Hirakata...

I am living in Hirakata neighborhood; the neighborhood where most of Kansai Gaidai seminar houses are located. The first day I walked to school, I kept staring at a fancy house and I was impressed by its architecture, its well designed door as well as it’s pretty little Garden.

 However, not all the houses of the neighborhood are the same. Some are very tiny like two rooms apartments; others are extremely huge with several floors. 

Some have gardens others not. I  was impressed by this because in my home country houses of the same neighborhood might look the same or at least belong to the same category single  apartment building, Villas or any other type of housing as long as it fits the city’s urban plan. This does not apply in Japan or at least in Hirakata.

Another thing that I found ABSOLUTELY unusual is that outside the house belongs to the house which means that people leave their belongings such as shoes , umbrellas and bikes at the entrance of the house which technically means in the street. I am impressed by how safe it is.

In the two first weeks, the neighborhood represented for me a set of buildings I cross on my way to and back from the school.A place where I  had to be quiet when my friends and I come back late at night not to disturb the neighbors. Those people were complete strangers for us and we were living in our little island cut off from the world. Three weeks ago, I started to go jogging at 6 Am in the park next to my seminar house. The first day I went jogging I was scared not to find anyone. I was surprised once in the park as there were dozens of people running. Day after day, those people became used to me and my friends's presence. We started to greet them, they started to talk to us, encourage us to run more and invited us to do yoga with them. One day I couldn’t go jogging and I was surprised when I knew that they asked my friend about me. This changed the way I perceive my neighborhood upside down. Now I don’t feel cut off from the world anymore. I feel I belong and there is no better feeling than belonging!

My early Impressions about Japan!!

I tried to recall when I started to build early impressions about Japan and found out that this happened much earlier than when I landed in Kansai Airport. I discovered Japan gradually.  My first impression about Japan goes back to when I was five and my parent’s German friends offered me a  book about the art of Origami. I was always impressed by how we can make extraordinary things using an A4 white paper. Then came the phase where I started to watch the Japanese anime Inspector Konan that was in Japanese and subtitled in Arabic. 


On the other hand my Moroccan background impacted my first impression about Japan. There is a famous joke in Morocco saying that a Moroccan visited Japan and  didn’t get  up early and  the Japanese thought he died buried him. This reflects the general stereotypes we, Moroccans, have of Japanese people. We generally imagine them as people who look all alike, who eat rice are extremely intelligent and work hard all the time. I made sure that this was true after reading a book of the Writer  Amelie Nothomb <Stupeurs et Tremblements>talking about her experience working in a Japanese corporation. I started to get rid of my stereotypes after I met Amina, a friend of mine who lived in Japan. She was quite upset when I told all the non-sense  I had in mind. The following day she offered me a book of the Japaneese writer Yanasuri Kawabata. It is thanks to this book that I am posting this article today, that I am taking visual anthropology … that I came to Japan! Through his writing, Yasnasuri Kawabata showed some little details of Japanese life and Japanese people that impressed me. I loved this book, this culture and started to know that Japan is more than Sushi, manga and kimonos. When I had to decide where to go for my exchange semester my three choices were: Japan, Japan, Japan…