Trip and Cultural Practices

Hello!

This weekend, I went back to Shodoshima, which is an island I visited about two weeks ago. I will save writing more about it and share pictures in next week's update.

On the island, though, I did stay at a small, traditional inn. There were 2 other people staying there plus the owner - everyone besides me was Japanese.

There have been a number of instances so far during my time here in which I was the only foreigner. And it is true at my school, too - despite being in a large city, everyone that I work with is Japanese.

I realized the ways in which my school environment has helped prepare me for experiences like this weekend. And, I think it has reminded me of ways that I need to "lean into" a bit more the experiences at school.

At the inn, since I did not know the other people, there was a lot of small talk conversation that occurs - conversations that you end up having many times if you travel. Where are you from, long have you been here, why did you come here, etc.

Through school interactions, I have learned a lot of words and phrases that end up being useful while traveling. Also, you get more comfortable making small talk in Japanese and being able to stick with a conversation.

The Japanese also have a lot of cultural practices that they follow - when you first meet someone, there are normally set phrases that you use in that conversation.

Also, when you eat a meal (as I did with the other people staying at the inn), you usually always say a phrase that indicates your gratitude for the food. When you finish the meal, you again indicate thankfulness with a set phrase.

This page gives a quick run down of both of the meal-related phrases - https://thetruejapan.com/itadakimasu-and-gochisousama-deshita/​

I see the school students practice these phrases every day - as I probably wrote before at some stage, about half of the students from each class come to the food preparation area in the school to collect the food and items used to eat (trays, bowls, spoons, etc.). These items are located in different areas around the food prep area.

Before they split up to grab the lunch items, the students come together and collectively say the opening meal phrase which roughly translates to "I humbly receive."

The students return to the classrooms to eat. Usually, you have at least two students carrying every one item. For example, there is a basket that contains all of the lunch utensils - you will have one student on each side of the basket, each kid holding one of its handles.

Usually 4-5 students work together to carry the large container of rice.

This is the same across all grades, even the youngest ones.

When the students return the lunch utensils after the lunch, they then collectively say the "thank you for the food" phrase to the lunch room staff.

Write more next week.

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