D-I-E Netherlands

Written by Fiona Mwacharo

I have been in Netherlands for about a week and I love it. It is quite different than Finland. The city in which I am staying in, Groningen, is a student city with over 20 000 students. The average age is approximately 34 years for the residents here so there are a lot of young people and activities for young adults here. So here is my D-I-E experience

Describe

The Dutch are incredibly good at small talk, so much so that they end up talking about, what I feel is, super personal things just a few minutes after having met them. For example, my student group at the school was tasked with giving a small ppt introduction about themselves. Most people gave the usual information about their age and their hobbies but for the Dutch they went a step more. One of the Dutch students told that he was a Christian and had recently proposed to his girlfriend and that they would be married at the end of the year. Having lived in Finland for the past 10 years, I have become accustomed to the Finnish culture and I know that there is no way a Finnish student would discuss something so personal in front of people they had just met. Another Dutch student also talked about being engaged. Plus with other conversations with other Dutch people, I have seen that they are incredibly open people and can more or less give their life story after meeting someone for the first time. This is incredibly shocking for me.

Interpret

After encountering a handful of Dutch people who have been just as open, my interpretation is that this is a common thing in Netherlands. The people are overall incredibly friendly and just want to get to know other people. Maybe for them, giving such details is not too personal and they are not shy to give all kinds of details about their life.

Evaluate

After some googling I found that this is a typical Dutch stereotype. They are known for being open minded and being friendly and also discussing everything and anything under the sun even after meeting someone for the first time. Overall, this is something that at first made me feel weird but I am learning to adapt and be just as open as they are.

D.I.E. - Japan

This journey to Japan has now been my fourth time coming here. During these visits I have already learned a lot (but not most) about the manners in Japan. While I do still make some minor mistakes, and will continue to do them in the future, I believe that I am well enough informed that I can at least present myself in a decent manner when it comes to "keeping your face" and, more importantly, not causing shame to people in your party.

The cultural "bump" I actually experienced many times was with social interactions in unofficial situations! Casual conversations and meetings, that is. And this time the cause of "bumps" was the significant difference in humor. Humor is a social lubricant, a way to release stress and the perfect way in making strangers into friends. Humor is extremely important, and the nature of the humor also represents the soul of the people.

1. Describe

It is well known that Finnish humor is dark, sarcastic and very dry. Japanese humor is much more delicate and subtle, and often doesn't go too dark.

When I am surrounded by friends, I love being sarcastic and I often joke about something you shouldn't joke about in here: suicide. The reader should note, that this humor is only reserved for my close friends.. but sometimes mistakes happen.

So, on a normal day at a hall where students gathered on break times to eat lunch and chat with friends, I met with a close friend. The following interaction takes place:

Friend: Hey Maki-chan! How are you?
Me: Hehey man! I want to take a bath with a toaster!
Friend: Hahaha! Are you ok?
Me: I am as long as I have electricity.
Friend: That's good!

While that was a very typical conversationg for us (the friend was Japanese, who had already learned about my humor), we didn't notice that there was another Japanese student next to us, who had heard the whole conversation. The look on this student's face was a mixture of confusion and horror. Luckily my friend was able to explain that this, in Finnish manners, is humor and actually signals that the person is doing well. The student looked relieved and I apologized in Japanese for my poor judgement. Everything was ok.

2. Interpret

As I mentioned before, Japanese humor is very different. Dark humor is often not taken with open arms, unless you're very close to the people around you and they know about your country's customs and humor. In Japan, it is extremely important to always keep your composure and avoid showing any negative feelings. People who become angry or display misery publicly are considered immature and possibly dangerous. My humor was taken as me being extremely sad and thus in need of help, while in fact the opposite was true.

