Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

Looking over some past Rice Field Brues entries, I spy a recurring theme of cultural difference, narrated under a uniquely critical slant. To summarize my past 6 months of writing, thus far, I have expressed the following discoveries regarding clashes between Western and Japanese cultures:

1) Japan is more polite.
2) I am irked by the ways in which Japan is more polite.
3) Western native English speakers are quite more adept at pronouncing the word "squirrel."
4) Japan has more rice.
5) Never bring a Japanese person to a Mexican restaurant (see November Dick-"Crack" dialogues.)
5) Japan has school uniforms in a way which irks me.
6) Japan exchanges small, token, food-related gifts in a way which irks me.
7) Japan structures its residential/commercial/industrial zoning in a way which irks me.
8) Japan's karaoke locally-produced music videos offend my aesthetic sensibilities in ways akin to U.S. tampon commercial's.
9) Japan has a smaller Jewish population than America.
10) I am a much better speaker of English than the Japanese teachers who work at my school.
11) Er, something about rice fields and Sartre...
12) More rice.
13) Ueda-sensei is "plegnant."

Now that I can rest assured my year's blog work has established these fundamentally important cultural ideas, I decided to try my pen at the Japanese perspective.

HmmmMMHHHmmmHHMMMMmmmmmm. The Japanese perspective. THE Japanese perspective? Now that's a bit reductive, isn't it? Sure, Japan celebrates its group-oriented and uniform culture. Nevertheless, there must be more than one single Japanese perspective. Perhaps several even. But how to discover and convey these so-called "Japanese perspectives"? I could:

1) Read books, talk to my neighbors and co-workers, take off my headphones, look around me and attempt to be observant.
2) Make something up.
3) Ask Ueda-sensei.

OR, I could...

Spontaneously inform a class full of my Oral I remedial students that I now expect them to devote the next two class sessions to enumerating all of the differences between American and Japanese societies that they perceive, whilst demanding them to focus on the culturally-embedded domain of gender.

Logically, I opted for the last option, and with the following results:

The Differences Between U.S. and Japanese Cultures, Focusing on Gender
by Maggie-sensei's 2nd Year Oral I Communications Class

Group 1:
In Japan, everybody use chopstick.
In America everybody use fork and knife.
Japanese men, work.
Japanese women, cleaning home.

Group 2:
Due to language-related miscommunication, group 2 has reported its results entirely in Japanese, a language which I scarcely speak. Fortunately, to convey some of their ideas through the international language of art, group 2 has also provided us gaijin English speakers with a vivid illustration of a Japanese man soaking in a bath, whilst a self-indulgent American squanders precious water resources in the shower.

Group 3:
US: do not bow
Japan: bow
gender

Group 4:
American people dan't take off the shoes.

Japan:
-skin color yerrow
-hear color
-bow
-chopsticks
-rice
-take off shoes
-Buddhism

US:
-skin color white, black
-hear color
-do not bow
-forks
-bread
-Kewonnzaa

J-men:
-work hard
-eat
-sumo

J-women:
-part-time job
-cook
-not sumo

Group 5:
In Japan, take off the shoes.
In America, American people don't take off the shoes.
In Japan, Japanese people to work.
In Japan, Japanese women do there chores.

Group 6:
different languages

Group 7:
Japan: take off shoes
rice
no divorce
woman cook - men eat
US: do not take off shoes
bread
lots of divorce
men is not man

Group 8:
Japan : US
wa : yo
squair small : squair large
house short : house tall
breakfast- rice and miso soup : breakfast- bread, cornfreak

J-men : J-women
men's works uniform surts : women's works uniform skart
body big : body small

Group 9:
J-Men don't wear makeup; J-Women wear makeup.

Group 10:
US : Japan
English : Japanese
many face : face yerrow
bread : rice
Gun : Not gun

J-men hairstyle short, cool.
J-women hairstyle long, beautiful.

Group 11:
Japan is bow and chopsticks.
US is rude and pork.