Before coming to Japan, it seemed like in every orientation I attended and in every conversation I had with a previous study abroad student, the words "culture shock" are used. Now, having grown up in an East Asian country, Taiwan, I think I was a little more spared of the culture shock that others from more dramatically different cultural backgrounds could experience. What I did not think of before I came here was that, along with many Japanese people, I would also be interacting with various cultures across the world within the crowd of exchange students. Now, I don't wanna keep sticking to the term "culture shock" because it is somewhat stereotypical and sometimes has a negative connotation. My experiences here can better be described as eye-openers.
Because of the wide variety of countries that exchange students come from, often times, differences in culture are discussed. There have been many times when the topic of foreigners' image of Americans have been brought up, and the answers are usually on two opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end, some people say "Americans are really friendly and outgoing!" and on the other end, people think of Americans as crazy, politically radical, violent people. Since America has such a huge role on the international stage, people in many countries know of American politics. Multiple people have asked, "Is Trump serious? Do people actually support him?" It's interesting to see that for foreign cultures, the very right-wing conservatives are seen as an extremist party, however, in America, it is the norm. Which makes me think - how can such a large portion of our country honestly believe in such values that the rest of the world consider extremist? In addition to that, on multiple occasions, I've been told that people from other countries think that America must be a scary place to live in because of our gun policies and rate of violent crimes. Ironically, opposing this opinion, many Americans think of other countries, especially non-Western European, as dangerous and undeveloped. It's a giant contrast.
Which brings me to my next point - huge, huge Eurocentrism. I was having a conversation about this today, and I often wondered - how come non-Westernized societies are so looked down upon by Westernized societies, to a point where societies like Japan are often trying to Westernize themselves to seem "relevant" and "modern"? Many Americans I've spoken with before coming here (and this is just from personal experience, not a conclusion of the entire population), when the idea of studying abroad or going on vacation comes up, typical destinations are always other places within the United States or places in Western Europe, such as the U.K, France, and Ireland. While those are great places that I would also like to visit one day, the problem that I have with this is that people who would be interested, or even, would be willing to visit a country outside of those regions, for example, Japan, are a small minority. The idea of visiting a place with non-Western culture is so frightening and sometimes even socially unacceptable for some people, because other cultures are so often looked down upon and seen as "strange" and "wrong". It's something that I really wish would change, but I'm not sure how it could. Even within Japanese people, there's such a great fascination with Westerners. Westerners are seen as superior and beautiful, and people long to have their pale complexion and light hair. Sometimes, in my mind, I imagine myself telling all of them, "Yes, they are beautiful, but so are you!! Your skin tone, hair color, and features are beautiful, you're great, stop envying Western ideals!!" But of course, by this point, those ideals are already kind of implemented in society...
There are many, many more things that I have noticed and learned in my short time here, and to break up a long continuous rant, I'll make another post, at a later time, on the other topics.
