Eating Customs between Japan and Canada

When I came to Vancouver, Canada, I noticed some differences in the way of eating between Japan and Canada. In Japan, people wait for everyone sitting down and getting ready to eat, and then everyone say "Itadakimasu" at the same time before we start eating. "Itadakimasu" means "Thank you for giving good food." Most Japanese are taught to say this word by parents when they are children. It is thought as manners. Then, after eating Japanese say "Gochisousama". It is also a kind of pray just like :Itadakimasu".

However, in Canada the eating custom is more individual and independent. Though the style is different from family to family, many Canadian don't wait for everyone getting ready to eat. They start eating individually soon after each people gets ready. Moreover except for people who believe some religions, such as Catholicism or Islam, eagerly, they don't pray before and after eating.

These differences come from difference of culture. It is natural that different countries or cultures have different eating customs. It is a very interesting theme to study more. I think studying theses differences helps you understand other culture well certainly.

~Lerning record~
First, we practiced revising the feedback of opinion essay. Through revising 2 or 3 times, we can make our essay more sophisticated. What we have to do in reviseing essay are choosing proper vocabulary, making sure of sentence structure, and so on. The most important thing in opinion essay is persuading readers by presenting enough suppoer ideas. I think this is very difficult especialy in the case that many people have the opposit idea about my topic.

Second, in this week we have started learing the cause/effect essay. We have thought about the interesting topics as a cause/effect essay. In next week, we will learn more details about this kind of essay, and I am looking forward to it.

My Vancouver Life

Just two weeks ago, I have arrived at Vancouver,Canada and started to study in UBC. This is the first time when I go abroad. At first, everything I saw is new, interesting and exciting! I have started home stay with a Canadian family. What surprised me first was the size of things; house, food, clothes....everything is much bigger than Japanese things!! For example, when I went to a restaurant in campus to have lunch and ordered a pasta, I and other Japanese friends couldn't eat the whole of it. I thought why people in this country can eat such a big size? However, now, after I have spent two weeks, I am becoming to be used to these differences between Japan and Canada. I realized what is common in Japan is not necessarily common in other countries. Especially in Canada, there are a lot of cultures and various types of people. People who have diverse backgrounds live together, accepting the differences between each other. It is a big difference from Japan. In Japan, while Japanese are majority, foreigners are minority and sometimes they feel even isolated. I think Japan should be open to people from other countries or cultures, just like Canada.

Learning Record

In these two weeks(9and10week), we learned how to make reasonable and grammatically right sentences. For example, we studied about the depersonalizing sentences, parallel structure. I think to use these kinds of sentences or structure is essential for writing academic essay. Especially, when we make a parallel structure we should care about the conjunction, like and, but, or. In addition, we learned adj/V +preposition sentences. Through the class I noticed I should study about this kind of sentences because I am not clear on the grammatically right preposition for each adj/V.

Moreover, we have started to learn how to write a opinion essay. In opinion essay, we have to present one clear argument and evidence(statistics, experience, article...)which supports our thesis. Now, I am struggling with my opinion essay and I am thinking it's very difficult. I hope to write good one finally.