By Jazmin Angel-Guzman

The concept of Giri is very interesting, because it contributes to how Japan wants to preserve as much social harmony as it can. According to Giri, the closest translation is obligation or social duty. If a person gives you a present, then you eventually become indebted to that person or owe them somehow. The balance of Giri has become unbalanced and the relationship will once again become balanced once you give a gift of equal value to the person who gave you a present in the first place. Initially, it was kind of strange to me that on Valentine’s Day girls gave boys milk or dark chocolate. In addition, there are two kinds of chocolates. There is “giri” and “true” chocolate. The “giri” chocolate is when women give men chocolate whom they’re close to due to social obligation. While the “true” chocolate is when women give men chocolate to whom they actually love. Another thing I thought was interesting is “according to one study, the same amount of money is spent on presents in Japan as Americans invest in justice.” This is interesting how gift giving is crucial in Japanese society today and how gift giving can be a cultural aspect.

By Jazmin Angel-Guzman

We’ve had a few visitors so far this Japanese school year, but the visitors that have impacted me the most were from November 3^rd. Initially, before their arrival, I was panicking because we needed to introduce ourselves as we always do, now that we know self-introduction. For me it’s always kind of hard, because I practice a lot to the point that I know it, but when it comes to the moment of actually saying the self-introduction I almost forget. My nervousness impedes me from calming down and making me forget a little, although in the end my self-introduction turned out fine, better than what I was hoping for.

One of the visitors was Yuuki Shinomiya, and he’s the director of Strategy and Chief of Staff at Septeni Global. He works in advertising and with the gaming industry. The other visitors were Hiroyuki and Aoi Takai. Mr. Takai is the Head of the Washington D.C. Office of Sumitomo Corporation and also involved in the Japan Commerce Association of Washington. which is an association of Japanese businesses. There he’s in charge of language education here in Washington D.C., which impacts Japanese Plus because we’re the after-school group in D.C. that studies Japanese as a language. Ms. Takai, on the other hand, talked more about language and culture. She talked about how she studied English through the radio, etc., as a second language, and compared the two different cultures. This was important because she talked about how learning a different language also helped her in career and job, and helped me think about how I would use Japanese language in the future.

For me the visitors impacted me because they made me understand what the power of language really does have and how it’s important, especially in today’s globalized world. I’m always motivated to learn new languages that I’m interested in learning, but the visitors from today inspired me with more motivation to learn Japanese, despite its difficulties. They made me embrace that knowing more than one language is essential and actually like a secret weapon to communicate with many people around the world. Learning new languages can provide different perspectives and lenses on how we can view the world. Therefore, they made me also realize that knowing more than one language can be useful in the future, that it’s definitely worth it to learn Japanese. Which I’m enjoying so far, and I can’t wait to learn more Japanese!