{"id":891,"date":"2016-06-10T13:04:13","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T13:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/?p=891"},"modified":"2016-06-15T14:54:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T14:54:05","slug":"japan-thoughts-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/2016\/06\/10\/japan-thoughts-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Thoughts – Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The host family was definitely an interesting one. Having not heard anything from my family, I soon learned exactly why. Our host\u00a0\u2018family\u2019 was a single elderly woman living in Kamakura. She had two daughters, who didn\u2019t live with her and a deceased husband. Apart from little phrases that she knew in English like\u00a0\u2018You look pretty,\u2019 \u2018How many sisters do you have?,\u2019 and my favorite\u00a0\u2018DANGER,\u2019 she spoke entirely Japanese, to which Amara and I had to figure out everything as to what she was saying (Amara mostly, haha). It wasn\u2019t so much of a culture shock as it was just very interesting. It was exactly how I thought a Japanese household was. She treated us like we were a part of the family. Although she pampered us with many foods and comfy beds, she expected us to help around as well. We helped with cleaning the kitchen after dinner and helping put things away. In the morning she took us on a wonderful trip to her friend’s home, who we later learned to be her\u00a0\u2018kimono teacher.\u2019 They helped us into beautiful yukatas (casual summer kimonos)\u00a0and we spent the morning trying to figure out how to walk in extremely uncomfortable wooden sandals. I wished we could have spent more time with her – she was an exceedingly wonderful woman and it would have been nice to get to know her a little more.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Karaoke was a blast! I didn\u2019t think I would have as much fun as I did. I normally hate singing, but I have no problem acting and being in front of other people. So dancing around and singing was hilarious for me. Of course I only chose Disney songs for the majority of it because I don\u2019t know many songs to begin with – it was hilarious hearing myself and everyone around me sing along. It was a bonding experience between everyone that was there, definitely. I could tell that the people on the trip who\u00a0were normally very quiet broke out of their shells and sang as well! It was a great way for all of us to laugh and bond with one another. The social interaction was amazing, especially when the Sophia students came and finally joined us! They were so nice! I talked mostly to Izumi, who I learned was studying English and wanted to come to America in a few years to study. But also, I learned a lot about Rise as well. She was studying nursing and was hoping to graduate in a few years. She was much more outgoing than Izumi, but they both sang on a few songs, which made the experience amazing. They were both so nice. I found them both on Facebook and they told me if I came back to Japan that they would love to hang out again!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In watching the sumo wrestlers\u2019 training, I think I noticed more Shudan Ishiki than anything. It is a Japanese Group Consciousness. Like everything in Japan, it is basically the epicenter of their culture, everyone is very solidified into one group. Though in that vast one group, there are smaller ones – in this case, the sumo wrestlers. They worked as a team, even while the coach was not even present in the area – knowing exactly what to do and with whom to do it. It was very precise, everything they did. We learned that you have to start doing this at a younger age – many start around 16 and go from there. At training, at 6, they work together and then after that, they feast on a large diet and then take a nap. It seems like everything they do, they do together. Not everyone in Japan can be a sumo wrestler, so this group of men seems to be in its\u00a0own sub group of Japanese people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The host family was definitely an interesting one. Having not heard anything from my family, I soon learned exactly why. Our host\u00a0\u2018family\u2019 was a single elderly woman living in Kamakura. She had two daughters, who didn\u2019t live with her and a deceased husband. Apart from little phrases that she knew in English like\u00a0\u2018You look pretty,\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2863,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2863"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/adventures-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}