Tempura Party!
Last night I went to Yumi's house for a tempura 'party' (Yumi is the librarian at school who lives in the same apartments as me).
Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable when I hang out just with Japanese people so I was feeling a bit anxious before I went but I didn't feel uncomfortable at all, time flew and before I knew it hours had gone by. I had such a lovely, lovely evening.
In April the influx of new teachers brought some really young teachers (yes - even as young as me;) ). They're really cool which is such a pity because I'm leaving soon but I'm pleased for Yumi that she has some people from school to hang out with now.
This morning I was reading Aileen’s second blog and I thought I’d waffle on about one of the points she made. She wrote about how Japanese people appear to think it’s fine to ‘discuss your weight/fat/ugliness without a bother in front of you’
I’m no stranger to this, it happens all the time; I know that every teacher in my school thinks I’m obese. Recently though I was on the receiving end of a particularly nasty onslaught of criticism, I was told by a Japanese friend that I should lose weight, change my hair, wear make-up more often, be more fashionable - otherwise no men were ever going to like me (which brings me onto another of Aileen’s points that we are all expected to be preoccupied with bagging a man and thinking about producing babies at this stage in our lives).
Last night however my friends were talking and they told me that all the boys at school like me, I asked why (terrified they’d tell me it was because a certain part of my anatomy) and she told me ‘you know Helen … because you are so pretty’ and the other pipes up ‘oh yes, yes you are very beautiful Helen’. Whether it’s true or not (and not that I particularly want a bunch of 16 year old boys fancying me) doesn’t matter – I nearly cried, it was so nice to receive a compliment from my Japanese friends and not just a ‘wow you have great Japanese’ because I said konnichi wa or a ‘wow you can use chopsticks’ kind of compliment. Thank you :)
Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable when I hang out just with Japanese people so I was feeling a bit anxious before I went but I didn't feel uncomfortable at all, time flew and before I knew it hours had gone by. I had such a lovely, lovely evening.
In April the influx of new teachers brought some really young teachers (yes - even as young as me;) ). They're really cool which is such a pity because I'm leaving soon but I'm pleased for Yumi that she has some people from school to hang out with now.
This morning I was reading Aileen’s second blog and I thought I’d waffle on about one of the points she made. She wrote about how Japanese people appear to think it’s fine to ‘discuss your weight/fat/ugliness without a bother in front of you’I’m no stranger to this, it happens all the time; I know that every teacher in my school thinks I’m obese. Recently though I was on the receiving end of a particularly nasty onslaught of criticism, I was told by a Japanese friend that I should lose weight, change my hair, wear make-up more often, be more fashionable - otherwise no men were ever going to like me (which brings me onto another of Aileen’s points that we are all expected to be preoccupied with bagging a man and thinking about producing babies at this stage in our lives).
Last night however my friends were talking and they told me that all the boys at school like me, I asked why (terrified they’d tell me it was because a certain part of my anatomy) and she told me ‘you know Helen … because you are so pretty’ and the other pipes up ‘oh yes, yes you are very beautiful Helen’. Whether it’s true or not (and not that I particularly want a bunch of 16 year old boys fancying me) doesn’t matter – I nearly cried, it was so nice to receive a compliment from my Japanese friends and not just a ‘wow you have great Japanese’ because I said konnichi wa or a ‘wow you can use chopsticks’ kind of compliment. Thank you :)
posted by Helen at
12:02 am
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