Changing Impressions

It has been almost 4 months that I am living in Japan. It is my first time travelling abroad from Brazil; I can say as an inexperienced traveller person that I have learnt a lot.
In this post, my last post for my Visual Anthropology course, I will try to describe some of my experiences living here during these months.



Two of my first pictures...



My first fear, was of my future roommate, who I would live with for 4 months. Now at the end of the semester I can talk a little about my Kenyan friend: Barbara. I will not take too long but she is a person who has travelling experience, and besides the fact that she is four years younger than me, she helped me to learn how to live outside my hometown, far from family and friends. To my joy here her friends, become my friends.



Above my Kenyan friend “teaching”” African dance.

Below my friends and me and their Japanese boss who speaks very well Portuguese.



A topic that I would like to learn before come to Japan is japanese educational system. Fortunately I had an opportunity to be part of a group that presented about English Education in Japan. So we visited an elementary school and a junior high school. I observed that english classes are supposed to be fun, to motivate the students, with games and group acitivites, to study a foreign language. In contrast the music class that I watched, the students demonstrated special atention to the teacher, in silence, showing discipline, listening to the teacher, they perfom to us, the observers. It was a beautiful class.


English class in Elementary School and Music class in Junior High school.



In March, I went to Hiroshima, and it was an unforgettable experience. We met a woman who survived the atomic bomb. The victim described the sad happening and touched the audience. She described how difficult it was to find her friends and her parents.As well as the consequences of the radiation to the victims. For example, bias in society. To people who will study in Japan, or visit I recommend they visit the "City of Peace".

Painting showed at the survivor speech:


This photo was in Osaka Castle, I was alone so a Japanese person took a bunch of mine photos. It was a good experience; they costume you of Japanese warrior.



Last not the least, I can not forget how much I learned at school, including to writing and reading one component of the Japanese writing system, called hiragana (there are two others Katakana and Kanji).