The Other Assignment

Nathan Kragh
Dr. Miles Maguire
Reporting on the Other
5-9-05


Where have all the boys gone? This is something that is asked when thinking about the resident female Japanese students.

The presence of Japanese male students is somewhat lacking this year on the UW Oshkosh campus. “Women in Japan learn English more than men,” said Chie Tateno.

Tateno, 20 and currently junior, comes from a family of seven. Back in Japan she lives in Nagasaki with her great grandmother, grand parents, parents and two younger brothers. Tateno came to America to study Psychology. She has also studied, in addition to English, Chinese and Spanish.

“Once Japan opened its doors during the Meiji Era to the west, around 1868, women had a chance to travel abroad,” added Tateno.

Staying in America has done little to improve Tateno’s English reading and writing skills, since more emphasis is placed on speaking properly. Alternatively, her communication skills have enhanced. Communication between her and her American friends has sometimes been easier. “The things we think are more similar than my Japanese friends back home,” she remarked.

For Natsue Kariya, 21 and also a junior, has found that her grammar as well communication skills have improved a lot.

“I think on average, Japanese men spend more time studying math and science, and women, foreign languages,” said Kariya.

She, like Tateno, lives with her family back in Japan, in Gifu. “It is much cheaper to stay at home than live independently,” Kariya exclaimed.

Tateno does so for added reason – the commute. While her home is in Nagasaki, she travels four hours a day to college in Siebold. The commute she says would be too expensive is she lived by herself.

Mayumi Yamasaki, 22, is the oldest of the trio. She has come to America to study English. Yamasaki has a family of four, but lived independently from them in Okayama Prefecture. To support herself she worked many different jobs, once a cashier in a convenience store and then a butcher. Yamasaki studied the Chinese language as well, but emphasized that she could not speak.

“Young women like traveling. They appreciate it more. Men don’t care as much in Japan,” expressed Yamasaki.

In America, these Japanese students do not have to travel as far living on campus. This has led to some alterations in their habits. Here, they say that they are less busy and have more time for leisure.

Kariya said staying so close to school has led to her to gain more weight than she wanted, and that she takes more naps. Tateno agreed. All three women said they study less being in America.

“Being in America is comfortable,” said Yamasaki.

Etiquette is stressed much more in Japan. The way that you sit in public is more proper for instance, than the way in one’s home. “Here in America people are nicer and care less about formality,” said Yamasaki.

“Men are gentlemen here,” Yamasaki blushed. “Men in Japan typically enter buildings before women.”

All of them agree that Wisconsin is too cold.

Returning home, Kariya and Yamasaki plan to graduate the next spring, while Tateno has another year to go.