I, we, and you
If we try to fit in a multi-cultural society, who we have to know about is not only people from different backgrounds.
There are something I needed to be aware about people from my home country(!). If a Japanese born in US is called Japanese American, Japanese from Japan living in US could be called "Just-a-little-bit-American Japanese". And to what extend s/he is american depends on individuals. So what I need to see is "To what extent is s/he US person?". For example, let's see I sent an e-mail to somebody and I made a phone call to make sure if the e-mail was actually sent. A Japanese would say thank you for the phone call in this case. But (I feel) I should not make this kind of phone call to people from US, because it sounds like I am proding him/her to do something.
Sometime, it's hard to assume what people in the same origin are like. The grayzone of "Who are you?" is sometime tricky to handle.
posted by Snow @ 9:20 PM
1 Comments:
sometimes i like to do that, send an email, and then just talk to the person anyway right after, before they have time to actually respond to the email. i think yeah, it is a sign of impatience, but it also helps me organize my thoughts, and then when i'm finished sending it off, i feel organized enough to call the person.
it must be interesting to notice all of the small things that are different between japanese people and americans. i never actuall know when i'm crossing a line between prodding teacher and disrespectful person when i call on a japanese student in class.....it's hard being aware of all of those cultural differences. but in the end, i am respectful of the differences, but i try not those sensitivities inhibit my teaching.
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