Reflection of survey project

皆さん、こんにちは。まだ会いますよね～～


This time I would like to share about what I have learned from our own survey project and also other groups' project.


The topic of our project is Japanese people's daily life. We asked 10 questions which are about their eating habit, daily habit, and what they would do every year.


I have found in the project that the expectation from me, my groupmates and my classmates is so different from the result of our survey. Some of the activities we though that they would always do. In fact, the result shows that they do not always do such as having baths, having hot spring and having ohanami (お花見).


In this project, I learned that the nowadays Japanese people's living habits. Before this project, I thought that Japanese people love to drink miso soup since I heard that many restaurant in Japan give miso soup for free. However, from 織さんの research, I found that restaurant in Japan no longer to provide miso soup. Japanese people tend to eat western style. In the project result, I also found that Japanese people are not like having meal with their friends. I thought that they like to do so since I watched many Japanese drama that the characters love gathering with their friends. They love having dinner with their friends and colleagues.


From sensei's feedback, I also learned that some of his friends do not go to shrine. I assumed that Japanese would go to shrine at least once a year. Therefore, I have not set the option of "0 times" in the final question. I think that it is Japanese traditional culture like Chinese people would go to temple every year for fortune or go to shrine for visiting their relatives who passed away as Chinese people would go to visit relatives who passed away. However, the result and sensei's feedback show me that it is not the fact. Not setting the option of "0 times" in the survey also is one of the problems in our project.


Another problem, as sensei said in the lesson, is that we used a wrong tone in the questions. For example, we should ask "Are you relax when sitting on tatami mattress?" instead of "Are you tired when sitting on tatami mattress?". It is because it seem to be offensive when we ask in this way. It gives Japanese people an impression that we treat their culture of sitting on tatami mattress as a bad thing.


From the others' presentation, I also learned something about Japanese people's attitudes towaord different topics. I think the most interesting one is the fourth presentation which is about Japanese people's attitudes toward wedding. It is very interesting to investigating which countries' people do Japanese like to marry with. I heard that Japanese nowadays love western culture. I think that they love people from western countries. I also find that many singers and idols from Korea such as "少女時代", "KARA" are hit in Japan now. Therefore, I think that they would love Korean too. Another group presentation is also very interesting which is about Japanese people's travelling habit.


For the suggestion of the project, I think that it is hard to get a larger sampling size from the websites which sensei provided. Because I saw that most of our classmates including us only get about 15 to 35 samples from the survey websites. (it is including sensei's friends and ishiyama sensei...) Therefore, I think we should get more samples from other ways rather than just making survey in the websites.


If you ask me for other project activities, I would suggest matsuri. (お祭り) I love Japanese matsuri very much. I also would like to organise one of the stalls in school matsuri (学園祭) by myself. I think that we can organise a small matsuri for year 1 and year 2 of Japanese studies students or even for the whole school. We can meet the students from year 2. If it is for the whole school, we also can let more students in SPACE know more about Japanese culture. We can have a presentation or reflection of the experience of matsuri. (better to have one only...) In the process of organising the matsuri, we also can learn more about Japanese culture. I am looking forward having matsuri next year!!!