I swore I’ll get to the blogging after I came home from work today but yea…got lazy again. Watching tv etc… So here I am to blog about yesterday…hmmm…Tuesday. Kumamoto National College of Technology and TP’s culture exchange event.
Where to begin? Mariko sensei was kind enough to let Sis and I join in as we have already graduated. As soon as the Japanese students arrived, I was thinking “omg…all guys?” Then a few girls came through the door and I was kinda relieved. But well, it is a technological college afterall so one would expect more guys. You know how I love almost anything Japanese but hell, when I’m in the presence of Japanese people, I feel kinda intimidated. My Japanese is like really “cannot make it” so how??!! *breathe in, breathe out…* Well, they could speak a little English but really minimal. Now I feel so grateful that Kenichi and Shinichi are quite ok with speaking in English. They’re much better. *smacks forehead*
As usual, our students had to present about our country and school. I think overall, we did quite a bad job in presentation. Keeping in mind that their vocabulary is minimal, I think they would be scratching their heads to certain words. And the presenters flashed the slides so fast. Hello, they need to slowly read and digest the information ok. Worse still…the history bits were like crap. About how Sang Nila Utama saw the lion and thus named the island “Singapura”. The girl who presented said something like…”he saw a lion running here and there.” WTH! You don’t present history like you’re reading some kiddy story ok? Poor presentation on our multi-racial culture. They could have brought some items, the real objects so that the Japanese students can see and actually understand what you are talking about. Like red packets and stuff… *shakes head*
I feel so ashamed that the Japanese students presented their school and country/prefecture better than us. Could actually see the effort put in. *sigh* Anyhow, I hope they did learn something about our country.
Next, touring of the school. That wasn’t too bad. They were quite amazed with our 10-storied library. I learnt from Mariko sensei later that their school is a small one. Only about a thousand plus students spread out in 5 levels.
Lunch break. Haha…catered food. Sis said the food from this caterer was much better than the one during our graduation. HAHAHA…
Then it was time to interact with them. Each one of us had to pair up with a Japanese student and write messages for each other on a board. You could write/draw anything you wanted. I paired up with their leader, Fumihiko. It was kinda hell for both him and me. I couldn’t speak Japanese, neither could he express himself fluently in English. Many a time, he sort of got a little frustrated coz he couldn’t find the right words to say. Anyway, he taught me how to write my name in katakana. I MUST remember! I learnt how to write my name in katakana when I was learning Japanese in year 1, wrote it in my notebook but didn’t really commit to memory coz we weren’t expected to know katakana. *slaps myself* Even when Per leaves comments in Japanese, I have to consult the online katakana character map to make out what she’s saying. SO FREAKIN’ ASHAMED OF MYSELF!!!
So we exchanged the basic – name, email, address etc… He asked me to draw something but I’m afraid my drawing sucks manz. So I told him I will write a message instead. I’ll write mine in English and you can write yours in Japanese, then we can go find out what the message means. Heh…I kinda told him he could write his in English coz I really didn’t want him to force himself to write in English and besides, you can express yourself better in the language you are comfortable with. Ok…will talk more about this later…
After the interaction activity, we moved over to the sports complex to play games. I thought what games…ended up playing like our childhood games. è€é¹°æŠ“å°é¸¡, blow wind blow, whacko etc. Hmmm…thinking now, they should have played “murderer” (one of 7ners favourite game during chalet stays). Hey, but they were sporting and played along. And as usual, when TP students get all excited and high, we have to do the whole TP cheer. Not much of a cheer…but someone starts yelling “TP oei!” then the rest yell in response “oei!” Then that someone yells “TP oei” again and again the rest yell “oei”. The third time that someone yells “TP oei”, we have to respond “sat sat oei!” I think the Japanese students must think we’re mad.
The whole event ended with gift exchanging. We each received a windchime. So pretty~~~
Coming back to the message board I was talking about earlier on. Upon returning home, I started to examine the message Fumihiko had written. Thank God for knowing mandarin so I can sort of guess the kanji. I think he wrote “Nice knowing you. This is my first time coming to Singapore. First time in a very English language oriented area. An area which I’m not familiar with. Glad that you didn’t force me too much to converse in English. If you visit Japan, please visit Kumamoto. Till then, I hope that my English will be much better.” The part in italics is the part I’m not too sure on. Heh…even Per said I translated only about 70% correctly on her comment on my previous post. I don’t think I translated it correctly but I got what he meant so that’s not too bad.
Now for the visuals…I know you guys are like waiting for this.
My partner for message exchange, Fumihiko
The message board and windchime present
Also…
I wanted to post this up a few days ago but my digicam was borrowed by Sis. Tried taking photos with my webcam but it came out really blur. So had to wait till now…
I made an Ayupan wallpaper for my handphone! *claps*
And I pasted a My Melody sticker at the back. Cute~~~
