Archive for the ‘Culture shock’ Category

Maybe a few more actually, as I didn’t have any record for the first few months. It’s not Craiglist, but as my blog stats are the closest thing I get to payment (I like to think of them as monopoly money) I’m going to give myself a pat on the back.

And why should you care? Well, this is your perfect chance to jump on the bandwagon and get yourself heard on TEFLtastic with comments, links and/ or guest articles. To illustrate what I mean, here goes with trying to drive up the traffic on my neglected Japanexplained blog with an unsubtle selling of my post The Big List of My Japanese Faux Pas, which is mainly about messups in the classroom and therefore nice and relevant to anyone who has taught foreigners I reckon… Just as unsubtle selling of your own blogs and sites, as long as also vaguely connected to TEFL and teaching abroad, also allowed! You can start in the comments to this post if you like.

The worst book I have ever read about Japan, Shutting Out the Sun, has more or less made up for the dental work I need from gnashing my teeth while reading it, by reminding me of another way to deal with living abroad without the irritation that the writer of the book obviously couldn’t keep down. The trick is, to take the criticism that you read, hear or that pops into your head, and see if you can’t replace the world “Italians” (to choose one random example of a nationality you might find infuriating) with any other group of people, such as some or even all other nationalities. Let’s all try this trickwith some opinions about Japan from that book, shall we: (more…)

“As a foreigner walking the streets, I often felt that cold Japanese stare. They were watching me, but indirectly, through their window shades or peripheral vision, to discern whether I was some ‘troublemaker.’ A warm smile did not disarm. If I turned to meet the gaze, the head would quickly turn away” (more…)

The IHT write it, I pass on their wisdom on… Someday I will reach TEFL enlightenment and all that will be in reverse!

First of all, the rather odd and sometimes insulting nicknames that Thais give their kids to keep them away from the attention of jealous demons:

 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/23/america/name.php

The subtext here is the hatred of foreigners and all things foreign that can sometimes lie behind the Land of Smile. It can be healthy sometimes, like the way the Thais seem to be reclaiming Kao San road in Bangkok from the unwashed backpacker types and are starting to pay more attention to their traditions, but the sudden awareness of this feeling is perhaps the biggest “wait a minute, everything is the opposite of how it seems” shock moment long term residents in Thailand are likely to go through.

Continuing the culture shock theme, even New Yorkers who like the idea of wildlife reclaiming the shores seem less than enamoured of the cormorant’s tendency to vomit at the slightest opportunity:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/23/europe/bird.php

It’s another case of how understanding another culture (human or animal) can only go so far to making you accept it. Sometimes, though, there comes a moment when you realise that something that happens in the country where you are a guest is your business. The Japanese love of cutting down the forest of South East Asia to make disposable chopsticks is one. And for the English, of course, the thing we can’t stand most of all is how people treat their animals. In Japan, that’s whales. And in Spain that’s bulls:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/23/news/spain.php

As I’m not one of those Englishmen who put animals before people (famously the national association for the protection of animals was founded years before the one for children in the UK), I will finish with something a bit more serious. The Turkish government continues to deny any existence of the massacre of Armenians, even though it was carried out under the Ottomans rather than the modern Turkish state:

 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/23/opinion/edjacoby.php

Not sure why I’m doing a world tour of countries that can’t deal with history like normal adults (Turkey, Spain, Japan), but it does seem to be turning out that way. Should any politicians from those countries be reading, denying massacres is another thing I can’t be bothered talking about (see below).