University Learnings Creeping in...

I'm in another culture, and all these differences are bringing little phrases from my Undergrad. years in Anthropology and Sociology back to me about the creation of culture and society.

How this society has developed through their peoples varying interactions.

The systems that are created within groupings of people and the different roles and structures in place and reasoning behind them.

The classic Anthropological view of participant-observant and insider/outsider status.

The analysis of cross-cultural observation and varying cultural relativity versus cultural criticism.

But it is so much more basic than any terms or models I learnt at Uni. It is difference. So here is one difference - How Lunch plays out at school; quirky, unusual, weird and strange. No theories or reasonings attached, just observations...

Lunch Time

The food is interesting in itself. We get served a 'school lunch' which we pay for at a set price at a set time of the month or week. It comes in big pots and trays and then is dished out by who my predecessor called 'the lunch lady' - others call her 'the tea lady' or 'school mum' - of which all roles are fulfilled by her. There are these trays that come on the lunch trolley and they are what the food are dished onto. The trays are mustard yellow are are quite ugly-looking really. They have different sections where different types of food are placed.

Types of food are;
*A staple diet portion - i.e. Rice, Noodles or Bread.
*Some vegetables of sort
*Some 'meat of the day'
*Dessert

The 'different' thing is, the combinations you can get. For example, yesterday, we had a bread bun, a sachet of raspberry jam, Miso Soup and your classic Japanese gerkin, onion, carrot, and cucumber salad with mayonnaise.

The other day we had a cold American Hotdog but on a stick with batter, some rice, the classic Japanese salad again and a sweet pumpkin dessert that had the texture of mousse.

I'm not saying it's bad - infact, it's all pretty good! But I would not normally eat these different things together...

The culture of eating seems to be quite different as well. The 'lunch/tea/school mum-lady' serves it out - two different places, one for the men and one for the ladies. The tray needs to be put quite square and even with the bowls of soup or rice or what ever on the right hand side - even with the tray. Milk is drunk by everyone (except me who can't quite stomach the full - and I mean full cream - milk with rice or miso soup) and that is placed above the tray on the right hand side. This setting up seems to be quite important, and when helping out once, I put out the women's servings first and got some curious looks and was told to place the mens first next time.

After that, we don't eat. We all hang around and wait, pretending to be busy and avoiding looking at the food (I should also say that we don't have morning tea/interval here, so we're all starving by lunch time!). Then, one of the more superior women breaks this 'busy-ness' and sits down, which seems to give everyone else the right to sit down then too. We wait a little longer until one of the more superior women pauses in her chatting to say "itadakimasu" and we all repeat and then we begin to eat.

We only ever get one eating utensil (or a pair of chopsticks obviously), so if it's a spoon, we spread the jam on the bun with it, lick it and then use it to eat the soup or the salad.

During the eating time, people then listen attentively to the superior women talk and laugh/make approving noises when appropriate. Hardly any one else speaks.

We have a "Lunch time" and a "Break time" - each respectively for as their names suggest. A bell signals the change of time and we stop eating (this is a bit hard if I'm enjoying the meal or we had to wait quite a while pretending to be busy and not eaten enough) and clean up together and move onto break time (which as far as I can see is when everyone goes back to working at their desks).

Next time, I'll tell you about the Japanese Shuffle - which is the "we are busy, even though we have nothing to do" dance. It's quite funny, but also a little annoying because they expect me to do it too and I'm not used to pretending to do something when there is nothing to do. Or maybe I'll tell you about the students who need help or are different and how they receive support - or don't receive it.