Finals & Racism

So summer in Japan starts in about a month, and finals are coming up at the end of July.

I am mostly worried because it feels like I am not doing much work in the classes. For example, I never do anything in the English class I am taking. The teacher doesn't even ask me questions. Instead, he asks the Russian. It is a bit confusing and upsetting, since I am a native English speaker, from America, and many questions are about American english.

Another is Psycholinguistics, where I also do nothing. At the end of the semester, however, papers are due, so at least I know there is something that will be graded.

Aside from those two though, I am not too worried. I have recently encountered a lot of racism, and not even in the "trying to be helpful" way. For example, I was buying items from the Lawson store on Campus, and the clerk said, in Japanese, "stupid foreigner" instead of "thank you very much." When I told the school about this, they ignored it. In addition, most Japanese women around the area that I live are very similar to American men - which is a bad thing.

As a result, I spend more time with the Chinese population on campus, or Japanese who are not from this area - who also agree that this area is very different from every other part of Japan.

Japan has a lot of wonderful things about it, such as the nature, food, and (in most areas), very very polite people. However, just as in America, not everyone is this way. I am surprised that my Japanese teacher recommended that I live in this area.