ami's blog

2006-12-14T21:24:00.000-08:00

Friendship
Friends are really important to enjoy your life. Friends give us relaxation, happiness, anger, competitiveness and everything. People lives changes hugely just because of friends.
There are different types of friends such as best friends and group friends. People have one or two best friend and they have good relationship between them. They can talk about anything even things that you cannot say to your parents. People like being with best friends because you do not have to be nice or swanky and can be just the way you are. On the other hand, group friends do not talk about anything deep though how much they are friendly. People just want to enjoy chatting and have fun with them. The groups tend to have a kind of hierarchy. The active group tends to be a higher level while quiet group are lower. When students do something as a whole, active group often takes the leadership and decides everything. There are also sempai and kohai relationship in Japan. Since America do not have those relationships, it is likely to think that people are friends even they are at the different age. However, in my experience, I cannot think sempai or kohai as a friend. Although they are friendly and we were on good terms, we just think each other as sempai and kohai. We put them as a different company.
Family and friend relationship is also different in Japan and other countries. In general, we do not contact with friend’s family in Japan. It is kind of embarrassing to introduce our own families to friends. Therefore, knowing each other’s families is one of the keys to prove that they are best friends. In my experience, when we had “jugyousankan”(parents visit their child during the class to see how they are studying), I was ashamed to been asked “Who is your mother?” or being said “Ami, your mother is here!” I remember trying not to speak with my parents especially at school.(It does not mean I do not like my mother!) However, when I was living in Australia, we all knew about friend’s family. Since it was hard to play with friends without parents who can drive, it was common to communicate with whole family.
Everyone has friends and we enjoy lives by having them. It is very interesting to compare American and Japanese style because the way we communicate with friends are pretty different.

2006-11-30T21:07:00.000-08:00

Material Child

For teenagers, possession is one of the important things to express their identities. Therefore, adolescents are keys to gain benefits for the company. The marketing industry is trying hard influencing teenagers so that they would buy things. Since children tend to prefer latest style, the marketing industry devices to let their products sold. Some of their implements are working efficiently.
First, commercial is one of industry’s device. They advertise the same commercial for many times and force people to remember the products. Some company use celebrities or make unique CM so that they can grab consumer’s attention. Although you were not planning to buy it while you were watching TV, surprisingly, people often buy goods on impulse when they see products which were on the commercial.
Next, fashion magazines give big influence on teenager’s purchase. Japanese magazines have a lot of models wearing trendy clothes. Consumers check the hottest clothes by seeing those magazines. However, the models are not always the people who are extremely slim and beautiful. In order to make it easier for observers to imagine that they are wearing it, magazines use models who look just the ordinary people (though they are cute). Moreover, there are some magazines with pictures of ordinary people who look fashionable. This makes consumers to be familiar with trendy clothes and think that they could also wear it.
There are more other things that the market industry is trying hard influencing teenagers so that they would buy things. However, commercials and magazines are one of the typical devices that every firm does. Checking CMs and magazines are ok but it may be not a good idea to rely just on those and buy whatever thing you saw. It is necessary to take advantages of what company offered and not the other way round.

2006-11-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

School in the life of the teen

Japanese and American students have pretty different types of school lives in terms of friends, rules and so forth.
In the text, it said that American students have discontinuous relationships with friends while Japanese have long relationships with classmates. I’m not sure about America’s, but it is true that Japanese get along with friends for a long time. I still keep in touch with friends in primary, junior and high school. We have an alumni meeting 3~4 times a year and keep connections. (Though it depends on class) In my opinion, the reasons of long-term relationship between Japanese friends are the system of classes. While American students have individual schedule, Japanese students belong to class and attend the same subjects. They have lunch together, chat with classmates during the break, and clean classes together. Therefore, you stay with classmates for a long time until the class changes. In my case, because my class didn’t change for three years, we are all good friends and sure these ties would last forever.
Also, Japanese school has weird school regulations especially in junior-high and high school. In my case, we weren’t aloud to shave eyebrows, though it looks really heavy, or make the skirt shorter (you were not aloud to show knees). In addition, we had a check called “hukusoukensa” which students gather in a big hall and teachers check if we are well-dressed. If you get caught, you will have penalty such as receiving a good scolding. My school was pretty strict, so you can’t say all Japanese schools are like this. However, it is true that some school has really unusual regulation. But the true thing is, although teachers try hard to make students observe the school regulations, most of the students ignored and selected being punished.
These are one of the differences between American and Japanese. Both have good and bad points and it will be interesting to find more differences.

2006-11-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

☆ＥＳＳＡＹ☆
In my case, some points were different from the article. Now, I have 4 people in my family; my dad, sister, brother and me. Since I don’t have my mum, we all share the housework. For example, my dad takes out all the garbage and cooks on every weekend, my brother does the laundry and cleans the bath, and I do the house cleaning and cooking. (My sister lives on her own, so I won’t write about her.) Of course we can’t do all the housework perfectly as other mothers do, but we are doing all right at the moment. In the reading, it says that Japanese mother does the housework and let their children to study. However, I think it is different now. Because mother began to work these days, their child started to do the housework. In fact, some of my friends actually do it and they support their mother willingly. However, it is true that girls tend to help and not boys. In my case, my sister and I started to prepare supper at the age of 13~15. However, my dad didn’t let my brother to do the same. He thinks cooking is girl’s job. Although my brother sometimes cooks when I have a job, my dad gives him a high praise for the work which he never does to me. The concept that man goes to work and women stays at home is rooted though it is changing gradually.

2006-10-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

Hello! I'm Ami☆I'm a freshman in Waseda.
I used to live in Australia when I was little.

I love movies, traveling and swimming!

I'm really looking forward to hear from you all!!

国際教養学部の有未（あみ）です。このブログを通じて

たくさんの人と知り合えたらなとおもいます。よろしく♪♪