My friend explained to me, that when in public, Japanese tend to stick to safe topics and laugh to things that will in no way bring shame to anyone. "Keeping face" is, as I've said, extremely important. That's why I can add this personal note to anyone thinking about coming to Japan: Think about vanilla. Vanilla is pure, soft scented and without anything that will "poke" you. Sounds strange, but if you act and speak like vanilla itself, you're all set and will most likely not cause harm to yourself or more importantly to your friends and acquintances. Once you're close to your friends, you may begin revealing your more personal side. People should also learn about "honne and tatemae", which is an extremely important way of acting. I made a mistake many times to which I fully own up to.

3. Evaluate

If I was born and raised as Japanese and suddenly I heard this strange foreigner joking about suicide, I probably could not tell what was happening or how to react. Especially since I saw other people laughing at this person who was saying these horrible (for locals) things. I wouldn't know if he was actually serious and other people were actually hating him so much that they would laugh, or if they thought sad people are funny.

While the whole situation (and other similar ones) embarrass me a bit, I am glad that those moments took place. Due to those mistakes, I was able to learn great inside information about the Japanese people as personas. I learned more about how to act "like Japanese", and with the lessons learned from those, I have been able to act accordingly in my recent situations which have, in turn, brought great and respectful moments between myself and locals.

All in all, I have grown as a person and acquired new useful skills and manners that will surely assist me greatly (if not crucially) in my future endeavours in business world as well as personal social interactions. Mistakes are not bad, they're actually very good as long as no one got hurt or embarrassed and you learned something!

While this wasn't anything serious, it is definitely something that people should take care about when they come across people from (vastly) different cultures.

Lesson learned!

- Juha-Matti "まきちゃん" Katajamäki
28.08.2019
Nose, Osaka, Japan

Letter Home - Juha-Matti Katajamäki

I spent my spring semester in Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku, in Osaka, Japan.

Before my arrival, I had experienced this beautiful country three times already. With my previous experience and little knowledge of Japanese customs, integrating was farely easy. Surely I made a few mistakes in the ways I talked or acted, but now that the school is over, I believe that I could return any day and be greeted with warmth.

I am a Business Administration student at Centria UAS Ylivieska. For my studies, I was very interested in learning about Japanese business customs and "styles", keeping in mind that I may work in international surroundings in the future. Getting a closer look into another country's ways of doing things surely brought me valuable "inside information" that'll absolutely come in handy in the future.

The courses at my host university were quite different than what I had hoped for. Learning Japanese, on the other hand, was very challenging but extremely fun! The other courses were a bit too easy in my opinion. While I did learn a lot about Japanese businesses and economy, I had hoped for a challenge that would make me push myself. This, unfortunately, only happened with Japanese language studies.

The study culture in this University was laid back. It might've been the fact, that since the classes were taught in English, the teachers wanted to keep it simple so that any and all students would be able to practice their English skills and learn how to use them effectively.

Everyday life in the University and the small city it is located in (Izumi) is very peaceful. The worst thing that I experienced was the notorious "Kansai humidity", which made me, a sizeable Finnish man, suffer. For this, the locals taught me a word that will surely follow me for a long time: なつばて, "natsubate". It's a condition that refers to exhaustion due to extreme heat. People that are sensitive to extreme heats should take great care in hydration and proper clothing.
 Apart from that, the life here was easy living. Restaurants and stores and very close by and you can find most of your everyday needs in your immediate proximity.

As for what has been challenging... I'd say the various cultural differences that are bound to pop up in international surroundings like these. While us Finns appreciate direct speech with nothing "hidden", the Japanese tend to avoid direct confrontation. Instead they refer to things in their speech that should make the listener understand, that he or she is doing something that could be considered "challenging" in nature. Praises are, however, given with ease and big smiles. I had to learn a lot to modify my personal way of doing and saying things, but once I started to act more like the locals, our everyday situations were extremely pleasant. Now that I have sees "the other side", I think I'll be keeping some of these newly acquired manners once I return back to my home.

As this last part I should write about a highlight during my trip, but honestly there are so many "highlights" that to pinpoint a single one is impossible. The food, my new friends, the crazy experiences in Namba, the underground music scene, the scenery of the countryside Japan which would make a novice story teller blush... you name it, I have a "highlight" of it.

