"What Women Want"

I thought it was a very interesting movie.
In dramas, I often see the scenes that women indicate something to men but men don’t notice anything. Apparently, women are complicated because they don’t say what they are exactly thinking in their mind. That’s because they don’t want to be so simple, and they want to attract men’s attention by being complicated. So, it doesn’t mean women want to bother men. Also, sometimes women are too shy to express the feelings in their mind, so they hope that men notice those feelings without actually saying, so when it worked out, they are happy. Love usually doesn’t go smoothly all the time. Even couples are not always happy. They sometimes have hard time to understand each other, but when they get over the issues, the love grows up. If men could read women’s mind, it would get just too simple and there won’t be any opportunity to develop love, so actually I’m happy that men cannot read our mind.
If we could know what card the others have, card game won’t be fun…

“What Women Want”, is a very nice thought-provoking movie. It’s funny too. My favorite scene is when a coffee shop woman said “please say you are a gay” in her mind noticing the main character was going to reject her, and he said “yes I’m a gay.”

Education

1. Do you think Japan should give more students options to study more languages (other than English) in Junior and Senior High School?

It's important to learn other languages besides English. It will be definitely helpful to get involved in international society now. However, I think English is the most important language considering the fact that it's a de facto official language in the world, and in Japan, there are few people who have enough ability to communicate freely in English compared to other countries. So, to me, it's more important to be able to actually speak English than learning several languages getting a little knowledge about them and without actually being able to speak them. Also, I think it would be nice to show or introduce the other languages to students in some classes, and then if the students were interested in some languages, they would start to learn the languages by themselves or by attending private tutoring schools and it would be easier for them to learn. I say that because I didn't even think about learning other languages besides English when I was a junior or senior high school. That's because no one even suggested me to do that and it seemed very very rare to learn another languages, or it seemed even useless to do that. So, I didn't have environment to learn foreign languages besides English, and I think that's too bad. Therefore, I believe that building solid learning system of English is the first thing to be concerned, and introducing other languages to students is good way to get them interested in languages other than English.

2. Read this interesting opinion from the Mainichi newspaper. Do you agree with the author? Is being fluent in English a waste of time?

I agree with the author. Trying to be fluent in English may be good to keep the motivation, but it could be pressure or stressful as well because it's a difficult thing to do like the author said. What this author says is probably right, and I can go along with the idea that true value of language study linked with a person's way of living lies within a lifestyle. Even if children began to learn English earlier, that wouldn't simply mean that they could be able to speak English fluently. One of the reasons is that we don't need to speak English in our daily life like Hirakawa in the article.

However, I just don't want to say that it's useless or waste of time to be fluent in English. I believe that we need to think other ways besides "educational" way. I mean, we should incorporate English into our life more. So, I guess we need to review our incorrect "Wasei eigo"(of course not all of them are incorrect), or being shy to use English, seriously. I think those are more important than trying to be fluent in English by educational way at the moment.

Men and Women

Do you agree or disagree with the author (who is Japanese). Please explain why in your blog.

I actually don't know if it's true that men have been having "Renai Ken-o Sho," or girls don't know what men are thinking any more because I don't even try to think what men are thinking. I'd rather think that it depends on each person, so I think it's hard to define uniformly how men think of women, and vice versa.

It may be true that girls expect their boyfriends to call them or buy them gifts and some guys would think there is no profit to be gained. Also, girls may complain if their boyfriends didn't give them any gifts on their birthday or Christmas. They will give a birthday gift to their boyfriends or chocolates on Valentine's Day, but I don't think they do that because their boyfriends would complain if they didn't. However, their boyfriends may do that because girls would get upset if they didn't. Considering this, I can accept the idea that girls are hassle. However, I think there are some reasons why many girls are like that. They may expect their boyfriends to call them, and that's because they feel anxious if their boyfriends didn't call them once in a while, yeah, most girls know that love relationships are not secure. By the way, although the author said the reason why relationship-security is low now is because guys don't have passion to get close to girls, Ithink relationship-security is low anytime no matter how men are. I think guys are also anxious, but I believe that girls are more afraid of being jilted by their boyfriends, and that is why they expect the boyfriends a lot in order to cast aside the fear. Giving gift could mean that their boyfriends care about them. They might consider that if their boyfriends forget about their birthday, that means the boyfriends forget about them. Girls are anxious of that magnitude. Those things could be burdensome for guys. However, those are not always true. There are also girls or guys who give gifts just because they want to see their boy/girlfriens' smile, and there are couples who call each other often just because they want to lieten to their voice. That is ideal to me.

