Fourth Meeting with Joe

My fourth meeting with Joe proved to be one of the most entertaining ones yet. I think it was a great learning experience for both of us.  We have now gotten to a point where we are comfortable talking to each other without there being as many pauses and language barriers. Joe can get when I don’t understand what he is saying and I am the same way. We both try to re word what we tell each other to make things as easy as possible to understand. I am truly enjoying each of these meetings.  At this particular meeting, Joe had a lot of questions for me regarding American culture. They happened to be really funny and we were both laughing in the middle of Union Grounds. I wonder what the people around us thought.

As we’re sitting at the table Joe puts on a serious face and says, “Danielle, I have a question for you” I responded “yeah what’s up?” in response Joe said “Why do American boys not use Umbrellas?” I sat there staring at him wondering what to say in response. I never really thought about that kind of thing so here he is eager for my answer and I’m having what I like to call “word salad” trying to give my explanation. Before I could continue my confusing answer Joe explained that he was carrying an umbrella around campus the other day and was confused when people were giving him strange looks. He thought everyone was crazy not for having one, “in Japan, guys use umbrellas, we don’t like getting wet.”  I have to say that is a valid point. The conclusion I came to in response to Joe’s question was that I don’t think guys around TCU think too much about carrying and umbrella around with them. I know I have an umbrella and I have it 1. To keep me dry and 2. As a cute accessory to my rain gear (cheesy I know). Guys don’t think too much about the second one and I’m sure they just believe a hooded sweatshirt will suffice. Any guy that has a better explanation please feel free to leave a comment and elaborate, maybe I can give Joe a better answer at our next meeting.

After that whole situation got semi figured out, Joe again asked me another question. “Danielle, do you have a boyfriend?” This question took me a little more by surprise. I answered him yes, and he looked happy with my answer “good, I want to know what Americans do on dates!” I guess I knew that different cultures have different ways of courtship but it never really crossed my mind. I explained to Joe that typical American dates included things like dinners, movies, trips to the zoo, going out downtown, and other similar activities. I asked Joe the same question and he said that in Japan people like to karaoke on dates and watch movies.  Sounds fun to me! He said people didn’t go to dinner and out to eat as much, which I found surprising because that seems to be one of the most popular things to do on a date here in the United States.

I think one of the best questions Joe asked me was “Danielle, do you like pizza?” I wanted to responded with “uhh YESSSS” but I knew that he would probably not understand my obsession with pizza. So I responded with an ecstatic “yes!”  I asked Joe if he liked pizza and he said he loved it but he explained how expensive it was in Japan. I was curious to how expensive it really was so Joe pulled up this picture of a comparison diagram between what you can get in Japan and America for the same price. For the price of about thirty American dollars you can get one pizza in Japan. I was shocked and realized I never could live in Japan. But on a serious note, I was shocked and Joe explained that although he likes pizza a lot its something people don’t eat a lot in Japan because it is so expensive.

This fourth meeting with Joe was by far one of the best. I learned so much more about him and his Japanese culture than I have at any of our other meetings. Likewise, I think that Joe had a lot of his questions answered about American culture. I can’t wait to see what the next meeting has in store!