Japanese Culture

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Guernsey

You know what exactly are those school festivals about? WE westerners only have pep ralies.

Not exactly true.... you younger folks just suffer from budget cuts and bubblewrapping-the-children. When I was in K-12 in Texas in the 60s/70s, we had annual sports days and festivals every year. The festivals were made of booths that offered games or food/drink. There were a variety of sport contests.

The sports were part of the government's Fitness Programs of the day... the booths raised money the PTA used for improvements and such. The festivals built community and got parents involved, made the children think they matter.... all the stuff a Japanese school festival tries to accomplish.

All that shorn away by the voter's willful neglect of education...

[aohige]

You're just too old, Vexx.

You make ME feel young, and I'm a few years away from the dreaded four-zero.

Gonna havta start making chasing kids off the lawn and collecting social security checks jokes.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by aohige

You're just too old, Vexx.

You make ME feel young, and I'm a few years away from the dreaded four-zero.

Gonna havta start making chasing kids off the lawn and collecting social security checks jokes.

Heh, I only remember how old I am when I dredge up data and realize how many decades ago it was. Oh and when I look in the mirror and see my dad (well, if he'd grown long hair and facial hair for a role in LOTR)

[Sagi]

Originally Posted by Guernsey

You know what exactly are those school festivals about? WE westerners only have pep ralies.

I don't know if you're are just talking about the U.S but in mexico we have something similar. Something else that's similar is that there's someone in charge of the class like a class representative, and also we have class duties where students are assigned on certain days to clean the classroom.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Sagi

I don't know if you're are just talking about the U.S but in mexico we have something similar. Something else that's similar is that there's someone in charge of the class like a class representative, and also we have class duties where students are assigned on certain days to clean the classroom.

Some citizens of the United States do confuse that one country with "North America" or "the West" but like I said, that all used to happen in the US as well, until the concerted efforts to starve the K-12 system after the Cold War ended.

[aohige]

Assuming, you consider Texas to be part of America and not wasteland infested with alien bodysnatchers in pickup trucks.

Hard to imagine sports fest used to be common in schools 'round here.
Kids these days can't hold attention span of ten minutes it seems.

[Sagi]

I went to middle school and high school in California and the closest we had to japan was pep rallies and culture day where different clubs have food stands to raise funds for the club. (I from the class of 05.)

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by aohige

Assuming, you consider Texas to be part of America and not wasteland infested with alien bodysnatchers in pickup trucks.

Hard to imagine sports fest used to be common in schools 'round here.
Kids these days can't hold attention span of ten minutes it seems.

Most of the kill was funding cuts over time - but a little bit of it is the godforsaken "well, everyone has to win and get a medal" BS and bubblewrapping the children BS.
Blame the parents as well as the educators

My wife and I started a chess club in our son's elementary school and it was a rare day when some soccer mom from Stupid Land would ask me why someone has to lose. I will admit we were careful to isolate the macho-psyche-out players from the girls til the ponytails got enough confidence instilled. Then it was fun to watch the ponytail crush the class macho prick.

Now we volunteer and watch fat little blobs roll around in class and get hugs and medals for breathing the whole day.... very depressing. So we just try to focus on the ones we see little candles glimmering in.

[Shinji01]

Originally Posted by DarkyPwnz

Is it possible to live there with English? Or do you need to learn Japanese eventually? Just curious.

Ummm….Do you think its possible for a Japanese person to move to the US and not speak English?
Japan does not use English as its common language unlike many other Asian countries so you can expect that pretty much no one will be able to speak English. Of course there are the business elite etc that can speak it, but no where near the level you will see in other countries(Phillipines, Hong Kong etc)

Originally Posted by NeoChan

I'm asking how real Japanese Girls behave compared to what we often see in anime. The question includes.

1. What are the characteristics of Japanese girls in general?
2. Are attraction to sempai's alike for both male and female?
3. How does a foreign should behave if he likes a Japanese girl?

Many Japanese anime lovers are having problems finding girlfriends because real girls are nothing like the ones in the anime.
1. Japanese girls are much more soft spoken than the “Westerners”. They are often obsessed with kawaii things and youthfulness. Being sexy is not really big here. Try watching some AKB videos. What they do on TV is pretty much already a stylized (closer to what guys fantasise but not really how they really behave) version of what real girls are like.
2. Like in most cases men like younger girls and girls like older men. So girls liking male senpai is very common but boys liking female senpai is less common.
3. Act normal. If you try to be Japanese animeish it is just weird….Also, most Japanese girls will stay away from foreigners because they are foreigners. The ones that do approach you are usually ones that like foreigners. (It’s a bit racist, but its true..)

[sneaker]

Just had to look up "pep rally", which seems to be a North America only thing.

We do have "project weeks" in German schools, which are basically the same as in Japan, it seems. I.e. one week of doing all kinds of mixed stuff, like science, arts (incl. music), foods and an open day for the presentation and visitors at the end of the week. But most projects are just lame and students would be better off just doing a usual school week instead.
We also have an additional sports day.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by sneaker

Just had to look up "pep rally", which seems to be a North America only thing.

We do have "project weeks" in German schools, which are basically the same as in Japan, it seems. I.e. one week of doing all kinds of mixed stuff, like science, arts (incl. music), foods and an open day for the presentation and visitors at the end of the week. But most projects are just lame and students would be better off just doing a usual school week instead.
We also have an additional sports day.