Table manners

Have you ever eaten in a foreign restaurant? Where? What did you eat? Did you make any mistakes? Please explain your experience. Did you learn anything?

Yes. I have eaten at a Thai restaurant once. I ate green curry, tom yam kung, and some spicy side dishes. I didn't care if I was doing any mistakes at that time since that wasn't formal type of restaurant. However, when I look back now, I realized that I was lifting my plates up during the lunch there and that it's a bad manner in Thailand. Although many people there seemed that they also didn't know about Thai manner that much(considering the fact that many Japanese people there were making same mistake as mine), I will try to follow the rules as much as I can next time. I guess that's the way to show my politeness to the cooks, and that will make the meal more enjoyable soaking up the atmosphere.

Though I knew that most of Thai food are spicy, I still needed to say "wow, this is hot" like a hundred of time. So, I needed to drink a lot of water.

Therefore, what I learned were "it's good to follow the rules in foreign restaurants" and "Thai food was hot after all."

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

To me, the movie was quite funny and also interesting. The family was very lively and cheerful, but strict about religion. They are actually so unique for other people, but they don't notice and I found that it's the most funny thing about the movie.
I think it's a true story because religion is sometimes so important for some people. The movie was funny but if a couple can't get married just because of the religion problem, that would be so sad for them. I think it happens in today's modern times. For example, I've hard that Jewish can get married only with Jewish.
I thought the speech of her father was nice. I agree with the idea that even if they are not same kind of fruits, they are still fruits anyway. However, I thought that it's a bit strange that the main char actor's husband needed to change his religion after all.
If I were her, I wouldn't be able to stand the situation and will think like she did. I might be able to follow the rules, but I won't be willing to give up my boyfriend because of the religion or rules.

Weddings

1.Since Japanese weddings are expensive, do you think having a massive wedding like Korea or UAE is a good idea?

Although I know that Japanese weddings are expensive, I prefer having a wedding here to having a massive wedding. I think it's worth for paying a lot of money since I want to make a special memory on the happy big day.


2. What do you think about eloping? Having a wedding in a foreign location like Hawaii?

I don't have strong opinion about eloping. It could be bad, but if they don't have any choice but eloping, they may need to do that. If I elope with someone, I don't think I will have a wedding in anywhere. Although having a wedding in a foreign location would be nice, I will just register our marriage with some paper works when I elope. If I get married officially, then I might be interested in having a wedding in a foreign location like Hawaii.



3.What is your ideal wedding?

I prefer kind of more casual wedding to traditional and rigidly formal one. Also it would be great if it has originality like having a little surprise. It should be nice sunny day so we can go outside and take pictures.



4.What would you definitely do, wear or go to on that big day? Why is that important?

Usually, brides change the dress three times in a Japanese style of wedding. They usually wear white dress, Japanese traditional dress(Kimono), and then another color dress(other than white). So, I would also do that. I don't know if it's important or not, but people would think that's natural so I just follow the usual way. I also will put up the candles on each table. I think it's good way to make a romantic mood. Well, I don't know much about weddings nowadays since it has been changing little by little from traditional weddings. So, I don't know what I can do in wedding. However, I think I will try to make our(me and my husband) wedding our style considering traditional style of weddings. I believe that's the most important thing for our wedding.


5. Have you ever been to a foreigner's wedding? What was your impression?

Unfortunately, I've never been to a foreigner's wedding.

Superstitions

・Do you think it is important to talk about superstitions in cross culture communication class? Why?
Yes, I do think so because they sometimes show the customs in each countries. So, learning superstitions helps to learn about different culture and how to communicate with people in each countries. Besides, some of them are made for restrain some unpleasant actions for the culture, so if we don't know such kind of superstitions, we may break the rules that people keep unconsciously in the society.



・Is communication affected by superstitions?
I think it depends. As I said, it's important to know some superstitions to communicate with people in different countries so we can know their culture and follow their rules, but communication is not always affected by superstitions. That's because not all people believe in superstitions. If you were in foreign country and knew some superstitions of there, people in the country would be impressed. However, on the other hand, even if you didn't know any of them and did something that against superstition, people in the country still won't get upset but would understand since you are from another country and were brought up in different culture.


・Do you believe in superstitions? If yes, what superstitions do you believe?Why do you do, use, or believe in them?
I don't believe in superstitions in general. I sleep right after eating, when I sneeze, sometimes the superstition that says someone is talking about you comes up with my head, but I don't care. However, I do care when it comes to the superstitions which are related to "death." For example, passing food chopstick-to-chopstick, or sleeping with my head in north position. Although it still doesn't mean I believe in the superstitions, I just feel bad doing them since I often hear people saying the same things which are related to death.