Quote:
Originally Posted by Chojikun
I know this is a diversion from the thread topic, but if you don't mind my asking, I wonder if you might elaborate more on your comment please? It sounds like an informed observation of a general tendency for international students to dislike being in Japan, or in a Japanese school? Why did they feel this way, and what approximate percentage of international students felt this way, and was there any reciprocal feeling in at least a few Japanese students and if so why? Please excuse so many questions, I'm interested in this because it's your 'real life' experience, as opposed to what one sees in fictional Japanese dramas.
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I was speaking from my personal experience, which is only in one school with about 6 exchange students. I have no idea of whether it is representative of the whole, and wasn`t trying to imply it was...
The whole attitude was incredibly reminiscent of what I experienced.
With that out of the way...
All the other exchange students I encountered in school were incredibly negative toward Japan. This was at the high school level, so I think most of them were in Japan either because their parents thought an exchange would be a good learning experience... or because they wanted to get away from their parents. I was never really close to any of them so can`t speak for their reasons.
Anyway, they sort of bunched together in a group taking cracks at anything and everything Japanese. That wouldn`t have bothered me - I just didn`t associate with them. (I was more interested in actually learning something.) One of the other students seemed nice, but peer pressure won her over and she ended up following them around.
Rather than it being an exchange student vs. Japanese student sort of thing, it was more of a high school level social clique with the added bonus of having a different racial/cultural background. There was a "leader" of the group, etc.
If there was any reciprocal feeling from the Japanese students, it was because the group sort of demanded to be treated differently and get special privileges. I can`t say I saw any though...
Because the "group" was kind of prized by the school, the "leader" tried to take advantage of it by pulling the culture card all the time. Foreigners don`t do this so we shouldn`t have to. People in MY country do this all the time, so don`t make us obey that rule. Etc etc. If all the exchange students agreed, then the school would bend the rules to be accommodating.
My personal terrible experience was some really awful bullying at their hands because when the leader pulled the "We do NOT get in onsen outside of Japan - there is NO WAY we are getting in there naked. It is just common sense for non-Japanese. We want private baths in a private room! It is our religious and cultural right!" card, I wasn`t about to let her ruin my chance to get in a rotenburo for the first time... So I rolled my eyes and went to enjoy the onsen anyway.
Suddenly, it wasn`t "common sense that any non-Japanese would agree with". My choice not to go along with them made them look bad. My actually *wanting* to get in and telling the teachers I thought it was a wonderful chance was even worse for them. Why was *I* willing to do something they had thrown such fits about being "common sense" for foreigners, even though I was a foreigner too? Maybe they should try some of the cultural stuff too for once. Maybe, just maybe, all those "No foreigners would ever do this!" excuses in the past were exaggerations...
This apparently made the leader girl VERY mad. They basically stormed my room that night and did all sorts of crap to me. Somewhere on here there is another post about it.
I have a very depressed memory of sitting staring out over Nagasaki from the hotel window and just crying through the night.
With the flee Japan stuff, there was no bullying type outcome for me - we`re all adults now - but the attitude of "It`s only common sense for us foreigners, what do you expect?" and the whole "If you don`t go too it makes our excuses look bad!" thing felt very very similar. It all left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth.
ETA;
I found the post I made a long while back about it - it says pretty much the same thing as above, but I will link to it anyway.
http://www.japanforum.com/forum/livi...aki#post865330