We went to see a history class at the University of Houston, and we had a culture bump. Our culture bump was that American students speak to the professor during the class, such as asking questions, and saying, “Yes”, “Okay” and “I know”. When we saw them doing this, we were shocked and envious because we are supposed to be quiet in Japan. American students were really expressive and interacting with the professor. It wasn’t like the Japanese classes at all. Japanese students show their respect to the teacher by being quiet, taking notes and looking at the teacher. Also, that shows that you’re paying attention. However, as we stated before, American students were talking to the teacher, so we wondered how they show their respect to the teacher. We got some answers when we left class and asked questions to some American students. They said that they show their respect to the teacher by looking at the teacher and taking notes, as Japanese do. But, they also ask questions to show that they’re paying attention and that they’re interested in the class. Moreover, they said that’s the way to make the teacher pay attention to you because they have participation grades. The universal situation for this is that both in Japan and the States, students pay attention and show their respect to the teacher. From this culture bump, we learned that we do the same things but in different ways. Check out our video here!

- by Rin Shiroma, Minako Ota,Rikako Matsujo, and Miya Shimoji