Death and Funerals

1. Do you have any international friends or a host family? If so, how would you express your condolences to them if a family member died? If not, then how would you express condolences to an American host family if their Grandmother died?

Yes, I have international friends and a host family in the US.
I have no idea how to express my condolences to my friends or to my host family if a family member died because cultures are completely different in the world. For me, words are unable to do anything. I know people can say “sorry” if someone died, but I don’t feel I could express my condolences to them because I am not a native English speaker. When something sad happens to me, I usually cry, so I guess I would cry (not on purpose), and I would give them hugs to express my condolences. It’s the best thing I could do for them.

a. Have you ever been to a foreign funeral?

Fortunately, no, I haven’t. So I will talk about what my friend did for me. When someone in my family died, my best friend was by my side. She is American, not Japanese. I got the bad news from a phone call, so it was just her and me in the room. I couldn’t bear to hear the bad news on the phone, and kept crying. She can speak Japanese very well, but she didn’t say anything in Japanese or anything like what a Japanese person would usually say to express her condolences to me. She hugged me the entire time I cried, and talked to me about death in English. The things she did for me helped and supported me a lot. I could feel her condolences for me.



The language of Clothes (preparation for next week’s topic)
a. Why are Japanese designer label crazy? Why is what you wear so important?

I have no idea about why are Japanese people are crazy about designer labels. Maybe it's because Japanese people like being fashionable??

Why is what I wear so important? In my opinion, clothes are a way of expressing our own personality or individuality, like what kind of person I am. Think about what suit you would wear for an interview. Would you wear a suit someone else picked, or would you wear a suit you chose yourself? Would you pick your favorite design or would you just pick something that you have? Also, some people care about how expensive the clothes are too. Wouldn't you choose a suit that makes you feel confident, just the same way you would wear cute clothes when you want to look nice? So maybe by being particular about designer labels, one can make themselves feel more confident about their selves. So we can also say that Japanese people care about clothes a lot because everybody does care about designer labels. haha


b. What does “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” mean to you?

If you ask me, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” means don’t decide whether you like something or hate something just by looking at its appearance. For example, we shouldn’t decide if a girl is rich, just because she has a Louis Vuitton bag, or we shouldn’t say he is poor just because he is skinny. Something like that???