Reflection 1
Urban legends in Japan have struck
in the hearts of the Japanese people for
centuries. Exploring these urban legends
reveals creepy tales of some of the scariest
ghost stories in Japan. Many of these dark
urban legends passed from generation to
generation intend to scare or teach moral
lessons to Japanese children. One example of
this is the poem of Tomiko’s hell. It’s a very
disturbing Urban Legend, in which if you were
to read the whole poem, bad things may
happen to you, they say that your soul will be
condemned in hell forever to suffer. Another
example is Kuchisake-onna, she wears a mask
and will ask you if she’s pretty. It doesn’t
matter what you say, she’ll still kill you. But if
you say so-so, she will get confused and you’ll
have the chance to run.
Reflection 2
Japan attracted 31.19 million international
tourists in 2018. Japan has 21 World Heritage
Sites, including Himeji Castle, Historic
Monuments of Ancient Kyoto and Nara. Popular
foreigner attractions
include Tokyo and Hiroshima, Mount Fuji, ski
resorts such as Niseko in Hokkaido, Okinawa,
riding the shinkansen and taking advantage of
Japan's hotel and hotspring network.
The 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness
Report ranked Japan 4th out of 141 countries
overall, which was the highest in Asia. Japan
gained relatively high scores in almost all of the
featured aspects, such as health and hygiene,
safety and security, and cultural resources and
business travel.
 Reflection 3
The word anime is the Japanese term
for animation, which means all forms of
animated media. Outside Japan, anime refers
specifically to animation from Japan or as a
Japanese-disseminated animation style often
characterized by colorful graphics, vibrant
characters and fantastical themes. The
culturally abstract approach to the word's
meaning may open up the possibility of anime
produced in countries other than Japan. For
simplicity, many Westerners strictly view
anime as a Japanese animation product.
Personally, I like anime with a serious
plot, but I also like comedy. Like Oregairu, Fairy
Tail, Fate Series, The Promised Neverland,
Nichijou, and much more! It’s practically
impossible to list all my favourites
Reflection 4
The SuIcide Forest, called “the perfect place to die,”
the Aokigahara forest in Japan has the unfortunate
distinction of being the world’s third most popular place to
die by suicide. Since the 1950s, Japanese businessmen have
wandered in, and at least 500 of them haven’t wandered
out, at an increasing rate of between 10 and 30 per year.
This does not deter determined people from committing
suicide in this dense forest. Each year dozens of corpses are
found by volunteers who clean the woods, but many are
forever lost in the very thick woods. Japanese authorities
have discontinued publishing exact suicide numbers in
order to avoid making the place even more popular.
Locals say they can easily spot the three types of visitors to
the forest: trekkers interested in scenic vistas of Mount Fuji,
the curious hoping for a glimpse of the macabre, and those
souls who don’t plan on leaving.
According to some reports, forest workers must carry the
bodies from the forest to the local police station, where
they are put in a special room used specifically to house
suicide corpses. Some believe that if a corpse is left alone, it
is very bad luck for the yurei (ghost) of the suicide victims.
Their spirits are said to scream through the night, and that
their bodies will move on their own.
 Reflection 5
In Japanese—unlike in English—the terms
for family relationships can differ according to
whether you are talking about your own family
to someone else or the other person's family.
When you talk about someone else’s family,
you say Mother=Okaasan, Father=Otousan,
Older Brother=Oniichan, Older
Sister=Oneechan, Younger Brother=Otoutosan,
Younger Sister=Imoutosan. And when you talk
about your own family, instead you say,
Mother=Haha, Father=Chichi, Older
Brother=Ani, Older Sister=Ane, Younger
Brother=Otouto, Younger Sister=Imouto.
Family in Japanese is Kazoku. I also
learned how to compose a sentence with the
topic of the Family.
Reflection 6
This time, I learned how to count in
Japanese. Japanese has two sets of numbers.
The native Japanese system is fairly
straightforward, but this numbering scheme is
rarely used to count past 10. The Sino-Japanese
number system, the one you’ll use most of the
time, is a bit more complicated. Sino-Japanese
numbers are used in conjunction with “counter”
words when counting objects, animals, and
people. There are different counters that you
have to include when counting people, flat
objects, cylindrical objects, bundles, pets, and
miscellaneous objects. Knowing the counters for
people and miscellaneous objects is absolutely
essential. However, you will have a very difficult
time talking about numbers if you don’t
eventually learn some of the other counters.
 Reflection 7
The Japanese of Animal is Dobotsu. I
learned the Japanese translations of different
animals. I even learned how to form a sentence
like “Nani dobotsu ga suki desu ka?” or in
english, “what’s your favourite animal. It
proved useful so that I can learn more
information from my friends and family.
This was a short topic but it proved useful
in many ways.
Reflection 8
The earliest written history of Japan, which was a mix
of fact and mythology, mentions the four oldest color terms
in the Japanese language: aka or red, kuro or black, shiro or
white, and ao or blue. However, it has been proposed that
these terms originally referred to the contrasting optical
sensations of light and dark, clear and vague. With time,
these ancient color terms evolved to have the red, black,
white and blue meanings in use today (as well as acquiring
other symbolic meanings, which we'll get to later).
However, traces of the original four colors persist in
modern Japanese. Most proverbs and surnames that
mention color, for example, often involve these four colors.
Additionally, only these four colors can be prefixed with the
"pure" and "genuine" ma, to give us makka, or bright
red, makkuro pitch black, masshiro or pure
white, massao or deep blue. Similarly, the original
ambiguity of ao appears to have stood the test of time. A
vague, overlapping, blue-green color band, termed "grue"
in anthropological lingo, may be used to describe the bluish-
green (or greenish-blue?) of ao – which is notorious for
causing the Western confusion between aoshingou and
"green traffic light." Or aonegi and "green spring onion."
I was so interested with the Japanese colors that I had to
personally do my own research.
Reflection 9