On The Four-Way Test and Using It

Stereotype

I wanted to keep this blog for just myself and not upload it, but I think a lesson can be learned when we start to talk about Stereotypes.  Any kind of Stereotype is a label.  Usually they are a harsh label used as a derogative towards a race, an idea, or an action.  They are more often than not hurtful.

When traveling it is especially important to keep stereotypes as far away from yourself as possible.

In Rotary there is a thing called the Four Way Test.  Each Rotary meeting I have been to a moment is spent to go over these rules.  They are as follows;

1.) Is it the Truth?

2.) Is it Fair to all concerned?

3.) Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?

4.) Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

They are rules, tests, to see if what you are doing, saying, or thinking is correct and kind to all.  I try and keep these in my mind when I am going about daily life.  I will not lie and say I have not failed the test.  I have.  More times than I am comfortable admitting.  They are guidelines that try and help to make you and others better people.

Back to Stereotypes.  I’m keeping it a capitalized word through this blog to emphasize how much of any issue it is.   It is a pink elephant of an issue.  We don’t realize that we do it, but we do.  I didn’t until I took a good look at my own actions and noticed patterns I fell into according to someone’s race or position in society.  I was disgusted with myself because I believe all deserve a chance, and here I was, judging before knowing.  I was doing exactly what I disliked, what a hypocrite I was and sometimes still am.

Who was I to judge them?  Who was I to change my actions because of a stupid little stereotypes?  Who was I to treat them differently without even knowing who they were?  It wasn’t my place, that much I am sure of.

I should know, I was labeled as well.  I was smart in school, a big no-no because I raised my hand time and time again and knew the answers.  People didn’t like me because I knew, because I was smart, because I liked to read books, and they didn’t like me because I liked school.  All because of the stereotype I was labeled with.  I was a geek.  I was a nerd.  People didn’t hang out with me because of that stereotype, before they knew who I was.

I may have been smart but I was also interested in other things besides school.  I love art.  I love culture. So what if you weren’t smart, we could have talked about art.  We could have talked about any foreign culture.  It is not fair to me for you to label me as such.  It is not fair to yourself because you are keeping yourself from learning new things about new people, new things about the world.  It does not build goodwill and better friendships.  It hurts feelings.  It gives bullies power.  It hurts feelings to the point where they are never really fixed again.  It is never beneficial to anyone to be labeled and it is not beneficial to yourself to label anyone in anyway.

Never view someone through eyes tinted with a Stereotype or two.

Every day in Japan I am faced with Stereotypes.  Almost every day I battle them and try my best to dispel them.  I am an American in an Asian country, Japan specifically.  Japan is known to be racist, but that in itself is a huge stereotype.

I have come across people who don’t care about my race.  Who don’t care that I don’t look like them, can’t speak like them, and don’t know their culture like they do.  These people are my favorite.  These are the ones I keep close because I know they don’t mind answering my questions and they answer them honestly.

I have run into people who stare and don’t blink when I make eye contact (very rude here).  I have made kids cry by just looking at them.  I have come across people who refused to stand near me because of my race.  I have come across people who have called me dirty.  I know this because I understand more Japanese when it is spoken to me then when I speak it myself.

I answer questions most would think ridiculous. “Do you have microwaves in America?”  “Do you all eat doughnuts?”  “Are all Americans… big?”  “Are all Americans democrats or republicans?”  I am no expert on America.  I have lived there my whole life, but I am no expert.  I am a teenage girl who focused on academics rather than what my fellow American enjoyed eating. 

It was through these questions that American, real America, the America beyond the news reels and the movies, is basically unknown here in my area of Japan.  They only knew what has been shown to them.  We are so very similar in that sense. I know nothing about the Middle East besides what has been shown on the news.  They know nothing of America besides what is learned through the screen of a TV.

We have been fighting Racial Stereotypes, Gender Stereotypes, and Religious ones for many, many, many years.

