2008年5月13日火曜日

Difference between before and after about impression of Japan


Through this class "Visual Anthropology of Japan", my view toward Japan itself was changed. Before taking this class, I had not been interested in it very much because I had thought that I have lived in Japan since I was born, so I knew most of Japan. However, it was wrong. In this class, a problem that I was so surprised happened when I tried to answer international students' questions about Japan, such as Japanese culture, Japanese custom, Japanese events, and so on. The problem was that I understood the subject matter that they asked me, but I did not have ideas about their questions about Japan. So I was noticed that I did not have any ideas and information that I answered with confidence. Therefore, I will try to focus on not only overseas, but also Japan. Before this class, I preferred researching another countries to doing Japan, but now, I think I have to work on something about Japanese more, and I should answer their questions with a good explanation that they can be convinced.









Next, I tell you things that helped me understand smoothly during class were these textbooks that gave me some new ideas, advice, and thought. These books mainly said relationship between Anthropology and vision in Japan and various countries. Especially, yellow one include the story that foreign anthropologist went around and asked native people and wrote about fieldwork in this book. on the other hand, in the white one, there are articles about how to shoot people, Anthropology itself, and "Japanese Sign Language and Deaf Culture in Japan" that professor wrote, and so on.












A little bit before this class started, I began to be interested in Anthropology, but I did not know it deeply. I only knew a surface of Anthropology, so in the first day when this class started, I was confused because of the difference between Visual Anthropology and usual Anthropology. However, as this class went on, I gradually understood how related vision and Anthropology were and what Visual Anthropology was. I want to make use of the knowledge I learned from this course when I study abroad and take a course of Anthropology in University in America.