The FBI Experience: Japan Study Trip - Differences Between Japanese Culture And Singapore Culture

1. Introduction
This report serves to document our findings about the diffferences in culture between Singapore and Japan during the seven days. We will be highlighting and describing some of the more important aspects of culture and its unique differences as well as how did we cope with it.

2. Differences between Japanese Culture and Singapore Culture
2.1 Food and table manners
This difference was encountered during our home stay in Nagano. In Singapore, our table manners are in-lined with the western culture. However, in Japan, it is a basic courtesy to say ‘Itadakimasu’ before eating and ‘Gochisosama deshita’ after finishing your food. This is less commonly seen in the city like Tokyo, but was often practiced in the suburbs of the city like Nagano. Thus, it is something different as we Singaporeans do not have such habits.
In Singapore, we often dine out for most of our meals, hence if it is at a hawker centre or a food court, it would normally be a one dish meal. However, in Japan practically all of their meals are eaten at home, cooked by the lady of the house which explains their long life mortality. A Japanese meal commonly consists of rice, raw fish, tempura or meat, coupled with two other side dishes and soup. This includes breakfast as well which is totally different from Singapore where we had only bread, cake and a cup of hot Milo, Milk or Tea.

Breakfast in Home Stay

2.2 Traditional Home
The differences between our home in Singapore and a traditional home in Japan which is somehow look alike what we have seen on television which samurais and ninjas lived in. In a traditional home, it is usually made of wood and paper, furnished with an organic feel, tatami mats and sit down bathrooms. Most of which are partioned by paper sliding doors known as fusuma.
Firstly, a traditional Japanese home usually uses parquet floor design. Westernised countries like USA and Singapore uses marble floor and tiled. As a result it eludes off a Zen sensation whenever we stepped in giving us a organic feel. This can be found in Singapore as well, but it is rather rare as it costs a bomb to have such furnishing.
Secondly, the most important thing in a home is the bed. In Singapore, whenever we are tired, we think of our soft feather spring bed which is very comfortable. However, beds are not commonly seen in such traditional homes as their ‘beds’ are called tatami mats. Tatami mats are thick straw mats which provide more comfort to sleep on than stone or wooden floor. Hence blankets are given as beds. Also what was difficult to adapt to, were their pillows. The pillows were not feathery soft but hard as it contained like a bean-like material. It costed us quite a number of sleepless nights.
Lastly, their bathrooms are not quite what we expected. It is certainly different from Singapore as the toilet is not their bathroom. They are two separate rooms. The bathroom neither has a bathtub nor a standing partition. All there were was a showerhead, soap and shampoo, a body scrub and a stool. So it works by sitting down on a stool and bathing yourself normally. This is so, as the bathtub is used as a public bath irregardless of whether it is at home or at a real public bath. The Japanese re-uses their bathwater either for bathing or washing laundry and hence as a result, it is like Japanese cum Western bath style, where we soak in the bathwater after washing yourself and doing a westernised bath after soaking. This experience was greatly enjoyed by us as we soaked in the relaxing hotspring water at the onsen.

2.3 Traditional Games
In Singapore, usually the types of card games we play are mainly poker cards, such as “Black Jack”, “Big 2” and etc. However, in Japanese culture, their traditional card game was called “Hanafuda.” It is a special sets of cards which can be used to played in many different ways just like a set of poker cards. During the home stay, one of the types we played was called “Matching” whereby we have to memorise the cards every time we flip them up, and flip another card which is under the same category as the first card.