Okay, I'll admit it. I'm confused. Episode seven has cleared up a few things regarding various students' nationalities, with a couple of unexpected twists. Paul, the suave Mediterranean type, turns out to be English and not a suave Mediterranean type, as I first assumed. Meanwhile the stone-faced businessman turns out to be American, but I thought he was English. And the otaku is Italian, not French. Although the black guy is American, as I first guessed, so I got one right at least.
Meanwhile, the show remains an oddity. I still don't know what to make of it. The most recent episode touches upon the Japanese tendency to be disappointed when foreigners become too... well... too Japanese. It doesn't explain why, though. I'd guess it's something to do with living in such a culturally homogeneous country, meeting a foreigner is a chance to experience something different. Or maybe not.
But this isn't the program to go into these problems, as the storyline stays light and humourous, and it tries to pack everything into half an hour. Asking it to do a thesis every week on Japanese attitudes to other cultures is probably asking a bit much.
That stuff about why "aoi" means blue and green was pretty interesting, though.
I find the grammar and explanations really useful. But LOL, yeah - I was like so... he's not Greek? And then I said... so there's two English guys. xD
ReplyDeleteWhen I first met my Asians friends, they all made a picture perfect world where every Peruvian looked like me... then some of them visited the country, and voila! Not everyone was Asian like me. It's like they formed a misconception... until they finally saw it.
When my Hong Kong friend first saw me in school speaking Spanish, she wondered where in China they spoke Spanish... then she'd figured I could be from Macau... until I told her no. LOL
I thought Luca (I thought he was called Lucas) was Mexican or Latin American, because you see a lot of otakus here. Thinking about it, Italy did just win the Cosplay contest worldwide... so~~~ xD