During my internship in Impact Hub Kyoto, I worked on my project on designing the member’s wall and it turned out to be a really amazing experience. I learned a lot from this especially how to corporate with Japanese collegues under the collectivistic culture here. It is different from what I experienced in America  since the working environment in the US is always easy to get in. Everyone around seems talkative and outgoing and easy to build up relationship with. However, in Japan, it took me a long time to fit in and establish my role in the group since nobody was what I was good at and how I could contribute to the group. In the beginning, I jumped in with the identity of a foreign student from the United States of America, which means I automatically received some sort of credibility and respect from my Japanese colleagues as a professional and fresh blood from abroad. However, on the other hand, it makes me harder to get involve into the group since my “price” is high and they cannot treat me as a normal new-comer doing messy chores. At the beginning when I was talking to them about my thoughts on some club issue, I could easily found Erin san and Tomo san were uneasy with some of my ideas but they said nothinng. Also, they felt nervous talking with me or ask for favor since they were unsure if I can understand what they said or unhappy to do messy little stuff.  Here, Japanese language ability is also another factor that deeply affects our communication. Since this is a working place, people tend to be speak fast and concise, and it is frustrating to ask your partner to repeat what they said for several time, because your Japanese is not good enough. You can easily get the feeling that you are impairing the group efficiency and making your co-workers to sacrifice their time and energy to your stupidness. What even worse is that Japanese is so delicate that your partner would never understand what you want to say or even confirm unless you use the right wordings. Sometimes you will try to make the story long to let them understand, but this is so inefficient and usually in the end, both of you would got lost and ended the conversation with silence.

Still, I chose to stay there because I wanted to try best to see if I can get involved into this Japanese working environment. Also, l like all the staffs and the cool Noh stages and Bamboo yard in their space.

After I patiently helping with little thing, keeping participating my work, and attending some of their gathering,  I kind of felt that they gradually being more and more relaxed on me, which means they are accepting me as one of their member. After all, it is one of my best time studying abroad in Kyoto, and my Japanese did improve a lot from this.

So, I will say it is a good but rare experience to work with Japanese people in Japan. Usually my US friends would get worried and upset when they found they cannot get into the Japanese community easily. I will say the way of entry is different since you cannot just build up good relationship with them by talking with them only, but also to show your effort and contribution to the community, as well as pretty fluent Japanese, the basic requirement for communication. From time to time after the group member confirmed that you are hardworking and good in nature with their eyes, you will automatically receive an invitation for dinner gathering and next time when you come, you will find everyone is relaxed. Without saying anything, you just become one of them, and everyone knows. Also, you will find ask them to get things done will be much much easier and faster.

Oh, it is really Japanese, isn’t it?

By Xiaoyu Liu, Brandeis 2014er,