Stereotypes feed on themselves.  They are passed down from parent to child.  They spread over continents and seem to be universal.  Keep an open mind.  People will surprise you.  Not everyone can be categorized and labeled.  Humans are individual.  We are ourselves because of our opinions, our teachings, and our personality.  No one is exactly the same.  There are patterns in behavior, learned actions that are viewed as Stereotypes.  Yes, those do exist.  They are not a base for how you should treat a person though.

Treat others as you would want to be treated.  It was something I learned in kindergarten.  It was something my teachers stressed.  It was something that the various exhibitions against bullying stood for. We were all taught it but sometimes we don’t listen.

It seems like it has taken years for that idea to firmly root itself in my mind.  I’m personally ashamed of that and have made promises to myself to view less the Stereotype and more the person.  They could be my new friend, my new business partner, or they could be someone who becomes important later on in my life; I do no good making a bad impression because of something as petty as a Stereotype.

Traveling has certainly taught me to keep my eyes and ears open while keeping my mouth shut so I can view the world around me without an expectation.  Traveling has anchored the idea of looking past Stereotypes in me as well.  In American, once I was in high school and separated from the mean kids, the ones who labeled me, I was happier.  Stereotypes faded into bad memories of middle school and freshmen year.

Then I went to Japan.

Then the Stereotypes were pointed at me again, it’s a feeling that is hard to swallow.  This time not because I was smart, but because of my race; something I can’t change or pretend that I’m not.  It was like being dunked into a vat of ice water, coming up and gasping for breath because you weren’t prepared for the sheer level of cold you were greeted with.  It’s better, much better now, because those around me are now looking beyond my skin color and looking into the person I am.  They have learned that I like kids, I study hard, that I like school, that I make friends, that I like to learn new hobbies, and that I am a human just like them.

Stereotypes, a dirty words people really don’t like to hear.  They are not the truth.  They are not kind.  They are no fair to anyone.  They do not build relationships or any form of goodwill.  They are most certainly not beneficial to anyone involved with them.

I believe this is Rotary’s mission with the exchanges.  We show others that their views of America may be skewed.  We show out host families, friends, and peers that we are very much like them even though we may be from the other side of the world.  It’s a huge place we live in, Earth.  We may all be very far from each other but at the same time we are all so very similar.

Don’t let a Stereotype muddy your views.  Don’t let it keep you from making a friendship.  Don’t let it ruin your chances in the academic and business world.  Don’t let it ruin your travels.  DO NOT let it ruin your chances of making a good friend.  Don’t let them hurt your children by teaching them to judge others without a second thought.

Maybe it is not as big a deal as I think it is, but it’s an issue without really being an issue in my own life.

I know I rambled through this, but I’m passionate about it.  Sometimes you need to be thrown headlong into something to see that it really is there.

                                                                                                                                                  

See You Soon

Mata chikaiuchini
また近いうちに

On New Skills and Lessons Learned

Teaching

I have gained plenty of new skills here in Japan.  Some of them useful, some unexpected, and I know I will use most for the rest of my life.  Not only am I learning about a new culture and language, I am learning about myself.

Japan is teaching me a lot more than I could have ever imagined.

I’ve told you all how very far away from home I am.  I’m on the other side of the world.  Let’s not dwell on that for too long though.  We only have one world after all, why not make it your home.

 Inner and Outer Quiet-

Let’s start with this one.  I have been known to be a bit of an over exuberant soul.  It’s my personality.  I like to laugh loud and often, I like to joke and hang out with friends, I like drama in the sense that I have big body movements, and I tell stories physically better than I can writing them.  I have been that way for as long as I can remember; talking with my hands and loud mouth.

My mom always told me that I needed to shut my mouth and open my eyes.  Not always in that exact way, but the message is the same.  I have come to an appreciation of those words since I finally started to listen to her advice.  It took coming to Japan for some lessons to really sink in and become a part of my personality.

