Certainly, having a meaningful or entertaining conversation in your second language is not easy. To have a good conversation, there needs to be common ground, whether it be a shared interest, coming from the same hometown/state/country, having shared experience. The hard part is, that generally people from different cultures don’t have very much common ground, few shared interest, little knowledge of each other’s localities, and usually no shared experience.
Commonly Australians will start a new conversation by asking the name and their connection to the event. At a birthday party, “how do you know the host?”. If the connection is interesting then they continue talking about that. If not interesting, then the next question will be, “Where do you work?” or “What do you study?”. For example, if you work as a banker, then they might ask your opinion about the financial crisis. If you work for a radio station, and you have a friend who does, then you might let them know “Oh, I have a friend who works at Triple J radio station”.
Language Connection, the not-for-profit which started as a language exchange event in 2009, is my pride and joy. Here are some snapshots:
Weekly Events: 5 in Melbourne, 1 in Japan
Languages: English, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Arabic
Volunteers: 15
Board: 7
Estimated number of participants since inception – 4,000
Events
Unimelb Chinese and English Exchange
Tuesday 1 – 2pm
Rm 113, Level 1, Sidney Myer Asia Center
Free
Unimelb Arabic and English Exchange
Tuesday 1 – 2 pm
Rm 114, Level 1 Sidney Myer Asia Center
Free
Thursday 6-9pm
69 Bourke St, Melbourne
Cost: $5
Saturdays 2:30 – 4:30
506 Elizabeth St
Cost : $5
Saturdays 5-7pm
Chocolat – Melbourne Central Station
For international students O-Week, or “Orientation Week” presents the best chance to make local friends and get involved in Australian culture. But it may not be understood that way. I asked one of my friends, a Chinese international student, whether she would be going? And she said she wouldn’t . I thought maybe she assumed that because she isn’t a first year undergrad she can’t go. No, that wasn’t the reason, why then?
The reason she gave me was that it isn’t related to her course. As a cultural value, the image of O-week as being the time when people only get drunk and “waste time” is not very appealing to Chinese students.
Taking a class together does build a connection between a group of people, but there are the pressures of assessment, part time jobs and existing friendship circles during semester. The time people make new friends at university is during O-Week, let’s get into it 
There is so much more to uni than just studying.
Six years later, so much has changed in both of our lives. Some things stay the same though. So many mutual friends – are you still in contact with so and so? Have you heard what they are doing ect. But then the bigger questions – “What is happening in your life?”.
６年間後、二人とも、いろいろが変わってきた。でも変わらなかった物もある。共通友達について聞かせたり、今でも彼と連絡してるの？とか聞いたり。さあ、話はけっきょく深くなる。”ライフは？”
It is so good to know that the people I cared so much about, are still here. Its hard to know though, when the next time I see them will be.
すごいいい仲良しは今でも会えるといい。でも今度はいつか会えるか予想不可能。
It is crazy that when I find myself wanting to change the times of meetings, I just don’t think about this naturally. I have to force myself as ask the question “What does this do to their schedule”.
Example. I’ve set up a meeting to have a coffee and discuss a new project or event for 3pm on Thursday. Because I know that I’ll have to leave the office at 2:30 to get there, I tell the academic I am only able to work on the conference until 2:30. I am okay with 3pm, because I can get back to the office by 4:30 at the latest, and do another hour and a half before I get so hungry I have to go home. If its a one hour meeting and it takes half an hour to get there, its actually a two hour committment.
What if you ask if I can move the meeting an hour forward? I have to tell the plan before that that thing have changed. What if it is an hour later? That means I won’t be able to get back to the office with enough time to do any meaningful work, so I will just go home early. In the first instance I have to make a request to someone else to change the time, and in the other situation I end up losing another hour and a half of meaningful working time.
Once I set the time, I am more worried about changing it for the sake of others, than myself. Although my own interests do play into that as well.
Previously I felt like all of the cafes in Japan were only chair stores, like starbucks or Vie le France. But I think I just wasn`t looking hard enough. Rather than the country being not up to my standards, I was just a total outsider, thus I couldn:t find what I was looking for.
この前に渋い喫茶店が見つけなく、日本はスタバとかばっかりだと思った。実際はまじめように見てなかったわけだ。ここは僕の基準にかなわてないことじゃなくて、ただ僕は日本のこと詳しくなかった。そして見つけたいことが見つけなかった。
Except for the milk really yummy.
