Summary Blog: Japanese Culture

This is my favorite Japanese anime, Sailormoon.

          Japan is one of Asian countries that has fully-developed and has succeed in various industries without having to neglect their cultural values and traditions. Even though Japan is considered as a small nation, many people know where Japan is and they also know at least few popular Japanese cultures. In my second blog post, I have explained several reasons why I chose Japanese culture for the Cultural Reporter Project. I like watching Japanese dramas and animes since high school hence I decided to take a Japanese class in UNL so that I could speak Japanese as well. While taking the Japanese class, I realize that I am becoming more eager to learn about Japanese culture. For the Cultural Reporter Project, I would like to focus on the relationship between Japanese strong identity and their achievement as a successful nation. Many Japanese nowadays are still practicing their customs and traditions, and they are very persistence towards changes around them or changes brought by outsiders. Even so, they manage to become one of influential countries in the world without sacrificing their own identity and originality. 

Tokyo, capital of Japan.

          I have been using dialectical approach to study and to understand Japanese society. Dialectical approach is an approach to intercultural communication that integrates three approaches; functionalist, interpretive, and critical in understanding culture and communication (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 71). A society's culture is well-portrayed through communication and interaction. I have been observing how Japanese communicate with each other so that at the same time, I could figure out how their culture influences their communication with other people. Besides that, I also have been participating in Japanese communication's environment where I communicated with my sensei and several Japanese students at UNL. The dialectical approach emphasizes the processual, relational, and contradictory of intercultural communication, which encompasses many different kinds of intercultural knowledge (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 72).

Respecting other people's culture is an important key to maintain a relationship.

          I have conducted several interviews and participant observations to complete my Cultural Reporter Project. I interviewed my Japanese lecture, Sensei Nii and few Japanese students to gain more accurate information about Japanese. Sensei Nii is the perfect example for intercultural marriage because she is married to an American man. Even though she is a Japanese, she manages to communicate with her husband properly because she can speak English very well. "But, in certain situations, misunderstandings happen because my husband does not fully understand Japanese culture" (Steele Nii, personal communication, November 5th, 2012). While showing her wedding pictures, she said, " Japanese women usually will wear traditional white dress (kimono) during wedding ceremony. In Japan, white symbolizes purity, elegance, and "new beginning" (Wordly Weddings, 2010). Married women should wear short sleeves kimono while single women should wear long sleeves kimono to signify they are not married yet." (Steele Nii, personal communication, November 5th, 2012). 

 Japanese traditional wedding dress.

        I also actively participated in Japanese class and at the same time, I recorded data based on observations made during the class. After almost three months taking Japanese class, I conclude that the learning environment in the Japanese class is totally different from my other classes in the UNL. I have figured out an important Japanese aspect being practiced in the Japanese class: communication between teacher and students. Every day, we greet each other with proper Japanese greetings to maintain a harmony relationship between teacher and students. At the beginning of class, we will greet each other by saying "Konnichiwa" (Good afternoon) and we will say "Sayonara" (Goodbye) at the end of class while bowing to each other (Nurul Norman, observational data, October 26th, 2012). One of my classmates said, "The reason why I am taking this is class is because I really like Japanese accent."

      On November 1st, I went to one of Global Friends of Japan's events at City Union. Many students including students from different countries came to their booth to try takoyaki (Nurul Norman, observational data, November 1st, 2012). Takoyaki is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and it is normally filled with a piece of octopus (Global Friends of Japan, 2012). However, the Global Friends of Japan members decided to replace octopus with kimchi (fermented vegetables) and sausage. "We put kimchi and sausage instead of octopus because most people never eat octopus in real life so they might feel weird if they eat takoyaki with octopus inside it" (Steele Nii, personal communication, November 5th, 2012). Originating from Osaka, takoyaki is one of the most common foods you will see there, as well as festivals and special events all over the Japan (Japancenter, 2010).

 

Special pan is used to cook takoyaki.

 It was my first experience to try takoyaki and it was very delicious. It was only $2 for two pieces of kimchi takoyaki and two pieces of sausage takoyaki.

I made a short video to summarize all the findings and information I have gained to complete this project.

References

Global Friends of Japan. (2012, October 31). Global friends of Japan [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Friends-of-Japan/219951998028688?fref=ts

Japancenter. (2010, June 11). Recipe:takoyaki [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.japancentre.com/2010/06/11/recipe-takoyaki/

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.

Wordly Weddings. (2010). Japanese wedding traditions. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.worldlyweddings.com/japanese-traditions-a/128.htm