Honoring Our Differences

I've heard it said that we creatures are more alike than we are different. After traveling round the globe, I must say that I heartily agree. People, no matter where you go, are people. Different sizes, colors, and languages, but in the end all generally homogenous. We all have hopes, dreams, wants and needs. I find these similarities encouraging. When you think about our similarities rather than our differences, the world is an easy place to live in; full of sisters, brothers, and friends!

BUT small differences are everywhere you look! And it's the differences between our cultures that make interacting with each other so interesting! I don't really find differences to be all that significant most of the time. But it is fun to occassionally point them out. :D

There are a lot of differences that I could write about. For example, Americans are used to driving on the right side of the road, threading a needle, turning a key counter-clockwise to lock something, and reading from left to right. All of these practices are opposite in Japan! (Japanese drive on the left side of the road, hold their thread steady and maneuver their needle instead, keys turn counter-clockwise when locking, and Japanese is written from right to left, top to bottom.) And there are certainly more differences for me to discover in Japan, but the most obvious to me are the ones that relate to my job at a Japanese Junior High School.

Now, like I noted, Junior High students are the same world-wide as far as I can tell. They have generally the same interests, priorities, and behaviors. But the schools that they attend are not as identicle. For example, Japanese students belong to a particular homeroom. They stay in that classroom all day long and don't rotate classrooms (other than for P.E., music, and science). Instead, the teachers rotate from classroom to classroom.

Also, students don't have lockers. They keep ALL of their things in their classroom (crowded!).

And school lunches aren't gross. They're actually (usually) quite tasty! Though I do take issue when lunch includes iriko (the little bitty dried fish that still have their eyeballs. they occasionally get decapitated in my soup--hard to eat floating fish heads).

And musn't forget (but I often still do forget!), everyone has indoor and outdoor shoes. So the flip flop of sandals is heard all round inside our school. Probably about 90% of Japanese school students also have uniforms. Our students have a winter uniform and a summer uniform. Appearance is strictly regulated-all students must have black hair (even if your hair is not naturally black!), girls must tie their hair up and they aren't allowed make-up, and boys aren't allowed longer than average hair. Appearance is important in Japan and I think, especially in J.H., the Japanese value uniformity.

There is one "janitor" at my school (at my school of 600 students). I wouldn't really call her a janitor though...she does a lot of miscellaneous, necessary stuff, but everyday there is a cleaning period and the students clean the school (yucky j.h. bathrooms included!).

See? Wasn't that fun?! ;) We have plenty of differences! Japanese and American Junior High Schools are different in a lot of ways. It's interesting to think about all the differences. And I think it's important to recognize that we are different and unique. In the end, differences are great.

But what's truly remarkable is that we're all the same.