今週はKさんからの報告です。日本とオーストラリアの違いを経済、教育、宗教の側面から比較してくれています。
What comes to your mind first when you hear Adelaide? Super hot, expensive, beaches, I’m sure everyone has their own perspectives and impressions. For me personally, I had no idea what to expect so I actually came here without knowing much. Though to be honest it didn’t bother me too much because I didn’t have trouble speaking English and I knew I could always ask for help. Now, after 3 weeks of being here, I’ve realized a lot of aspects that are very different from Japan both positive and negative. So let me introduce you to some of the things that I personally found interesting.
First I would like to start off with the currency. I’m sure we are all well aware that Australia uses AUD (Australian dollars). $1 here is averaging ¥96 which is a lot cheaper compared to USD which is ¥150 for $1. Despite that, bottled drinks such as water could cost up to $5. Imagine paying ¥500 for a bottle of water, you could get a 2L full of orange juice for that same price in Japan. But since this is Australia, it is completely normal. It actually got me into a habit of always carrying a water bottle with me wherever I go so that’s good. Other things like clothes, snacks and medicines are twice as expensive or more. This made me really appreciate Japanese economy, despite its flaws we still have good quality at reasonable prices.
Another thing I found interesting was the education system and how schools worked here. It goes without saying that Japanese students are always studying, trying to get good grades to get into good universities to get good jobs with sustainable income etc. Sounds like a lot of stressful work for people who are only 13~18, and are still learning about what the meaning of life is. Here though, everyone is entitled to do anything. If you want to do programming, go for it. Cooking? try it out, see how it goes. Everything feels more open for the students and most importantly, stress-free. Classes are optional so students can choose whatever subject they’d like, breaks such as recess and lunch is properly provided, it feels like the school actually cares about the students. And no, I’m not saying that Japanese schools are bad for teenagers or anything, I’m just pointing out the differences.
Finally, I want to talk about Catholicism. I was fully aware that a lot of Australian households were believers of the Catholic. My host family are a members of a local church. We go there every Sunday to pray and thank God for the good he has done to this world. But I was quite overwhelmed by how much people actually do to worship God. My school, Gleeson college is also Catholic. We pray every morning for a good day, seems pretty normal right? But things start to get a little confusing when everyone gathers in a room all of a sudden to eat holy bread with the priest while a band is playing songs from the Bible in the background? As someone who has no experience with Christianity or Catholicism this felt like a fever dream when we first did it. It’s really interesting seeing everyone gather as one family to sing and pray together. It genuinely warms my heart and wished something like this was common in Japan too. Small things like this really changes a lot of your perspective towards society and makes me want to appreciate life as a whole even more than I do already.
There are other minor things that are worth mentioning but if I made an entire segment on each topic, this blog would be too long. So here are some honorable mentions. Transportation methods like trains and buses are very rare in the suburbs, Temperature of the outside is very inconsistent, They use Kilo-Joules instead of Kcal, rain smells bad.
I’m very excited to experience all the other stuff I haven’t got to done yet such as go to the beach, so I will update you all on my next blog. Thanks for reading till the end and cheers.