Japan has not turned me quiet, nothing can make me a truly ‘quiet’ person.  I am an extrovert who loves to be around people, talking to people, and telling stories to people; if it involves others I am almost always happy to join.  No, I am not truly quiet, but I am observing more.  I am seeing the little things in the picture a bit more clearly now.

I notice the habits of the people around me, how they speak, how they interact, and how they fit into the world they belong to.  I hear the viewpoints of others, I see their side of the story a little bit more clearly than before, and I’m finding that I like this new skill. 

It also helps with understanding body language.  I have always been good at speaking through my hands and actions, that skill is paying off with my quietness.  They are hand in hand.  My Japanese is decent, much better than what I started with, but it is lacking in some areas.  I’m working on it, but you can understand about what a person is saying by how they hold themselves.  You may not understand all the words, but you can gain an understanding by being quiet and watching them as they move.

I am more at peace with who I have become.  I haven’t always been comfortable with who I am.  I have not always been so accepting of myself.  I was one of the social misfits in the sense that I wasn’t sporty and didn’t like to follow fashion.  I was happy with my theater, robotics, and classes.  I liked learning, which made me an instant outcast in a lot of the social circles.  It took my final year of high school for me to really start to like me.  Not even then, more like the final few weeks of school.  I finally got comfortable in my skin.  Japan has deepened that connection.  I feel like I know myself better now.  I have a firm grip on who I am, what I want, and where I will go if I stay on my chosen path in life.

It’s reassuring.  That everything I have done, up till now, is starting to pay off.

So I am more at home in my skin, bones, and soul.  I can appreciate the quietness in and outside of myself a little better.

Multitasking-

I can now officially juggle two languages in my mind as I do constant translations back and forth.  You would be surprised at how that expands your mental capabilities.

It is also amazing how another language can throw your vocal motors out of commission while your brain is adjusting to the new information.  It’s beyond frustrating sometimes when I can’t speak either correctly, and then in the next moment I can clearly annunciate what I want to say.  I’m stumbling but catching myself a lot faster these days.

I can do my work more efficiently when I have a lot to pay attention to.  I no longer mind having myself pulled in multiple directions at once.  My brain can cope with it a lot better now!

This new language has also brought back old problems.  As a little kid I had the worst stutter.  I would turn purple out of frustration, or I have been told.  I don’t remember my classes I took to fix it, but I remember the stickers I received for a job well done.

I stutter horribly in Japanese when I read it aloud.  I’m working on it.  I’m getting better at it, but I didn’t realize I was doing it until I was asking to read aloud by one of the Japanese teachers whose classes I attend every Tuesday.

I can read Romanji, the alphabetized Japanese perfectly, but Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji have me wrapped up.  I think it’s the fact that I am changing everything into an English translation of sounds for my mouth to make.  It’s a harder process than I thought, in English I do it without even thinking about it.  Even though I’m getting better, the multitasking of speaking and reading in another language have me in a pickle.

So I’m working on it, and I am definitely getting better!

Inner Peace-

This goes along with the inner and outer quiet.  This is more about how I am happy with my choices and am sure of the ones I am making now that will affect my future.  I am content that it’s going to be okay.  I don’t have to worry as much as I did in the past.

Not that my worries were unfounded.  I worried about getting into a good college, I worried about being chosen by Rotary and going to Japan, I worried about finishing High School with good grades, I worried about how life would be in Japan, and sometimes I even worried if the choice I had been making were the right ones for myself.

I have had my fair share of self-doubting moments.  I won’t lie and say I have a confidence that is strong as steel.  I doubted my choice.  The one of joining Rotary that is.  It hit me just how much I was giving up.  I was only fifteen when I started my application to Rotary International.  I was making a big choice for only a fifteen year old.  To me, I felt like I was too young to make the right choices.  Yes, I had support.  My family has always supported me, but I still doubted.

