How to Live and Not be a Tourist

It's easy to be a tourist. It's hard to be a local. It's especially really hard to be a local when you are living in a new country with complete strangers and a very high language barrier.

But no matter! I will not be a tourist for four and half months! How, you ask? Well, I have a plan- a plan that will help to (hopefully) ensure localness.

Step One: Making local friends. This is perhaps the most important step in keeping yourself away from tourist mood. After all, the best way to live like a local is that make friends with one. You can observe and learn from them. I also, in general, just want to make some friends while I'm there. With my program, I will be living and studying with International studies from around the world. I don't want to put myself in an International Bubble, where all I do is hang out with Internationals. This will be hard because we'll be the only ones on campus for about a month. There will be a Japanese Kansai Gaidai student that will act as a RA to help us adjust to our new surroundings, however. Hopefully we'll become friends. If not, there'll be other ways to make friends, like in clubs. Clubs are a big deal in Japan. Hopefully by joining a club, I can make some new friends!

Step Two: Eat like a local. Am I going to restaurant that's filled with mostly tourists every time I go? That's probably not a local spot. Do I eat McDonald's, hamburgers, and other American food? I probably shouldn't be doing that. Food is a big part of a culture. If I'm limiting myself to food that are catered towards Americans, I'm not living like a Hirakata City local. Instead, I'm eating like an American in Japan. So, one of the first things I'm going to do is ask what are some good places to eat. Luckily, food in Japan tends to be cheaper there than here in America (to my knowledge). By eating like a local, I get a full belly and culture immersion at the same time!

Step Three: Observe and asking questions. What are locals doing? Do they use the bus, train, walk, or bike? How do they act in a grocery store? Are there even grocery stores or is there an outdoor market? How do students act on campus? Do they wave to people that walk by, or do they just walk past them? Do friends stand in the middle of campus? There's a lot of observing that goes into living in a new country, especially if you want to live like a local. And sometimes, just observing something doesn't work. Instead, you have to ask. Like asking if it's normal for the public toilets to not have toilet paper. Or what button to press to flush the toilet. Is it normal to talk to the cashier at a store? Is it okay to wear this type of clothing over that? Things like that can be asked instead of observed.

These plan is still incomplete. I honestly don't know what else I need to do until I get there. I can do research now, but that only gets you so far. Hopefully, this these starting steps, I can help make it one step closer to living like a local. A key thing to remember is that I'm still Renee. I'll just be Renee in Japan, learning and growing there. My goal is to not be Japanese. I'll forever be viewed as a foreigner there, but maybe I can be less of a foreigner by trying to live like a local. That's my goal.