Summing up

It has now been 9 weeks that I came to Japan. Time flew by.
In my Intercultural Communication class we talked about culture shock. This made me think about my stay in Japan.

According to Gullahorn's W-curve model (yeah, we need to increase the intellectual level of this blog) the stay abroad starts with the honeymoon, a time of high flying emotions and enthusiasm. The good mood then decreses and ends in a crisis, when reality starts to set in. Then, when one gets to one's home country again, one is extremely excited and happy to get into one's familiar surroundings again. But also this second honeymoon becomes a crisis at home, before recovery and adjustment at home starts.

Well, for me the W-curve does not really apply. When I came here, it all started out quite crappy. In Fukuoka everything was okay, but not really exciting. And when I came to Oita, I faced a full grown crisis, as I felt unhappy, hated the city and was fed up with the Japanese people. I remember seeing the Kaikan for the first time, all the dirt, the dead insects lying around, the old and smelly rooms... Moreover, during the first week it rained almost constantly. The second week I finally started to feel a little better in Oita. But then, in the third week, I got sick. This was the worst. I hated it so much. Especially because I felt extremely lonely and isolated in my room. I had only started to feel more comfortable in Oita, but the sickness had destroyed everything. I remember seriously wanting to go back home to Paderborn. This was aprubtly ended, when I was finally able to leave my isolation and join everybody on the school field trip. This was the beginning of my honeymoon.

I started to love Japan. I loved all the differences in food, people, cultural events,... Every day was a new exploration, every day was a gift, every new experience was a gift. I remember waking up and being happy that a new day started which awaited new things to discover. The sun was shining almost all the time, I experienced so many new things with my friends. I breathed in that I saw, lived, smelled, tasted,... It had been a long time that I have been so happy and carefree.

Unfortunately, this only lasted about two weeks, as reality started to creep into my live again. I started to think about my future, my life in Germany, my worries again. I realized that Japan was only a short vacation from my real life. I Japan I could forget all my worries, my university obligations, my future job - apparently physical distance to the life in one's home country helps to create a mental distance as well.

Two weeks ago I had the worst time. My computer broke down. I could not use it anymore. As I sat in my silent, quiet room, I noticed how lonely it was in there, how unrelated I actually feel to this city and its people. I realized how fragile my happy honeymoon bubble had been. And I realized how important the internet is in Oita. Without it, you feel very isolated and lonely in the Kaikan. Internet is not only your window to the outside world, it is the connection to the people that you know. Here everything is confined - the little room, the little community of exchange students. You do not have anybody here except the other exchange students. In Germany, the Germans are also my community. I know my way around, I understand the culture, I am part of it. Here I feel that I only belong to the exchange students.

It is very difficult to relate to the Japanese culture. We do not have much contact to Japanese people except for our tutors. Even when I walk down the street and nobody notices me (as I look Japanese), I feel like a stranger. One important factor is that I do not speak Japanese properly. I cannot ask people anything except for the way, the price, and other simple things. And even then I usually do not understand the answers. This is exhausting because the Japanese do not speak English. They sometimes do not even try to utter a single English word. In the beginning it even made me angry. They have been studying English since high school and I have been studying Japanese for only a couple of months - and I am supposed to struggle my way through a Japanese conversation?! So every time I travel in Japan, the asking part becomes really exhausting and sometimes frustrating. It is the only thing about travelling in Japan that I dislike.

What also makes me feel like a stranger is that Japanese seem to notice (Western) foreigners more than Germans would notice Asian people in Germany. Being a foreigner here makes you special immediately. People often look at you curiously - not staring, but subconsciously noticing, even from the corner of their eye. Some are exceptionally helpful when they see a foreigner; others are somehow scared and quickly move away.

Right now I feel that many obligations and duties await me, which I confine to the back of my mind. Up to now I have not taken university too seriously (except for my language courses). I have been seeing my stay in Japan as a cultural learning process for me, rather than an academic challenge. But slowly I cannot delay my To Do List anymore.


But actually I cannot really describe how it feels like in Japan. Right now it feels neither good nor bad. Neither exciting nor boring. I'm trying to shake off this cloud of indifference!

I guess I will just have to see how my W curve will actually turn out.