Shaylynn went Kansai

Portrait of a Japanese Person

Saki Uchimura

Meet Saki Uchimura.  Saki is a 19 year old college student at Kansai Gaidai University.  Right now, she’s living at the international dorms and has been making many new foreign friends.  By foreign, I mean us.  Saki has an interesting persona to uncover.  On the outside she looks like a typical cutesy little Japanese girl.  She has curls in her hair and wears flattering outfits, mainly with skirts and heels.  Like the stereotype of young Japanese girls nowadays, on the outside she seems to care a lot about being charming, pleasant, and pretty.  However, once you get to know Saki, you know she’s able to let herself have a good time.  She enjoys interacting with people.  She cares a lot about what they have to say, and she really listens.  While adorable in her own way, she also envies those who surround her.

Saki always tells me my eyes are "mecha kirei".

While we were out talking about doing a portrait of her, I got to understand a little bit more about her and her personality.  There are some things that are part of her upbringing as Japanese, but there are other influences there as well.  I noticed something about her Japanese influence almost instantly as she started raising the “peace” sign in every picture, which is very typical for your average Japanese girl while being caught on film.  When I mentioned it to her, and her friend Shoko, her solution was not to simply put her hand down, but rather lay upon her arms so that her desire to flash the two little fingers to the camera was able to be kept in check.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of two Japanese girls laying on a table top with their heads covering their arms in a desperate attempt to stop the act that felt all too natural.  Not that Americans don’t occasionally give a “peace” sign, but it’s so much more common here.

Talking to the girls about the "peace" sign, illicits a strange new response.

We all went to a resturant that night, to grab some grub, and I asked what she enjoyed eating.  She declared wholeheartedly, “I like sweets!” to which she later proceeded to prove to me by ordering herself a large chocolate parfait to eat all by herself, followed by a syrupy ice-cream waffle cake to share with her friend, Shoko.  I, not being a real big fan of sweets, observed curiously as she scoffed down the super decked out treats.  Sweets might be universal, but Japan sure has a lot of choices at resturants.  They sometimes have pages of cakes, parfaits, cakes, waffles, cakes, and other likely culprits.  Sometimes they have models of their treats out in the windows, as is common practice for Japanese resturants to give visual food samples.  It’s probably just a ploy to lure sweet-lovers such as Saki into them.  However, I have seen a few foreigners fall prey to these eye-catching temptations.  I might be included when it comes to the case of Japanese Ebi Gratin.

Saki tearing up some sweets.

Saki and Shoko also took me over to Don Quijote (Donki) store, where we were quickly greeted with the spirit of Halloween being right around the corner.  I asked the girls what they wanted to be, to which neither had an answer.  Saki had told me before that she wasn’t a fan of horror, so I assume that means her costume will more-than-likely be something terribly cute.  While we were there, she got some essentials she might need.  A bag of some sort of snack food, a milk carton, and some chocolate treats.

On top of that night’s excursions, we have hung out quite regularly since the beginning of my arrival in August.  She has helped me a lot since then.  She’s even helped dye my hair for me.  Out of the many Japanese people I have gotten to know while here, it is good to have Saki as company.  She tends to be a bit more on the quiet side.  However, when she gets to know you, she becomes more outgoing.  This reminds me a lot of my own personality.  She seems to be very dedicated not only to her social life, but also to her school life.  She is somewhat modest at times, but also a tad bit different because of her interest in Western Culture.  She’s not the most rebellious-looking Japanese person I’ve met, but she does have a unique style and personality.  I hope that eventually I will know more about her, and we will be able to stay friends when I return to America.

Shay, Shoko, and Saki. We a band of "S".

~ by Shaylynn on .