By choice Sachiko and I have lived next to each other for almost a year-and-a-half. There’s not much to do here, so in the evenings we sit around drinking tea and talking in Spanish. We discuss the differences between JICA (the Japanese International Cooperation Agency) and Peace Corps. We compare our countries to Guatemala, which is interesting in that Guatemala aspires to be like the US, but currently it is more like conservative and traditional Japan. We talk about the news, like last night when we compared the current sumo wrestling scandal in Japan to the all-too-common sports scandals in the US (Sachiko thought Brett Farve and Tiger Woods were particularly funny/tragic).
For better or for worse, I have introduced Sachiko to American culture: the Twilight movies (we had a marathon one day), Modern Family (her new favorite show), Pixar, smores, Rice Krispy Treats, the Super Bowl, and Halloween, among other things.
I have also learned more about Japan than I ever thought I would. We talk about the Japanese imperial family (and their poor Harvard-educated princess who crumpled under the pressure to produce a male heir). We discuss the very different business models of the US and Japan, and how that affects young workers. We watched Lost in Translation together, along with a thematically similar German movie about a old German man in Toyko. After watching Toy Story 3, we watched the 1988 Japanese anime movie Totoro, whose title character had a cameo in Toy Story 3. Totoro is one of my favorite films ever, with some truly memorable images—I recommend it!
Most significantly, Sachiko has taught us Japanese for the last few months. Every Sunday my host siblings, Rebecca, Rebecca’s counterpart, and I gather for Japanese class. I can now write the entire Hiragana alphabet and read Japanese lettering (even though I have no idea what the words mean).
One of the goals of agencies like JICA and Peace Corps is to raise intercultural understanding, and Sachiko is an excellent ambassador of Japan. Rebecca and I are both interested in visiting Japan someday, and if I go Sachiko has promised to take me to McDonalds and Dominoes so that I don’t starve on sushi.
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