Dear Minami Circle friends

My initial interest in Japan started in 1983 when my husband started working in a Japanese company. In Denmark the christmas party is a very important highlight of the year, and that year I had the first peak of Japanese culture. Being brought up in the country side in Denmark I had just found out how to act around people from Copenhagen, they are very loud and conversates very quickly, quite opposite the japanese way. So I had a peak but was too busy trying to fit in the Copenhagen way of living to really do more than that. But a few years later we became friends with a japanese couple living in Denmark for 2 years. Through them we have come to love this country. Through the years we met in Denmark as well as in Japan.

So when Henrik had the offer to go to Japan, it was with very mixed feelings. On one hand my daughter did not want to go and I loved my job on the other hand we had this big crush on Japan and wanted to expore it. It just so happened that a breast cancer made the decicion more easy for me. I chose to go with my husband and allow myself the time out here to heal.

My expectations was that it would be a convenient life but very hard to communicate and integrate with the japanese (due to my not speaking japanese) and tough with a long distance relationship with my daughter.

It has been hard to miss my daughter but as for the contact to japanese Minami Circle members has gone out of their way to let us into their culture, to show us their country to explain their way to us. THANK YOU so much.

The first two month of my stay was a study on the surface. Being unable to read anything shopping was quite a challenge. And not knowing anybody I spent many hours studying people interact unable to understand their dialog. But that is when you find out that bodylanguage is universal..

My lifesaver then was the great system of the welcome furoshiki that exists in Yokohama. A lady will come to your house with details of doctors, dentists, supermarkets etc. Amazing..

And having come to the end of my stay I see that this was only the first step in understanding just how organized Japan is. The infrastructure is just outstanding. Any emergency that might occur has already been thought of, and off course there is a plan to take place if needed.

I was lucky enough to have a breast reconstruction surgery at the Yokohama University Hospital. The system they have to make the patients feel informed and secure is unknown to anything I have ever seen or heard of before. Definitely something I will suggest to implement at hospitals in Denmark.

I can see the changes in Japan since I came here the first time. Before moving out here the only dogs we saw were at Zamami island. They did not wear clothes and there were only few.

We did not find any place where we could buy a cup of coffee, now you buy it everywhere.

The big ironi in Japan as well as in Denmark is that we do not necessarily think that the american way is very good, and yet the american culture is expanding everywhere... Big, fast, cheap...

What I am going to miss terribly when I go home to a small country with 5 million people (not a lot of consumers!) is:

all the good friends I made during my 3 years in Japan
the general politeness
the peace and calm of Buddism/shintoism
Kamakura
trains on schedule
my weekly Ikebana classes
my cooking class of 7 ladies whom I got to know very well
the light all through winter
the way you treasure nature
the way you respect each other
Culture exchange meetings
the way each individual has a very strong sence of who they are
being able to shop every day
the every day food stuff being more cheap than the exotic food
the variety of restaurants
the variety of goods and food stuff
the convenient lifestyle where you can pay your bills in the convenient stores

What I look forward to when I go back:

being able to see my daughter every week
being able to read all the news papers
spend a lot of time in my garden
having whole days where I cook with family and friends
BBQ parties during the summer season
the long summer nights that never gets dark

It has been a wonderful experience and words are too poor when thanking Minami Circle Members for the huge effort they make to entertain us.

Sayonara
Kaethe

Minami Circle