Going Local

Katie: So, we're talking about going local as we're in a different country. How much of the local culture do you absorb? How much, like local ... cause we both live in Japan right? How much in percentage for example? How much Japanese food would you say you eat?

Gilda: Oh, I would say probably like 80% of my food is Japanese food. Yeah, I like it because most of it is healthy and it's actually like what I can get in the cafeteria at work so ...

Katie: That's convenient.

Gilda: It's convenient. What about you?

Katie: I mostly make my own food, and Japanese food is really difficult to make I think. I'm really challenged when it comes to cooking anyway. I'm really bad a cooking. And to have to try to learn a new style of cooking is just too much for me. I'm really lazy. So I would probably say if I'm cooking food myself, I never cook Japanese food. Zero percent of the time. I never, but if I go to a restaurant then sure, I can eat Japanese food sometimes.

Gilda: I sometimes watch the TV and learn how to cook Japanese food. There's some easy recipes. Do you ever watch that - Japanese television?

Katie: I try, but like you said there's a lot of cooking programs

Gilda: That's what I was about to say, there's tons of cooking TV shows, programs.

Katie: And I watch cooking programs and I just get angry that I can't cook! I can't do it like that so I get frustrated, so I stop watching.

Gilda: Yeah, I see.

Katie: What about other kinds of shows? Like, not just cooking shows?

Gilda: Well, they have, I guess they have pretty funny shows, but I don't understand what they're saying, but I try to follow them, and yeah, sometimes they are very interesting. They also talk about the clothing season, what's trending in Japan. What young would people would do, and they have some interviews sometimes, and they're always teaching you something, so that's something I like about Japanese TV, you always learn something, from other countries as well. That's true.

Katie: That's true. So how about your friendship circle? How much percent of your friends would you say are Japanese versus International?

Gilda: Oh, I would say probably 40% are Japanese. Yeah, the rest of them are international people cause I work with intentional people, so I spend most of the time with them.

Katie: And when you're with your Japanese friends, so you speak mostly in English, or mostly in Japanese?

Gilda: Oh, I would say like probably 70% Japanese and the rest would be English because normally when they know a second language, it's English not Spanish, so I like zero percent Spanish, a lot of Japanese, but yeah like I would say 70% of the conversation is in Japanese also because I want to practice my Japanese.

Katie: Right.

Gilda: What about you?

Katie: Well, I would say out of my friends, recently, I've had like no time to socialize, so probably like 30% of my friends are Japanese, but when I speak with them it's mostly in Japanese. I don't like speaking in English. For me, for the same reasons as you, like, I want to practice my Japanese

Gilda: But I would say that from my Japanese friends, like most of them, probably like 80% of them always want to speak in English because they want to practice English too, so it's like a give-and-take, like we speak a little bit in Japanese, but sometimes we speak more in English. It depends also the topic and what you're talking about.

Katie: If it's a topic you can talk about, then, yeah, go for it in Japanese, but if it's a difficult topic ...

Gilda: Yes, exactly, yeah!