Check out this post: Yellow moon, blue traffic light, from Linguarum’s Weblog, on the different ways Japanese and Westerners express things, and how culture affects even the way we perceive the world around us.
Basically the writer’s idea is that Asians, particularly Japanese, view or express things in more symbolic, less literal ways than Westerners. The question this leaves us with is How can we communicate more effectively cross-culturally?
Good word on the arts and mission and what they have to do with each other: Innovation in Mission: Innovation in the Arts.
Golden Week was this past week here in Japan. It’s a cluster of holidays that all happen within the same week. This year, one of the holidays was last Tuesday, two were this week (Monday and Tuesday), and one landed on Saturday (boo). If people are going to use vacation time in Japan (and oddly enough, it’s not a given that one would actually use one’s vacation time), Golden Week is often when it happens.
Since it was Golden Week, I had Monday and Tuesday off — no classes. So I took off to Osaka on Friday afternoon, to visit friends in my Japanese “hometown”. I got caught up with friends, ate some great yaki-niku, did some sight-seeing (more on that another day), even went to a movie.
I got back late Monday night. Tuesday, since it was a holiday, our church hosted a missions festival. Also a good time. Then in the evening, after an already full day, I went out: A worship band called Audacious (from the UK) was in town and there was a worship concert going on. Also good.
Then came Wednesday, and it was back to school.
Ouch.
I feel like I could have used another day off just to stay at home and catch up on sleep. The holidays were a lot of fun, but I didn’t have much down time, alone, just to chill out. I’ve been looking forward to the weekend since Wednesday. I haven’t slept well, despite being tired.
But it’s Friday now.
This Week:
1. I didn’t blog much, as you can see. I’ll try to make up for it next week. I do have some unused videos and photos.
2. I connected with some new mission-minded Christian friends — one in person and one via email. I’m always amazed at how we’re all connected somehow. It’s like the whole “six degrees” thing; only with Christians in Japan it’s more like two degrees, which is probably due at least in part to the relative smallness of the Christian community here.
3. I helped pass out flyers to kids near a couple of local elementary schools. We have a kids’ event tomorrow we were inviting them to.
4. I realized I need to study even more. Last week we started studying Kanji — the complicated characters borrowed from Chinese which represent words instead of sounds. There are literally thousands of these things, and I think we’re supposed to learn about 300 in the next five months or so. On top of that, we’re quickly coming up on grammar that I’m less familiar with, and soon enough will be into all new stuff again. So, as I said, more study required. I figure about 3 hours outside of class would do it.
5. I also realized this week that I don’t get enough talk time in class, and I’m thinking I need to do something about that. Meaning I need to seek out more opportunities to practice my Japanese, or take advantage of the opportunities that are already there.
… on CAN Japan’s Worship & The Arts blog: Manga Outreach + A Sneak Peak at Manga Metamorphosis and Manga Mutiny. Speaks for itself, so ’nuff said.