Very few coffees are made here with the barrista style foam on top. Its a sad reality, and unfortunatly the cost for this kind of coffee is actually higher in real terms than coffee in Australia
残念ながら日本で本物のバリスター的なコーヒーが売ってない。バリスタースタイルがコーヒーの上に泡があるっていう意味だ。そうしても、オーストラリアより、日本のコーヒーが高い。
The atmosphere is really good though - でもふいんきはばっちりだ
Here it is, based at the Center for the Advancement of Higher Education (CAHE) at Tohoku University! I’m so happy to be here, the amount of reading and data collection I’m doing here is exhilarating, and visiting the classes and understanding the life of an academic is truly inspiring.
The department is a mix of native and non-native speakers of English and it produces an annual journal called the Kio. The staff are dedicated to both teaching and research, and the guidance I’ve received so far from the staff so far has been extremely valuable to me. Thank you so much.
Its going to be impossible to fill those shelves with books in the month I’m here, but I’ll try.
The number of goals gets smaller each year, but the challenge is undiminished. I believe I can achieve all of these. Significantly, 2012 is the first year that I haven’t had language learning goals there. I am not going to take on any new languages, and I am at the stage where I am covering content rather than just language in both Japanese and Chinese. I’m going to do everything I can to keep improving, but I want to learn what I want to learn – and I am going to experiment with not structuring that.
Goals 2012
1. Social Well Being
People
- Be someone that other people want to help
- Be a beautiful person to all in my life
- Meditate everyday
- Become a mentor to others
- Meet and build rapport with ten influential people
2. Career
- Join Researchship at Tohoku University Jan-Feb
- Language Testing Resource Center Internship
- Publish Test of English as a Lingua Franca Article
- Publish my honours thesis
- Jun’s Research
- Find 3 academics that could possibly supervise me for Monbusho PhD in Japan
- CIR Jet program (If fail book flight to China)
3. Language Connection
Melbourne
- 20 Volunteers
- 5 Events Weekly
- 3 conferences/ trips
- 5,000 people benefiting from our program
External
- 5 Volunteers
- 3 Regular events
- 1,000 people benefiting from out program
4. Develop Personal Profile
Appearance
- Look good in skin, hair, clothes, overall health
Public Relations
- Appear in 20 newspaper articles, radio and TV spots
- Speak at as many events as possible (20 minimum)
- Apply Young Victorian of the year
5. Finance
Have 10,000 in total net worth
- 10,000 Kiva SWY Microfinance
- Mark down everything I spend
Following my participation on the 23rd Ship the World Youth (2011), I founded SWY Microfinance, a lending group of ex-participants. Microfinance consists of lenders in developed countries offering low interest loans to small businesses in developing countries. The loan recipients are able to develop their business, improve the local economy and provide jobs. Lenders receive no interest, but receive their initial capital back, or can relend to the next project. In 2011 SWY Microfinance lent over US$5000 through 188 individual loan contributions. In 2012 the total amount lent is is projected to reach US$20,000! If you are an alumni, of just want to help out anyway, please join.
http://www.kiva.org/team/ship_for_world_youth/
http://www.shipforworldyouth.org/
I set off tomorrow for Japan (13 Jan – 19 Feb 2012). I’ll be spending one month in Sendai, Tohoku, the venue of the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011, visiting as a joint-researcher with Dr. Laurel Kamada at Tohoku University. Together we will work on an article, teach English classes and participating in campus club activities. I orginally made the connection with the University in reference to the Prime Minister’s Education Assistance Program to Japan, but wasn’t successful. The chance to collaborate in original research in Japan though is worth my own investment, so I guess the program is already going to have some influence in stimulating the relationships between Japan and Australia without even having to fund it.
Here is a brief summary of the article we will be working on while I am there:
This joint study will focus on the effects of volunteer activities in an elementary school in Tohoku following the earthquake and tsunami disaster of 3/11 on pupils’ intercultural perspectives 異文化的意識. The background for this study is based on volunteer activities which I have already been conducting on several occasions since the disaster. I have made syllabus, organized and conducted fun, motivating and practical English lessons in the 5thgrade classes of an elementary school in Miyagi with the help of a large group of volunteer students of Tohoku University, including Japanese and foreign students who went there dressed in their native costumes. During one of the English lessons, we also presented each 5th grader with a children’s illustrated book (written in English by an American who donated most of the books) which told the story of a Japanese boy in a village struck by a tsunami and how he had built a bridge. For this research, we plan to conduct interviews and questionnaires, and then analyze the data in order to examine the children’s intercultural consciousness and how the children feel about building bridges and bonds 絆with countries and people beyond Japan.
