Landing.

It's quite sad to be writing this blog on the last day of my stay at the Narita View Hotel. I've come to be somewhat attached to these accommodations from the room to our little classroom.

It's hard to believe that 10 hour flight was really just a few days ago; we've been on a whirlwind of orientations and Japanese lessons. To be honest, I couldn't ask for a better group of interns, and we all really hangout together. At least we're somewhat close before we disperse out to our Sakura House hostels. We will have to make active attempts to keep in touch and get together while we are here in Japan. But, I really enjoy their company, and I've felt at home with this makeshift intern family. 

The Japanese intensive began today, and I'm finding myself somewhat overwhelmed with how fast this experience is already feeling. We've had the wonderful privilege of learning business custom from bowing to exchanging name cards. But for me, the real experience has been just being around the Japanese and really experiencing the daily life. I find myself adjusting to little things from food portions to toilets with so many more functions than an American could ever ask for. I'm learning from my German peers and from the customs of every Japanese person I happen to meet. I finally got to visit an arcade and eat to my heart's content!

Finally some Omurice!

My roommate is so studious.

As we prepare to move to the Olympic Center, I find myself even more excited to really get to experience the Tokyo urban experience. I really respect Intrax's faith in its interns to freely experience Japan as they so wish. We are respected and treated as adults, and I think this sense of exploration is what makes this internship so much more life-changing and valuable. I am so eager to take what I've learned from my orientation to really start working. I have another intern working at Ryugaku, so I'm hoping to see her more often at the Sendagaya house!

One of my favorite lessons so far:

We had a guest lecturer from a former Intrax director and higher-up from Mainichi shinbun. I didn’t get much from what he said given his immensely circuitous way of speaking. He brought up the term “harage” or the Japanese idea of subtlety and implicit meaning. “Hara” meaning stomach refers back to the Japanese aphorism of “Ishin-denshin” meaning roughly the same thing. Japanese people seldom decline or respond disrespectfully and rather take more roundabout approaches to express negativity often involving the other party having to decode this sort of unwritten/unspoken communication.

I find this incredibly interesting, because I feel the US relies so much on bluntness and directness. We are straight-forward, relying only on subtlety for particular purposes. It is easy for us Americans to assume this to be a calculated, negative point about Japanese people, but I really believe subtlety to be a mark of social consciousness and intelligence. I’ve found the most awkward people to be the ones who don’t have any sense of social subtlety and cannot pick up on these things in between the lines.