Final Thoughts


Looking back on the field research, I am glad that we researched about the Matusmae Castle and Karaoke in Japan. It surprised me that many students in Hakodate or students who grew up in Hokkaido do not know about the history or the historical significance of the castle. It was shocking to see the loss of history transmission from one generation to the next generation, especially when Japan is known as the country that continues to flourish its culture and history in the present days. From the cultural perspective, I captured many differences between Canadian and Japanese. For instance, the way people perceive Karaoke in Japan is much different compared to how we perceive in Canada. Many rules and etiquette are mandatory to follow, such as songs selection is crucial especially you are singing with your senpai because choosing the popular or famous dongs from your senpai’s generation is expected.

Overall, in this two-week program, I felt it was definitely more than being a foreigner in Hakodate. We got to have so many different experiences that we might never have a chance to encounter. Junior High School Visit, ZaZen meditation, our stay at Fururu, and more. These are precious memories and experience that I will always remember. These experiences have also shaped my personal perspectives. Being more considerate and try to live my life with omoiyari is definitely what I will pursuit when I am back in Calgary. 




-Lisa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little bit about Katherine...

Image
My name is Katherine Gusztak. I am 24 years old and I am just finishing my Communications Degree by going on this Group Study Program. I grew up loving anime and didn’t think much of it as I was a child. After giving my life to God and becoming a Christian, I really started to feel a strong desire to understand Japanese culture more, so I started learning the language and meeting lots of Japanese people through the club on campus. Now, almost 2 years later, my heart has grown in love towards Japanese people in a way that I have never felt towards anyone in my life. I really look forward to going to Japan for the first time and seeing how I am affected by it. For my research paper, I will be looking at religion in Japan and how it has changed over the last few hundred years. I have heard many Japanese people say that their religion is part of their culture, but they do not actively participate in their religion other than maybe going to a temple or shrine at the start of
Read more

Reflections

My experience in Japan has been very unique because Kodama sensei brought us to her home town. We stayed in Fururu, the place where Kodama   Sensei went to elementary school, for 5 nights. There was a communal shower and bath where we got to experience some true Japanese culture and bond like Japanese girls do. This was the most unique experience which brought all of us closer than I ever expected us to be. Another activity that also created a strong bond was going for karaoke which my group chose as one of the topics for our project.   At our stay in Hakodate we did karaoke 3 times, tram car karaoke, room karaoke and karaoke at round 1. After the 3 rd time we went for karaoke I felt almost as if there was an unspoken feeling of a bond, as if I could trust these girls more than before because of feeling so comfortable and open around them. The duration of time spend with everyone on this group study in Hakodate has truly made us bond like Japanese do and because of this bond I didn’
Read more

Karaoke Blog post 2

In the presentation done in class I looked into the history of karaoke and now I will look into karaoke in Hakodate. In Japan Karaoke is a very popular socializing activity. In Sapporo and Hokkaido there were many karaoke bars on the streets. Since we have not done karaoke yet, I interviewed 2 university students. These girls had their first experience with karaoke at the age of ten, and sixteen. It seems to be more common to go to karaoke with close friends. Misato’s parents do not like karaoke so she has never been to karaoke with her parents whereas Yuna went to karaoke with her parents when she was a young girl. However, as she grew up, she started to only go to karaoke with friends. Yuna prefers to go to karaoke only with very close friends whereas Misato enjoys going with people she just met as an ice breaker. No karaoke bar seems to be more popular than other ones; it just comes down to personal preference. For example, Yuna’s favorite karaoke bar is called MASH, and in Mi
Read more