Our science/arts exhibitions over here are over-inflated failures these days : I remember winning an award in Primary School during a Maths camp during a waffle making session teaching Pi, the bonus question was why the Pi constant changed before and after the waffle was heated.

Most answers went along the lines of systemic/random errors : I answered that the shape of the waffle warped due to heat and expansion - it cannot be circular anymore and thus Pi is irrelevant; I then backed it up by measuring the diameter with a different number from a different angle.

The question ended up in tutorial worksheets which my younger cousin did, sent in the same answer 14 years ago and the teacher marked it wrong - the answer is supposed to be two words : systematic error or random error.

And in high school 6 years ago, we are making bottle rockets propelled by compressed air, and the school pays these ripoffs half-ten grand to plan this event. We had such a big school field, the fire station is 3km away, and we have to fire these bottles with air? Where is the chemistry lesson in mixing optimal amount of oil and alcohol? If that is too dangerous, what about alka-seltzer and vinegar?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[Guernsey]

I always failed my scince projects although I didn't put that much effort into it.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Shinji01

Ummm….Do you think its possible for a Japanese person to move to the US and not speak English?

Oh boy.... you do NOT know America, do you ?

As long as you live in a close-nit community of corresponding language, you can live in America and not speak A LICK OF ENGLISH.
For Japanese, there's not much of that outside of Hawaii and small portion of Calfornia.
But for Hispanics and Chinese, well just pick any state.

It is not uncommon at ALL to run into someone here that doesn't speak any English.
Replying with America as an equal term example goes completely against your point.

人種の坩堝舐めんなｗｗ　

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by aohige

Oh boy.... you do NOT know America, do you ?

As long as you live in a close-nit community of corresponding language, you can live in America and not speak A LICK OF ENGLISH.
For Japanese, there's not much of that outside of Hawaii and small portion of Calfornia.
But for Hispanics and Chinese, well just pick any state.

It is not uncommon at ALL to run into someone here that doesn't speak any English.
Replying with America as an equal term example goes completely against your point.

人種の坩堝舐めんなｗｗ　

The other way is what my parent did, which is to make your children learn English and make them translate every important English documents.

[Siegel Clyne]

Originally Posted by aohige

Oh boy.... you do NOT know America, do you ?

As long as you live in a close-nit community of corresponding language, you can live in America and not speak A LICK OF ENGLISH.
For Japanese, there's not much of that outside of Hawaii and small portion of Calfornia.
But for Hispanics and Chinese, well just pick any state.

It is not uncommon at ALL to run into someone here that doesn't speak any English.
Replying with America as an equal term example goes completely against your point.

人種の坩堝舐めんなｗｗ　

A brother-in-law of mine, who is of full German descent and whose ethnic German forbears had immigrated from the Volga region in Russia to the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain states and the Midwest in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, told me that his late mother, who was born and raised in America, grew up speaking only German until the age of seven.

The Volga Germans had been recruited to immigrate to Russia in the 18th century.

I asked him if his mother learned English when she started going to school, and he said yes.

She spoke English with no accent.

In a number of ways, I recall reading in The German-Americans by LaVern J. Rippley, Russian Germans and Ukrainian Germans who had immigrated to the U.S. were "more German" than the Germans who had directly immigrated from Germany to the U.S.

The late German American accordionist and bandleader Lawrence Welk, whose parents had immigrated to the U.S. from what is near now present-day Odessa, Ukraine in the late 19th century, was born and raised in the German-speaking communities in or surrounding Strasburg, North Dakota, USA - but for much if not most of his life, he spoke English with a noticeable Russian-German accent. In his autobiography, Welk bemoaned his lack of proficient English and claimed that he did not learn English until the age of 21. He said he spoke only German at home and at school.

Welk's ethnic German ancestors had earlier immigrated to Ukraine from the Alsace-Lorraine region in present-day France - which probably helps explain the name of the city in North Dakota he grew up in or around in, Strasburg, presumably named after Strasburg (in German, Straßburg; in French, Strasbourg) in the Alsace region of present-day France.

The late Alsatian-born, naturalized French conductor Charles Munch (originally Münch, a German family name) was born in Strasbourg. Munch is famous for his performances of music by French composers, such as his legendary 1954/1955 RCA recording of the entire score for the 1911 ballet Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New England Conservatory Chorus, prepared by the late, famous American choral conductor Robert Shaw.

[NoemiChan]

Does Japanese girls like shy guys that always smiles and loves to cook?

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Does Japanese girls like shy guys that always smiles and loves to cook?

This is almost a silly question... girls have a variety of tastes whatever the culture. I'm sure SOME Japanese girls like this and SOME don't care.

[Guernsey]

Speaking of food, it is true that it is hard to cook some things like spaghetti because of the ingredients? Also, what is normally served in most restaurants?

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Guernsey

Speaking of food, it is true that it is hard to cook some things like spaghetti because of the ingredients?

If you're going for the more regional kinds of pasta, a bit. But the regular noodles and sauces are sold pretty much everywhere unless you go into the countryside.

Originally Posted by Guernsey

Also, what is normally served in most restaurants?

What is normally served in most restaurants in all industrialized countries? What the restaurants say they're selling.


I mean, really, some of the recent questions feels like they came from the 1930's when Japan was deliberately closing itself off to foreign influence.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

I mean, really, some of the recent questions feels like they came from the 1930's when Japan was deliberately closing itself off to foreign influence.

More like rather than 10 seconds with google or even just browsing the existing threads here they.... oh never mind - thanks for being civil