All in all, this half a year has been an experience that I'm glad I worked so much for. No regrets, just memories.

みんなさん、どもありがとうございます！さようなら！

- Juha-Matti "まきちゃん" Katajamäki
28.08.2019, Nose, Osaka, Japan

D-I-E Korea

DESCRIBE
Moving to Korea, I encountered what was going to be my first and perhaps only cultural bump just a few days in. At that point, I didn't actually think of it as a cultural bump because it came from my student buddy (we had exchanged a few emails prior to my journey and a few messages when i got there before actually meeting). This cultural bump has to do with Korean small talk which goes thus;

Speaker: Hey, what is your name?
Me: Clinton.
Speaker: Where are you from?
Me: Finland / Cameroon.
Speaker: How old are you?
Me: 26.

Find anything odd in there? If you didn't then I bet you must be familiar with Korean small talk. I just found it weird to ask someone's age , less than five statements into your chat when you just met them. I always answered but would find it difficult asking what their own age was because it wasn't something I was accustomed to. I was met with this same line of questioning whenever i tried engaging in small talk with someone i met at a gathering.

INTERPRET
The ''raison d'etre'' behind this remained a mystery until one day when I met this Korean lady at a Cameroonian party in another city and thought of it in the course of our conversation. She didn't get to ask what my age was this time around as I joined the conversation midway but she was able to solve what had remained a mystery for so long. Koreans basically hang around with their age-mates, that is, they date, make friends and chill with someone who is the same age as them. So the reason for asking your age that early is to determine if you are in their age group and if they should be hanging with you.


EVALUATE
After this explanation, I was able to understand why it was difficult having friends besides my buddy and his friends to whom he had introduced me to, especially as they had all become friends during the previous semester whilst they were all exchange students in Canada from the same Korean institution, Chungbuk. I was much older as most students where between 18 and 22. After that fateful conversation, I remained content with not trying to make any new friends and stuck to the few I had already.

Letter Home

I was studying at Chungbuk National University in the Republic of Korea for the spring semester of 2019 as an exchange student from Centria. Being a Business Administration student, I had to take courses from two different departments at Chungbuk; Department of Management and Information Systems and College of Business.

The teaching culture is almost very similar to that of Centria but for the so much importance attached to written exams at Chungbuk. I had presentations in four of the five courses i was offering at Chungbuk which entailed a lot of team work as I had to take part in at least one presentation every other week. This wasn't strange as team work (research and presentation) are a corner stone of my study path in Centria.

With the great importance attached to exams at Chungbuk, it wasn't strange to find students putting in a lot of hours in the library or  at their homes studying for mid-term or final examinations. Each semester has two exams per course (mid-terms which generally constitute about 30% while final exams constitute 70% of the total grade). It was therefore impracticable to find students taking part in some leisure activities two weeks to the start of exams.

Studying in Korea was a good experience as most lecturers had some sort of international experience as majority had studied and went on to teach in the United States, The UK and some other European countries but the United States obviously dominated the lot as the two countries entertain a very cordial relationship. My study group consisted mainly other exchange students from Thailand, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Mongolia and China as I was at a public university with  Korean as the main language of instruction. Native students were studying in Korean and they had just a handful of English language courses for incoming exchange students.

My everyday life was quite simple and homogeneous as i lived on campus in a student dormitory so I had no troubles commuting to school. My classes were always approximately 7 minutes-walk away from my dormitory because it was such a massive campus with each department or faculty having a building or two (like big buildings).

Throughout my stay, the most challenging aspect was sharing the same room with someone else especially as it was quite small. I always had the impression I was in some sort of a box when i went back to my dormitory. This was so challenging because I had never had to share such a small living space in the past.
Not so easy picking out a single moment or instance as the highlight of my exchange as I had lots of fun memories and visited some amazing places. Probably, the cable car mountain at Mount Palgong.

