Cruise Report

Dec.28th

Besides native Japanese speakers, we have a lot of passengers on this Peace Boat Oceania Cruise whose first laungage is Chinese or Korean. Today, there was a Japanese language class for non-Japanese speakers. Starting off with greetings such as, “Kon-nichi-wa” and “Kon-ban-wa,” the lesson taught participants how to introduce themselves in Japanese. At the end of the class, interested participants were matched with their own volunteer Japanese teacher. Japanese speakers who were interested in cultural exchange through teaching a language, and non-Japanese speakers who were interested in cultural change through learning an language all gathered to meet one another. The gathering was telling of the need for spaces for intercultural exchange onboard, and it warmed my heart to see so many participants from different countries wanting to learn and communicate each other.