. That and I'm not exactly the stereotypical American, either. I don't care much for hamburgers and don't watch a ton of big name movies. In other words, my finger isn't on the pulse of American pop culture. I'm fine with that, but I hadn't exactly thought about how that affects my ability to internationalize. I'd prefer to think it enhances it, as I'd much rather break the stereotypes they get of us through the media than reinforce them.

Anywho, after the workshop finished, there was much FEASTING! There was a barbecue with some high quality Japanese beef and chicken, garlic soaked mussels that were out of this world, along with tons of side dishes and alcohol to boot. Being an international crowd there was a number of treats, including chocolate from Ghana, marzipan from Spain, some funky sweets from China, and dried mango from Burkino Faso. To be honest, I didn't care for the chocolate and the candy from China was super sketchy and robbed my mouth of all saliva. There were a number of half-eaten Chinese candies, so I wasn't the only one. The marzipan was super tasty and the mangoes...well, they were mangoes. I was more excited just because they were from Burkino Faso, which has one of the best named capital cities ever. I don't mean to be name dropping, as I'm going to be complaining about that later on...

Everyone there was extremely kind and one guy I talked with while making a food platter was fun to talk to, and he talked a mile a minute. I appreciated that he didn't slow down or pull any punches just because he was talking to a foreigner. Later on in the evening we all gathered around and folks did their formal introductions and talked a bit about their international experiences on JICA and in general. It was mildly interesting at first, but many of the older guys felt the need to give their whole life story and didn't know when wrap it up. It wouldn't have been that bad, but it seemed to devolve into a pissing contest about who has been to the most places/done the most things.

Later in the night I somehow ended up talking to this random older guy while snacking on leftovers, when he started talking to me about Japanese women. Namely, how although he had been to all these different countries around the world he believes Japanese women are the most appealing. He claimed they were extremely nice and submissive and always tried to "build others up" and serve. Wow, way to completely pigeonhole your country's entire female population into one personality. It also didn't help that most of the reasons or traits he listed as being positives I don't find terribly desirable. So I just smiled and nodded, pretending to agree with everything he said, as I didn't feel like debating with a half drunk old dude.
Much later into the night I talked extensively with a pair of older guys, one of whom was a chemistry major, coincidentally enough. He had been in South America testing the water supply and working on ways to clean it up. That sounds like an amazing experience and an application of chemistry that has meaning behind it and doesn't leave you stuck in a lab everyday. As interesting a conversation as we were having, somehow the topic of Japanese women came up again and they asked what I thought of them. I really didn't want to answer this question since most Japanese women I've met aren't even close to my type and I didn't want to offend them, but also because THERE WERE STILL WOMEN IN THE ROOM. Yeah, let me just sit here at talk about them as if there aren't within earshot. So I hemmed and hawed without giving an answer until they finally gave me a way out with "Oh, so it's a difficult question?" Yeah, that's it. Then they proceeded to tell how there were a number of cute women at the workshop and that I should "find one I like." I'm pretty sure almost all the girls there were over 30, save for one who was about my age. She even spoke English to a certain extent, but she talked to me in a vaguely condescending and deliberately slow manner, possibly due to the fact that's she a teacher, but her tone and manner irked me to no end.

I crashed on the floor, caught a few zzz's and woke up to fresh fruit being cut in the kitchen. And then we had more grilled meat...yeah, for breakfast-it was awesome. Clean up commenced, I waded briefly in the nearby stream, and by noon-ish we were on our way home. It was quite the interesting weekend, and a marathon of Japanese conversation, which is always a good thing. I came back with the impression that despite having been abroad, a number of them still lacked a certain multicultural awareness or sensitivity that comes with growing up in a nation as diverse as the US (not that Oshkosh is a shining example of diversity, but still...). At the core they remain Japanese. And as much as I feel I've hit the stage of "biculturalism" there are certain aspects in which I remain stubbornly American. That may be a post for another time...

Current Update-For Maria and others wondering, I acquired ring worm on my knee from jujitsu class. I didn't have a gi yet and was wearing shorts to class. I got mat burn on my knee which was then directly exposed to all the lovely nastiness that grows in a sweat soaked jujitsu mat, including, apparently, ringworm. I'm taking a break from jujitsu until it clears up, which is not wholly unrelated to the fact that I've pumped out two updates in two days.