I'm sure many of you who have seen some of my videos know that I'm sometimes kinda awkward... It never really bothered me since I was able to make fun of it all the time. I was so glad when I got some emails asking me if I was ever caught in awkward situations while abroad and the answer is obviously YES. I don't think I remember all of them and some of them are more or less private affairs but I'll tell you as much as I can!
Before I departed for Japan, I did a lot of research on the culture and knew approximately what were not good things to do. Once I was in the country, I picked up things fairly fast since it was similar to the Chinese culture. However, some things are not in either culture I'm familiar with and I had to learn the embarrassing way sometimes >///<
The first thing was the whole dating thing in school. Many couples don't show their affections publicly opposed to what I'm used to back home where everybody's all over each other. I didn't know a lot of people around me were dating unless somebody told me since there was absolutely no hint for me to know.
Second thing was tied to this. I never really liked how shy some Japanese people were with the fact that hugging each other wasn't in their culture. They usually have a lot of body touching (?) between friends of the same gender but rarely between boys and girls. I was obviously not aware of this and kept on hugging everybody until a guy asked me if I liked his friend since I kept hugging him...
And finally, my appearance is not very different from local people so many thought I was either a Japanese girl from Canada who came to exchange in Japan... Or I was full on Made in Japan. It was pretty hard for me to justify some mistakes and actions I do unless I tell everybody I was a foreigner. After a while, my school mates knew but when I was in public, I just look like a dumb Japanese person to the others around me. It doesn't really bother me since I proclaim myself as a pretty positive person and I usually make jokes out of my awkward experiences.
Many are worried if there will be racism in Japan, but from what I've been through, there is a very low chance of that. It might sometimes sound like they're mocking you but in reality, they don't really mean it.
I hope this helped you out somehow. If you have anything you need me to know please leave it down below in the comments or stalk me on...
in terms of other awkward experiences, do you think your height has affected that? i remember in an earlier blog post yo ureferenced. that's my biggest fear, that my height will make my experience negative, which is why im having a lot of anxieties!
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