Condolences

Our economics Professor's mother has passes away, and today he flew back to Sri Lanka to attend her funeral. Over the weekend, Manisha made a condolences card to be passed to him when he come back the next week. I was the 2nd person to write on it.

We used the passing method to distribute the card to everyone. Once you get it, sign it & find another coursemate who has not signed & pass to him/her. Soon, the card reached back to me again in the kitchen & I passed it to Yoichiro, a Japanese.

We struck conversation, he was quite surprised that we made the condolences card. According to him, Japanese would not send such card when someone has died, because it shows disrespect to the person whose family member passed away. I explained to him that in the west or other countries, it is courtesy to send the card to show that we cared for such person.

Such a difference in Japanese culture.

Chinese New Year

First time celebrating Chinese New Year away from family with mid-term exam the following week!!!


Around 20-30 Chinese in IUJ from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, US, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and others, came together to have reunion dinner in SD1 lounge.


Charles from Taiwan, me from Malaysia & Chin Yung from Taiwan/HongKong/Singapore. I just forgot that I was not supposed to wear black.

Each of us came with our own country's dish. 30 of us came up with 25 dishes

I made the famous Malaysian Bak Kut Teh. Just put in pork, garlic, some mushroom & boil with the essence and it's ready in 30 mins.


We have snacks, mandarin oranges, beer & soft drinks, just like what we have back in Malaysia.


One thing that I learned is that in China, making dumpling is a tradition. And the dumpling is made after the dinner, where everyone is supposed to help roll the flour into thin dumpling skin, put in some meat & wrap it.

This is how we make the dumpling's ingredient before the party started.


Of course, everyone helped and tried even non-chinese. Many were first timer.


And we found a way to punish those who wore black.

Thai Chinese

Me: Are you a Chinese?
Thai (proudly): No, I'm a Thai Chinese. Thai first, Chinese second. I can only understand a bit of Chinese.

Here in IUJ, we meet a lot of people from all over the world and we communicate freely. A large percentage of students are from Indonesia. A lot of us are Overseas Chinese (Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese etc).

Overseas Chinese are not really considered Chinese evidently when there was a 'Chinese' gathering, only China Chinese were invited. The rest of the Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong Chinese, we had our dinner separately. OK, no big deal. Most of us can't speak China Chinese anyway and we Overseas Chinese communicate in English.

However, most most of them prefer to be addressed as their own country's citizen, like the Thai Chinese, who refer themselves as Thai first, Chinese second.

This is so contrasting with Malaysians, who would very much want to distance ourselves from our country. Malaysians say "Chinese Malaysian" with Chinese first, Malaysian second. Wonder will we have a day when everyone would tell others proudly, we are "Malaysian Chinese", Malaysian first, Chinese second.

Woman with scarf in Japan

It can always be sure that when you see a woman wearing scarf in Japan, she must from Malaysia or Indonesia. Just strike a conversation in BM and you will be able to know either Indo or Malay. I have started a few conversations (always with BM first) with a few people wearing scarf and it turned out all of them are from Malaysia.

In Ikebukuro while waiting bus back to Urasa, saw a lady wearing scarf talking to a guy in Bahasa Malaysia (not Indonesia). Ah... Malaysian.

It turned out we came back on the same flight and the guy, Asryn was staying in a town just 40 mins away from Urasa. He was in Japan for the past 6 years studying and working and went back to get married and brought his wife back to Nagaoka. Wow... what a story.