What did you learn? - Differences between Japanese and Canadian Hospitality -
I have experienced wonderful memories through the abroad field for three weeks in Canada, we have visited Norquay, Banff and Drumheller and we got a lot of great experiences. These places were excellent, but I felt strongly what is Canadian hospitalities in daily life, so I’ll clarify Canadian hospitalities that I’ve experienced in homestay, school and daily life. Finally, after clarifying it, I’ll consider what is differences in hospitality between Japan and Canada.
Normally, students need to stay at same place for three weeks, but I’ve experienced homestay at Canadian family and Chinese family due to corona virus. Probably, two family are differences entirely from perspective of nation, environmental, custom, race, family structure and so on, but I can say one thing they had in common was that they were trying to entertain me. When I had to stay at home for five days since I visit at Canada, host mother suggested a lot of things even though limited range of activities. For example, she showed me her favorite garden and her trip picture. She gave me origami to play with her daughter. Moreover, she has some bees and gave me the homemade honey. I couldn’t go out for five days to isolate, but I enjoyed thanks to her. In another family, host mother was Chinese, so she cooked many Japanese dishes. She offered a great variety of meals for me, some days she would bake waffles in the morning, there were also days when she would make tea soba noodles for dinner. She made Kimchi hot pot, bibimbap, salmon sandwich, rice ball, beef stew, brownies, cookies and so far. She tried to not make same meals. I was so happy and enjoy to eat her cooked food every day.
Calgary university’s teachers were also trying to entertain us. We had to be at university at 8:50 AM, so we were so early to get up morning about 6 AM week day. One woman teacher gave us cookies during class breaks and played music before class to entertain students who were tired due to waking up early. When she handed out the cookies, she gave us maple cookies along with a napkin which is printed on a maple leaf. Of course, we were happy if we received only maple cookies, but this napkin was so cute and we enjoyed taking picture of maple cookies on the napkin. I think it is Canadian hospitality to entertain us by making small efforts. They also taught us about student of university. They said we often hold event and party to entertain student. Indeed, they hold a graduation party and offer a lot of pizza. In Japan, probably there are no university have the facility to hold a party and bar to drink alcohol in Japan, but university of Calgary have it. I think the reason for these differences arise that Canadian emphasize on entertaining people.
Japanese people are strict to protect rules, there are many Japanese people who are punctual, so if a bus is going to leave at 8 AM, it will leave at that time except unexpected happening. It also can be said that other public transportation such as train, subway, airport. One day, I was so late to go home in Canada, because school activities were long, it kept until 9 PM, therefore I took the train at 9:30 PM. I wanted to go home as soon as possible, but I knew I could not go home early enough, the reason is that when I got off the train, a bus should have left on time, however I wanted to get on that bus, so I ran, fortunately the driver noticed me and waiting for me even though the bus was about to leave. When I checked the time after getting on the bus, I found that the bus was leaving 3 minutes late, probably such situation could not be happened in Japan. Japanese people are strict about time and especial to delay. I don’t think this driver tried to be hospitable, but as a result his behavior was hospitable.
From these my experiences, I conclude that Canadian hospitalities include flexible and entertaining as essential things and I think Japanese hospitality is lack of these factors, because it is unlikely that someone in a school position encourage student to drink alcohol proactively at school events. Rather, they would prompt to avoid drinking alcohol, probably they think the role of student is studying, not drinking, however, in Calgary, teacher think drinking is fun. In my subject opinion, they are always looking for something fun to do in their daily lives, so they throw parties often, offer drinks, give us cookies, and play music. We feel pleasure and enjoy for it, as a result, it leads to the Canadian hospitality. From my experience at homestay, I would say that Canadian like to entertain people and it leads to the Canadian hospitality.
A situation that driver waits for someone who want to get on a bus driver even though the time of departure delayed be cannot thought in Japan, because Japanese people are punctual, however from my experience in Canada, Canadian driver wait for them even if the time of departure delay. I think it is flexible. After careful consideration, the delaying time for few minutes is not big problem. It is usually thing for the Canadian driver, but in result it leads to the Canadian hospitality, there is no such hospitality in Japan.
In conclusion, I’ve experienced a lot hospitalities through a daily life in Canada. On the contrary, we often experience hospitality in Japan when we visit public commercial facilities such as hotels, inns, and restaurant. The reason we can find the hospitality our daily life in Canada is because Canadians are flexible and having a feel to entertain people, these factors lead to be Canadian hospitality. Japanese people are lack of flexible and entertaining depend on a situation such as school and public transportation, so it could be said that the Canadian hospitality is essential two factors that are flexible and entertaining and these factors lead to be differences the hospitality between Canada and Japan.