Culture Shock: My Experience Nao Miyahara

 

I experienced a big culture shock when I came to New Zealand. I was shocked about transportation facilities the most because New Zealand has fewer buses than Japan, and trains are not as mainstream in New Zealand as they are in Japan. Also in Japan, I always get on the train on time because I was not on the bus but on the train, but in New Zealand buses are often delayed or buses skip. When I realized it, I was incredibly surprised because I always had to care about the time to catch the bus. There are a lot of trains, so I don’t have to check the time of them in Japan. When I first came to Dunedin, I really hated having to worry about the bus time to get home every time I left. In addition, even though only one bus comes every thirty minutes, I couldn't understand why it wasn’t unusual for the bus to not come.

I dealt with this culture shock by deciding which bus I always take and creating my routine. I also accepted that only one bus comes every thirty minutes.

Actually, I didn’t manage to overcome the culture shock about the difference in the transportation facilities because I could get used to life in New Zealand, so I didn't have to make an effort on myself. This is because I no longer care about the difference, and I could accept it. From this experience, I've learned that while it is incredibly important to work hard to fix that problem, sometimes time is the answer.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What I wish I had know about Kiwi Culture -- Fumiya Nakagawa

In my experience traffic rules in here were the biggest gap for me and it still surprises me a lot. I think it is because we have fundamentally different ideas about the rules, such as priority to pedestrians. It was the first thing I felt difference between Japan and New Zealand when I arrived in this country. I didn`t know the culture here and tried to cross the street just like I did in Japan therefore, I was very surprised that they didn’t stop at all. However, all drivers stop at pedestrians crossing so, I was astonished their good manner unlike Japan.
Read more

Boyan Slat & The Ocean Cleanup -- Ruby Lu

While diving in the ocean, slat discovered that there was more trash in the ocean than fish, and that's when he felt he needed to help clean up the ocean. He also gave a ted talk to bring attention to this issue. He even dropped out of college to complete the project, called the Ocean Cleanup. But in fact, only a small part of the garbage collected by boats and nets, most of the garbage is at the bottom of the sea. So in response, their team started a river cleanup program. Because most rubbish flows from rivers into the sea. This prevents new garbage from flowing into the sea. In my point of view, he is brave and does what he wants, even though he has experienced setbacks, he just works harder to complete the goal and studies new methods. But cleaning up the ocean is still a very difficult problem, because it is very difficult to stop the problem at the source, to stop people from releasing waste, so we have to do it ourselves to reduce the waste.
Read more

Boyan Slat & The Ocean Clean up -- Natsumi Iwamoto

      I was impressed by his wonderful idea. When I was 16 years old, I was not interested in any environmental issues at all. He influenced a lot of people and changed their motivation about the environment.  I can say confidently that the process was not easy. He must have struggled for a long time. I respect his patience and huge motivation which affects others.      When he found garbage in the sea, he took action soon. Absolutely, it can be one of his great characteristics that has fueled people. He was surely a positive person about anything.      However, I guess it would take so long time to complete the project though I respect his idea. That is because the ocean is incredibly wider than what we expected. Sadly, I couldn't believe what he said, which was "This project will finish in 5 years."
Read more