5 unusual behaviour: pointed by non-Japanese

I just watched TV program featuring debate about unusual behavior of Japanese from out-side 0f-Japan perspective, debate was held between Japanese group and non-Japanese group.
And there are 5 points often get attention when talking about drawbacks of Japanese
1. Japanese people never break rules, always keep rules strictly
e.g. 1 how to wash hands, books on how to do something(e.g. how to communicate with child, how to succeed in dating), not allow customers to have doggy-bag

2. Japanese are cowards!!!
e.g. when japanese asked direction, they never say "I don't know" because they don't want to be seen as fool, or they are afraid of making mistake.
e.g.2 Japanese hesitate or think too much before start doing something being afraid of failure.

3. Japanese are not good at working
e.g. Japanese bring company relation after work(nomikai飲み会 after work)　
　e.g. in fact, the amount of time men spend in household and communicating with their child is very short

4. Japanese uses too much words borrowed from outside of Japan especially Japanese-English
e.g. manifest, consensus ... etc
And I found that there are 2 kinds of カタカナ語, first one is the notion was completely new to Japan, for example こんぺいとう、カステラ, these are Portuguese. And the notion was already existed in Japanese, but people choose to use words that are borrowed intentionally. I think popularity of カタカナ語 is not bad thing, of course the original Japanese is fading away is sad, but since the influx of foreign culture after WW2, there have been natural selection of language. Therefore, it is quite natural for japanese to use カタカナ語

5. Japanese cry too much
e.g. professional sports player cry when they win first prize
it is interesting that Western people tend to have a stereotype that crying is what people feel only sad, not happy or excitement.

It is all about perspective: one thing can be different thing from here..

The day before becoming adult

The second Monday of January is the celebration day of becoming adult(20 years old) in Japan. And I am the one becoming adult. I am gonna have a ceremony at Tokyo Prince Hotel. Meeting the old friends I grew with, kindergarten and elementary school. Those days still grows in my heart. It is cute to see my friends after 8 years since last time we met, almost all the friends and me did not meet for 8 years, since the day of graduation. I feel excited to see them how they look and how they live, how they changed, how they react against me. But at the same time, I felt so sad. It is so fast passing 8 years without seeing them. I could live without them, even they were all really nice friends. I did care, but I did not move because I could live without that. I didn't have any problem. People can live according to where they are, letting past go away. This is so sad.
Anyway, I've just learned 3 A's that make my life much rich. Live with great Atitude, choosing to move forward and move on when the life is not good, and live with sensible Awareness, of the world around you, embrace even tiny joys that make your life so sweet, and being Authentic to yourself, being you and letting your heart leads you, and putting you in experience that satisfies you. And your life will be satisfying and awesome.

I start compliment myself diary & awesome thing of the day diary from now.
I went to take a walk with my closest friend, and talked about our life. Because it was the last day of not being adult. And he talked to me about his failure and concern. And he did not talk about that before to someone. I became the first. I relieved his feeling. It is always good to hear someone's concern. I made him feel better.

Today's awesome thing
I can be a barber!! Challenging is good!! I did it!!

Tutor

I tutor a elementary school student girl, she is 6th grade, preparing for the entrance exam of private junior high. And I also did took the entrance exam for junior high. In Japan, entrance exam for junior high called "中学受験" is now really prevalent, especially Tokyo metropolitan.
And she is going to have a test tomorrow which is real part. But generally, exam is held in February. And in most cases, students take a test in January means that is practice for the test that is for the school they want to go. I did that too. But it is interesting that go take test before the important test. Well, I did that too. I hope my student will do well.

Now, the main reason why entrance exam is popular is parents want stability for their child, basically they want their child enter school that guarantee students to go straight to its relevant university without test or school that teaches student really hard that a lot of students from that school go to best university (e.g. Tokyo Univ). Anyway, it is all about stability.

Acquisition of Second Language

I am half-Taiwanese, half-Japanese. My mother is from Taiwan. And when I was 2 years old, when mom had my sister in her womb, to decrease her burden, I went to grandparent's house in Taiwan for more than half a year alone. Of course I don't remember that well, but mom told me about that a minute ago.
During I was there, my cousins living in America were there too, and I was in the environment where Chinese & Taiwanese & English were dominant language, not Japanese. I got confused. And anytime my cousin tried to take my stuff, I strongly refused saying "ダーメ" meaning "You can't".
And this is the most interesting that when I returned home, and went to kindergarten, any my teacher said she didn't understand what I said. And this is how children growing with more than one language. In certain period, they stay abroad and return. I think if I stayed much longer, I might have had Japanese & Chinese. Well that could be.
I see a lot of returnees these days, especially chances increased after I entered university. And I was really jealous about that. Achieving same academic entrance, they can speak English!!
And that became much stronger last year because I took the English class where only 2 people are not returnee. At the same time, I got implication that we have something that returnees don't have while reading one article. And I felt so much better. But now, the advantage of being able to speak English fluently is so huge, that I again felt strange. But this time, with a much more optimistic way. I could be good English speaker and also good English Writer. And that me is different and could be better than returnee have. Well, just practice practice practice.
Push myself, go beyond them

Happy New year: 2011

In retrospect, 2010 was like this
/My will was not strong enough for everything
everytime I encountered obstacle, my will was challenged and in many cases, defeated.
from a little defeat from big one, due to laziness to paralyzed mind.

/Doing English & English
I got strong motivation toward learning English, and the biggest leap was I could take class for proficient English students in university. I passed the qualification, I first took TOEIC and I got 895(Listening 485, Reading 410) And found out my listening ability was quite good, but reading is not good enough, and also productive ability(speaking and writing) was not good. By taking the class, I really got used to read lengthy article, and those were academic one and I think that was the level that real American students do, so now I am not scared of them and I can start reading at anytime. And I really improved academic writing skills. These were the most rewarding.
But, when it comes to my speaking ability or communication ability, still no good. I did not take chance to talk with people in English. This unwilling attitude was my biggest problem, my will was not strong enough.

/Mindset
This year, I got influenced from many people around the world, for instance, Michael Sandel at Harvard, and other professional speaker at TED, I saw a wide deep world stretching beyond my imagination. I felt the importance of productive ability(output), and I learned that I just need to practice and practice with passion. Just push myself. I have to be more aggressive. With obstacles, I will get over it with reconfirming my will, by rethinking "why I do this".