July Sycamore Tree

Dear Sycamore Family,
Working in a cross-cultural setting or living in a foreign country can be filled with frustrations around language and culture. Even if you have a decent sized vocabulary in a foreign language you still have to now how to use those words in the context of the culture.

I have learned about this a lot lately in the Pop Culture workshop that I lead on Tuesday evenings at the Student Center. In this workshop we discuss various aspects of pop culture and compare our perceptions and actual experience in Japanese and American culture. For the first class I had the students help me to bake chocolate chip cookies and while they were in the oven we talked about the power and meaning of symbols and tradition. I showed them the kanji for love or ai (愛) and then a picture of a heart. I also showed them the kanji for peace/heiwa (平和) and many different symbols of peace like the 'peace sign' and a picture of a dove. We talked about how these symbols are fairly universal and commonly understood across cultures.

Then, I showed them the kanji for home/ie (家) and garden/niwa (庭) and asked them to draw a picture of what these words mean to them while I took the cookies out of the oven. The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies is often a hard one to ignore and all of the other classes paused for a few minutes to see what I was doing. I had the cookies cooling on a dish while the students showed me what they had drawn and described each thing. Almost all of the students had drawn a small house surrounded by a small garden. One girl had drawn children and a small dog playing in the front yard. I noticed that most of their houses had tatami floors and one student had even added a kotatsu table.

While we ate the cookies, I showed them photographs that remind me of home. They included photographs of my family, our house, my apartment in Berkeley and my college friends, and some pictures from Sycamore's Day Camp. I told the students that, in America, the chocolate chip cookie is also often seen as a symbol of home because mothers will bake with their children and the smell is very comforting. So, 'home' can mean many things depending on who you're talking to. It was an interesting conversation and a good beginning to the class.

Now, we're working on a survey to distribute to young people in Japan and in the U.S. on favorite movies, books, music, etc as well their opinions on various topics. The process has taken a lot longer than I originally thought it would but has been an educational one for everyone involved. I've learned that there are some questions that you just can't ask in Japanese directly or that some words are more polite than others. Hopefully, I'll be able to share the completed survey with you soon and you'll help us by completing one and sending it back. More on that soon!

Thinking of home constantly,
SKLT
Global Missions Intern (GMI) and
Assistant to the Director of the Sendai Student/Youth Center in Sendai, Japan