My friends would be having fun in the senior year while I was away.  I looked at it like that for a while before I mentally gave myself a good slap.  Japan would be worth every hardship, every night spent studying, and every date turned down, every free moment spent bent over my desk or book, and every single thing I would be giving up in my senior year.

I got accepted.  I made it to Japan.  Those worries fled me.  Sometimes I have moments, when I am homesick and just want a hug from a family member, but they never last long.  Japan never ceases to amaze me, to fill me wonder, and it reassures me that this was the right choice.  It feels right to be here.

Then I worried about college.  I had one choice and only one choice.  I wanted to go to Carthage in Wisconsin.  I did my research.  I looked into every college that had a Japanese/International Business/Asian Studies Major.  None of them were what I wanted, what I needed, what I was hoping for, and none of them fit the bill I had.

I wanted to stay closer to home.  I wanted to stay in the Midwest.  I wanted a good program with a history of excellence.  I wanted a chance to come back to Japan to get my degree.  Carthage fit every single one of my wants.  Almost to the letter in fact.  I was… I felt… I can’t really explain it.  There was relief.  There was excitement.  There was everything good in that moment I found out I had officially made it.  It made everything worth it just a little more.  I was so relieved.  I’m working on scholarships to help carry my through, but I have the first few steps made.  I can only wait for now.

I am at peace with everything I did to get here.  Japan.  I am so very at peace with myself.  IT WAS WORTH IT.  My biggest fear was proved wrong.  I feel like I am moving towards a place that I will be happy with.  I wasn’t satisfied in Detroit Lakes.  Sure, I was happy, but I wasn’t content with the style of life.  Japan has set me up to be happier as a person, content with my past decisions, more comfortable with my future plans, and most certainly it has given me the ability to find happiness in myself.

I appreciate the balance Japan has taught me.

Understanding-

I have not been here long enough to say I understand the Japanese people.  I don’t think anyone can ever understand EVERYTHING about their own culture, much less one that they were not born into.  I may not understand it all, but I feel the connection.

I have become very close with the youngest sibling in my second host family.  She is thirty-nine which puts her in the age range of my mom, dad, aunts, and uncles.  I have always been comfortable with people older than me.  Maybe that is why she and I connected so well.

She does not speak English very well but she tries, and I speak decent Japanese but my vocabulary is limited as is my ability to move between tenses fluidly.  That doesn’t matter, because we both understand what the other is saying.  I’m not talking about our souls knowing, but that we both know that we are different and have worked to overcome those boundaries.

Our conversations are a beautiful mash-up of our own languages, body movements, pictures, and volume changes.  You can understand a lot while not understanding anything.  It’s… it gives me faith that even though our cultures are so very different, we can still see eye to eye.  If everyone understood this, maybe there would be a little less hate, a little less hurt, and a little less violence in the world.

She explains everything to me.  All I have to do is ask.  She is curious about Americans and always asks questions, some that I would have never considered if she had not spoken up.  We are so different, but we are still human.  We are still curious and want to explore the world around us.  It may seem so very big, but my sister and I have proved that this is not so.

I was talking to her about children the other day.  She has two young boys that are the same ages of my youngest two siblings.  She told me in our strange mixed language, that she likes it when the whine, talk loudly, and tell stories to her.  I asked why.  She told me that one day they won’t want to talk to her like this anymore, so she wanted to appreciate it while they were little.

American is the same.  It is the little things, like the love a parent has for the little things a child does, that proves how very similar we are.

So I may not get the total verbal understanding from a conversation, but that does not mean I don’t understand.
 These are just a few of the things Japan has taught me.  I have been taught me many things I can’t put into words.  The words would degrade the feelings behind them.  I’m happier with who I am.  I am happier with life.  I may not know everything about Japan but it seems to be trying to teach me all it can while I am here!

See You Soon
Mata chikaiuchini
また近いうちに