Culture Session

On top of the Kiswahili lessons, everyday we have an hour of culture session where the Kiswahili teachers teach us about various aspect of Tanzanian culture such as mannerisms at work place, among friends tothe elders etc.

Two days ago we had a session on the Tanzanian perception of Japan andits people. The teachers listed what Tanzanians in general think about Japanese and it goes something like this;

1. Japanese people are so rich that their main concern is how to spend the enormous amount of money they have. (this probably applies to any foreigners coming here, because the fact that we use airplanes to comehere makes us be percieved as rich according to my Kiswahili teacher)

2. They love taking pictures. (Classic!)

3. All the Japanese are fond of computers, car maintenace and electronics. They can fix those items if they stop working. (This onecomes from the fact that pretty much every car we see here areJapanese and same goes for electronics)

4. Because Japan is rich, everyone has a car. Tanzanians may besurprised if we take Daladala (a microbus form of common publictransport), and if they see us walking they'll think we're justexercising.

5. Japan has the highly advanced technology. (This one also is aclassic, I guess)

6. They only wear Kimono, and likes to conserve their culture a lot.(no surprises here as well)

Among some typically formulated stereotypes around the globe, I found the following to be quite interesting.

7. Japanese people work so hard (well, so far so good), and they NEVER take a break or get tired. (My teacher exaggeratingly added, if they see you taking a break or getting tired, they won't think you're from Japan.)

8. Every Japanese knows Kung-fu, Karate, Judo, Kendo or some other martial arts and they are extremely good at it. Tanzanians will bereally scared of you when you take the Karate fighting stance. On top of this, Tanzanians consider Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan as Japanese!(not sure how they got this one)

Now, I haven't been engaged in long enough conversations with manyTanzanians yet to find out how much of this people seriously beleive in. Like any stereotypes about anyone, there're some truth and mis-concieved ideas to it.One thing the teachers emhpasized was that whether you fall into any of these stereotypes or not, people around you in your town/village and at work, to some extent will look at you through these ideas. I'm not sure whether the people whom I'll meet will be disappointed with me without Kimono, knowledge of cars and electronics and expertise in matrial arts, but regardless of where you are, I know for the fact, that there're always some people accepting you the way you are and I hope to meet them again in where I'll be.