Food and Bubbles

Welcome everyone! Once again you've made the right choice to visit my blog, because I've updated! Woohoo!

It's Sunday morning here.. I'll be going to church in about 2 hours or so (it starts at 2pm), but in the meantime I thought I'd give a little update on what's going on/what I've been thinking about.

For one thing, it's been new for me to have to be in charge of all my meals myself. There's no meal plan here, so you either have to go out to eat or cook or not eat. Either way, I feel like I'm spending tons of money on food everyday. In Japan it's not necessarily a lot cheaper to eat at home than it is to eat out, since prices on things like fruit, meat, and sometimes vegetables can be ridiculous, while eating out can get you a nice meal that leaves you wondering how they can sell that much food for so cheap if they have to pay the same prices on produce and (especially) meat as you do. Obviously they do not.

The food here is good though, although I feel like I'm starting to get pretty familiar with all the cheap places around here (read: bored). This brings up another little cultural fact about Japan--the ever-presence of convenience stores, called "conbini" （コンビ二）. But don't be fooled by the name--these are not like gas station sort of convenience stores--at least not in the context of Japan. At any given conbini you can get most of the little things you might need at any given moment--get lunch, a snack, a drink, a magazine, an umbrella, a few cooking ingredients, some office supplies, ice cream, pay bills. Actually though I don't think this list is doing credit to them. Probably you should also know that the food the serve isn't horrible like it would be in America, and they have a LOT of variety. They'll also warm up your food for you if it needs it. Furthermore, buying food and drinks like that is so much more common in Japan than in America. If you're thirsty there really aren't a whole lot of options open to you besides buying a bottle of something from a vending machine (they are everywhere) or a conbini. Maybe you just have to live here for a bit to understand their significance. Moving on...

The other thing I've been thinking about and talking about with a few friends is the nature of our study abroad program here. What does it mean to be a study abroad student living in Japan, or any foreign country? Apparently it's not quite like what I thought.

I would imagine that the purpose for studying abroad is to experience a new culture, get out of your comfort zone, meet new people, learn about different ways of thinking/doing things, etc. We get that here to some extent, but not nearly as much as I thought we would. For example, with me as an exception (arriving early), as soon as you come to Japan and get out of the airport, students meet with someone from TUJ. Then you go to live where TUJ puts you, along with 20-50 other study abroad students (depending on where you live). Then you have orientation at an American school. Then some Japanese students from the school who speak English (or whoever I suppose, but ours were Japanese) take you on little tour type things through some popular places in Tokyo along with all the other study abroad students. Then you start classes at a school where everyone speaks English, and you spend most of your day there. If not, you probably go home to your apartment complex with other study abroad students. Going out with friends (usually) means going out with other foreigners almost by default at this point, and most of what the people do here for fun is exactly the same as in the states (go bar/club hopping) except that karaoke is also really popular here.

I'm not saying that any of this is bad per se, but it's just a much more controlled environment than I envisioned. In the end, it seems that in order to get that sort of exposure to Japan, you have to work for it. In a way, it's like you're placed in a bubble when you get here, and if you don't want to, you don't really have to leave.

Of course most of this stuff is really helpful for most people, since you don't have to speak Japanese to be in the program and without the help almost no new study abroad students would be able to function well. I guess what gets me is that if you only come over for once semester and don't try to break out of the bubble, you probably won't, and yet you can now say that you've studied abroad and experienced a foreign culture. Sort of, I would add. And I guess that's ok for most people.

But for myself at least, I'm trying to find other ways besides school to meet and get to know people, in a way more on their terms than on mine. I don't really know of any great ways to do this yet, but hopefully I'll figure something out in the coming weeks. I think it might be easier too, once I get my cell phone, since then I won't be so cut off at my apartment from everyone who doesn't live there. Until next time, then...


P.S. I'm realizing that maybe I should explain one more point. I'm not advocating shunning the study abroad community here. I feel, though, that unless you make it a point to get out of that community at times, you will, I think by default, never really get out of it for the whole time you're here. And that's just not really why I came to Japan. I hope I don't sound judgmental here--I hope what I'm saying makes sense.