JLC-Wilson-Serena

  I thought it was interesting listening to different people talk about how they view the town changing. Looking back and missing the old town while also being happy that it is changing to be busier. I liked seeing people admiring the beauty of the town, like the person talking about the beautiful ginkgo trees or the person that views the town from the surrounding mountains. Another thing I found interesting was the differing city infrastructure. One person talked about how playing in the street was safe for them because the street doesn’t support cars. That’s just not really something that we have here and yet I see streets designed for people only there all the time in pictures. I appreciate a city structure that supports pedestrians and walking in general. Another thing I thought was interesting was the person talking about catching crayfish in the river. That’s an activity a lot of kids like to do where I’m from in Missouri by all the lakes and rivers. I’ve heard of people from...

  It was interesting reading about how Japanese people live during the summer. I know that a lot of traditional Japanese homes are built very differently to ours and are insulated differently. I know that it gets very hot there during the summer and to hear that it’s getting even hotter is a little worrying. I like reading about taking care of the futons during different seasons. I bet sleeping on one that’s been fluffed up outside all day is really comfortable and it’s interesting how there’s an exact time to bring it in so it’s not too hot for bed time. I thought that keeping plants near windows and watering them to regulate temperature was really smart, and I bet it makes the air quality really nice throughout the house. When reading some of the blog posts back in Japanese I noticed that my stamina for reading is getting better as I keep challenging myself to keep going past when I’d want to stop. I had also read some other little books in Japanese today so I got in a lot of rea...

  It’s nice to see that the spread of housework is becoming more evenly distributed than it was. I knew that Japan was still fairly conservative and had what we would consider now to be outdated gender roles but I’m glad to see that changing. It was nice to see how different couples and families spend their free time doing chores. In my household, we would distribute chores based off of who had the most free time. During the summer my mom would do more chores since my dad was working long hours landscaping, but during the winter when he wasn’t working much he would take over the brunt of the work. In my apartment with my roommate, we split chores pretty evenly. We usually rotate back and forth on them. I’d like to live in Japan but I don’t plan to live there for a long time because of how outdated some of the standards are there. I don’t wish to over work myself at a Japanese company and if I were in a Japanese household, I would be annoyed if I was expected to do all of the housew...