Dougy Mak's Blog

I had a chance to sit in a classroom of a Japanese University today. Classrooms here are different. The professor spoke through a microphone, and the lecture hall had 4 projectors and a huge blackboard. The classroom was huge! The classroom was pretty much divided into 2 sections. The front was for students who wanted to learn, and the back was for people to talk. Honestly, when the professor began speaking, it was like no body cared that the class started. People in the back continued to talk anyways and they talked loudly too. It was like they were trying to give the professor a hard time by ignoring him. It honestly felt like they did not care, but the speakers was loud enough to drown out most of the chatter. At the room entrance, there was a little scanner for you to scan your student id for attendance. Everything at the university was pretty modernized because it was built like 3 years ago. They also had another campus blocks away which held the gym and the more athletic facilities.

Today, I met a total of three English speakers, my girl friend’s friend and two professors. The two professors I met were at the athletic facility. They were both pretty cool, and they both had been to California before. One graduated from Long Beach State and had a good American English, and the other just stayed in LA for 1 year to train. I had a pretty good conversation with both professors and it was pretty interesting to speak in English because when we were speaking in English, all of my girl friend’s friends literally came out of a room to observe us. What is more interesting to me is that the Japanese language has keigo (polite form) which is used to speak to pretty much everyone else except for your close inner circle. For example, someone who is younger would have to use keigo to speak with a senpei (a peer who is older). It’s nice that you respect older people, but man, it sounds annoying to have to do that all the time. Some people would feel insulted if you did not use keigo. To me, the idea of keigo seems self-degrading where like you have to use keigo, it is like saying you are inferior. In English, there’s no such thing as a polite form, and there is none of this social pressure. Obviously, you have to be well mannered when speaking to certain people, but there’s a lot less to worry about. It also feels like you are more equal with the person you are speaking to when speaking in English.