Friendships between Japanese and foreigners should also be handled with sensitivity.\u00a0 The locals might see a relationship that an American student might consider a casual friendship as a serious relationship that will lead to marriage.\u00a0 Even a casual relationship does not go unobserved by others.\u00a0 Japanese society is much more conservative than Western society in this area.\u00a0 Sexual relationships in Japan imply a different level of commitment than they do in the United States, and the potential for emotional damage is great.\u00a0 For this reason, Middlebury strongly discourages students from engaging in casual sexual relations with locals.<\/p>\n
As a result of growing exposure to Western pop culture in the form of travelers, films, music, etc., you might find that some of your new friends seem very westernized, even to the point of having acquired excellent colloquial English.\u00a0 Please keep in mind that while their understanding of our culture helps make a good basis for friendship, their \u201cAmericanization\u201d is often very deceiving.\u00a0 Ironically, this superficial familiarity with our language and culture can cause even more misunderstanding, especially surrounding issues of romance.\u00a0 Be careful.\u00a0 You may stay in Japan for one semester or even one year, but your Japanese friends will likely spend their whole lives in Japan.\u00a0 Youthful indiscretions now may hurt your friend later on.<\/p>\n
One more note of caution: while the School in Japan has confidence in our students\u2019 ability to make good decisions and take care of themselves in an unfamiliar place, situations are sometimes not what they appear.\u00a0 In Japan this is particularly the case with prostitution.\u00a0 The number of prostitutes has increased dramatically over the last few years, particularly in large cities. It may be difficult to tell who is a prostitute, especially in nightclubs, where it is normal to meet and socialize with many different types of people.\u00a0 In the past, students have gotten into trouble by not realizing how others perceived their intentions.\u00a0\u00a0 Leaving with a person you just met can lead to conflicts with the police or gangs.\u00a0 For your own safety, we ask that you be aware of what is happening around you at all times and exercise good judgment in social situations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friendships between Japanese and foreigners should also be handled with sensitivity.\u00a0 The locals might see a relationship that an American student might consider a casual friendship as a serious relationship that will lead to marriage.\u00a0 Even a casual relationship does not go unobserved by others.\u00a0 Japanese society is much more conservative than Western society in this area.\u00a0 Sexual relationships in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234,"parent":130,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-140","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140\/revisions\/141"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolsabroadhandbooks.middcreate.net\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}