Comments on: “My Social Marathon”

By: Jupiter Bright

Jupiter Bright — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:04:00 +0000

Love your article. Felt like I could relate to most of it. Yeah, I am being careful too when speaking to Japanese, I think it’s important to look at them as “them”, not just another language learning tool which is rude and sad.

“In my experiences, the introversion did not just come from the shy
Japanese personalities, but also the fear of striking up a conversation
with a non-native because they won’t know what to do if it fails. The
fear of not being able to understand the response, or the fear of not
having the foreigner understand what they are trying to say is enough
motivation to keep the “in-group” exclusive for a while.”
I’ve never thought about it before. Maybe given their shy culture, it’s better if we’re the one who starts the conversation first. I’m usually revert back to my introverted personality, tricking myself it’s okay to not talk if you’re scared there’s always another time but maybe they feel that way too.

The honne and tatemae part kinda suck though. Yeah, my Japanese teacher told me about that too. Usually if they say let’s hang out another time but this “another time” is not a fixed time and if this situation has repeated a number of times, you should consider it’s a “Japanese good bye” for most part. In a way it’s kinda interesting as a gossip to guess what someone is really saying over a cup of coffee… oh well…

By: Mwani

Mwani — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:03:00 +0000

In groups and out groups aren’t exclusive to Japan. It does seem that Japan is more “group” oriented than many other countries, like say, the United States for instance. I think you raise some good points though about how it could be likened to many other social situations though.

Granted this article doesn’t cite any sources but many claims that it makes seems to correspond with stuff I’ve read elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchi-soto

By: Lenna Stites

Lenna Stites — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:05:00 +0000

That’s great, Tokyo! I’ve also had some experience playing indoor soccer with friends in Japan. It was a lot of fun. In the end, it was the people who made my experience for me as well. My track teammates are now some of my best friends – so they are definitely nice, inclusive people. Just, they can be shy until the ice breaks and I think that that’s probably because of the language barrier.

By: Lenna Stites

Lenna Stites — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:02:00 +0000

Mescale – you raise a good point, and of course the ingroups and outgroups are not something that only exists in Japan, there are cliques everywhere. However, I do think that cliques become harder to merge into when there are large cultural boundaries in play, and it is an obstacle that foreigners will most likely encounter if they live in Japan (or any foreign country) for a prolonged period of time. But since my personal experience only pertains to Japan, I can’t speak for what it’s like to live elsewhere. I have had many friends who have studied abroad in Japan complain about how hard it is to make Japanese friends, and how they only tend to hang out with other foreigners while there. So I wanted to show that with time, it is possible to gain status in an ingroup. If you get around to reading the rest of the article, I do hope you enjoy it.

By: Mescale

Mescale — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:22:00 +0000

Thanks for sharing your cool experience Tokyo!

I think often in team games I’ve been in many people forget about the experience and just want the end product, they want the best players so they can win the prize at the end. But team sports are more than that, when a team works together well it becomes more than a sum of it’s parts.

If you are in a team which enjoys playing together regardless of level, if you work together regardless of who you are or how good you are, you are much better than a team of good players with no chemistry. And in the end, it doesn’t matter about the trophy or the prize because when you have fun playing that is the end you really seek. But hey as mlong as you’re playing you may as well win right?

By: Tokyo

Tokyo — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:51:00 +0000

@Mescale:disqus I agree with you on the point, though it might be ‘different’ in the way it’s handled (I don’t know if that the right way to say it..) Because I have felt the same in Australia as in Japan in some way.

I joined a Indoor soccer team in Japan, but I felt a bit left out at times. Which is similar in Australia how I join a Basketball team and had a hard time fitting in at first. The main difference was just the language barrier. Both sports I didn’t follow as much as some other players so I could talk that much to some team members on both teams.

Funny thing I felt more apart of the Indoor Japanese soccer team in Nagano. Because of the people!! I was meant to just play one game but after I said I’d like to play i was part of the Team. And we won the tournament! Yet in the Basketball team, I was interested in and I was left out more and got put on the bench.. even in In the final.

So even in my own country I felt more of a outsider in this regards, to how people treat me. Could it have been because of my skill? I couldn’t say, but I was very average player for both teams. I am better at basketball than soccer. Yet, the Japanese team I joined I felt a apart of it. Playing together, going out together after it. I felt like they wanted to include me! Not because I wasn’t Japanese, just because of the awesome–! people I was with in that team.