D-I-E - France

The most unusual and quite frankly, terrible thing that happened during my experience was that I had my electricity cut from my apartment for 10 days. One day I come home from school and I try to turn on the lights, but they don’t seem to work, at that moment I just assumed that the bulb had gone out, so I let it be. Then I proceeded to get something from my fridge and noticed that the lights did not work there either, at this moment I realized that I don’t have any electricity. I immediately tried to call the electric company EDF, and they told me that the residence manager in my student residence had cut it, they were baffled by the occurrence as well, since it was without reason, I had paid my rent, my electric bills and everything, but for some unknown reason this happened, they then offered an appointment for the electrician to come and put my electricity back on on a designated day, but the electrician never showed up, in total I had to make three appointments and call them numerous times each day over the 10 day period. I couldn’t believe that this could happen. I felt absolutely furious and I demanded reimbursements for all the cold showers I had to take, and the food that I had to throw away. In the end the electrician came and I got my electricity back, and the electric company also paid for the trouble they had caused.

Fortunately there was a common room
where I could charge my laptop and phone.

The reason why this happened is still unknown, when I tried to confront the residence manager about it, she was clueless as well, and she then put the blame on the electric company, even though the electric company told me that she was the one who cut the electricity. One theory that I had was that perhaps she meant to cut the electricity from another apartment and accidentally cut mine but was too proud to admit it was her mistake. Or, it could have also been some kind of a bug in the system of the electric company, or maybe the electric company had made the accident, because I did find an envelope in my mailbox saying that they will cut the electricity from my apartment on a designated day, it will forever remain a mystery. And the funny part is that I could have prevented it if I just had checked my mailbox on a daily basis.

It was not the most pleasant 10 days of my life for sure, and honestly I was quite depressed and angry during that period, but on the other hand, I began to appreciate the fact that I still had a roof over my head, and that I shouldn’t take these kinds of things for granted. When I told my French friends about this, they were less surprised about it than my Finnish friends for example, what I have understood from the French culture is that if you really want things to work, you must complain, a lot.

Letter Home - Jussi Kärkinen

I am currently doing a double-degree in La Rochelle, Excelia Group Business School. In order to acquire the double-degree I have to study in the fourth year for one academic year. The courses we have had have been really great, the school really emphasises on quality learning approaches, we have had professors from all over the globe, for example the U.S, Ireland, Canada, Great Britain just to name a few. Furthermore I would like to point out that we have had a lot of group projects, and I mean a lot of group projects, which has been really beneficial since our class is very culturally diverse.

In Centria, I am studying in the Finnish track of BBA, which is the Tradenomi- program, before going to La Rochelle I had completed one academic year.

The study culture is really present in La Rochelle, our school offers a lot of activities for students, such as sailing, gym, music, La Rochelle itself seemed to be a really student based city, and the city is really lively, there’s a lot of events happening at all times. The group that we have, as I previously mentioned, is really multicultural, we have over 10 nationalities in our class. Overall, I have found my classmates to be really interesting and friendly people.

Typically our school days start quite late, like around 10 – 14 but at the latest we would stay in school until 8pm. Me personally I enjoyed the advantage of sleeping in, so normally I would wake up maybe two hours before going to school, watch some TV, make breakfast and go to school and come home, nothing too special, although occasionally me and my classmates would go to an Irish pub for a drink or two. I enjoy having walks around the harbour and adore the architecture of the boats and the buildings, and also I happen to live about 200 meters away from McDonald’s and Burger King, so sometimes I go there to grab some food.

At first it was hard to get accommodated to studying in a foreign language, all the business lingo was very unfamiliar to me since I had previously studied in Finnish language, but fortunately it was a temporary issue, now I know the words and the definitions of things in English as well.

The thing I have enjoyed the most so far has been the people, everybody is so different and they come from completely different cultures, and that is something I find quite important, being able to learn and exchange experiences from our countries.