July 25th, 2008
You Don’t Eat Sushi?
My husband and I are hosting a Japanese exchange student for three weeks this summer. It’s our first time, our trial run before considering hosting a student for an entire school year. Our student is a teenage girl from Tokyo. As a childless couple, we’d spent a fair amount of time before she arrived brainstorming activities suitable to a teenage girl. Of course she’d want to go for sushi, and we’d been anxious to try a raved about sushi restaurant in the trendy Highlands neighborhood of Denver. As we reviewed food options over dinner the first night , pointing to pictures of coconuts and pigs in our our handy travel-sized point at it picture book, she told us she did not like sushi. Infact, she didn’t like Japenese food.
Where do our notions of cultural stereotypes come from? Are there a fair number of people in Japan who don’t like sushi, miso flavoring, teriyaki? I know a German woman who can’t stand saurekraut and traditional German food. What situations have you run into with cultural surprises? This weekend we’re off to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Rodeo. I don’t know who will be in bigger culture shock, our friend from Japan or myself?
