「I don't wanna leave!」
「Don't end the session yet!!」
It was our greatest pleasure to hear these words from the participants of our very first session with Indonesia, on the 4th of July. We had so many participants that filled up literally 3 pages of Zoom screen :)
"Both Indonesia and Japan are surrounded by the sea and have fish-eating culture. But, why do only Japanese people eat raw fish?"
This kind of question is a bit difficult to answer for most of Japanese because eating raw fish like Sashimi and Sushi is so normalized and taken for granted in Japan.
Most importantly, every time we encounter new people, we are always reminded of the sheer extent to which we do not know about our own countries.
In the breakout room discussion, since it was our very first session, everyone became a Japanese/Indonesian language teacher and we all learned basic phrases in each other's language.
What made me surprised the most was that there were so many Indonesian participants who could speak Japanese!
For the next session on the 11th of July, we are going to explore how the food culture has evolved over time in the two counties, Japan and Indonesia.
We are looking forward to seeing you all in the next session as well!
Terima Kasih~!