Meet The World

Meet The World

Have you stayed in other countries or met the people who have different cultures from yours? Yes, I have. I stayed in England for a year, and I have been living in the U.S for seven months. I went to two different English schools when I was in England. All students were of course from outside of England. Most of them were from Europe which is Spain, Italy and so on. Others were from the Far East like Korea, Thailand and Japan. I even met a few people who are sons of millionaires from East Asia such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan. When I was in Chicago, I met people who were from Korea, China and Mexico. As you know, I met English and American people as well. I also made friends who were from other countries like Argentina, Brazil and all over the world. In addition, I experienced and learned lots of things from their cultures. Some cultures are totally different from my culture. They sometimes made me surprised, and I realize that I will never get accustomed to them. On the other hand, the other cultures are very important for everyone to understand. To meet many people and to experience different cultures is how my life and my way of thinking have greatly changed. I think you might feel like traveling other countries!

First of all, what I felt when I met people was they were very casual when communicating with other people. Their actions seemed to lazy to me though. For example, I saw them in my class in the U.S. Students eat snacks, drink juice, and put their legs on the desk during the class! They go out of a classroom without asking the teacher. It was my first culture shock. In Japan, we have to respect teachers, so we must not drink, eat, or put legs on desks. We do not learn such things. In contrast, we have already known good manners. My second example is, people especially Europeans hug, kiss cheeks and shake hands. When I first went to England, I was a high school student. I was so nervous when I had to hug and kiss men! But I got used to doing that soon. Besides, I noticed that most of Europeans kiss twice to each cheek, but Swiss people kiss three times. To shake hands became a custom among the young Japanese.