Portrait of a Japanese Person

Haruna is a Japanese student currently in her second year studying at Kansai Gaidai. Originally from Yamaguchi prefecture, she lives alone in an apartment close by the university, but will soon move to another from where she will have to take the train to school. Right now, she only has three classes a week, so in her free time she cleans, sleeps, hangs out with friends, or Skypes with her friends from the US. On the weekends, she usually works at her part-time job, an izakaya near Hirakata-shi station. She likes the job as it allows her a chance to interact with people and learn how to work in a service situation, since one of her goals is to be a flight attendant on a foreign airline (not Japanese, she specifies). However, some aspects of the job she dislikes are the fact that she must dress up, has to be kind to very drunk old men, and can’t receive tips. One time, she says, a foreigner tried to tip her, but her boss did not allow her to accept it.

Haruna is preparing to study abroad in the US in the fall at Colorado State University. It’s not her first time living in the US, and she is already good at speaking English. When she was 14, she didn’t know English and hated it, so her mom sent her to Seattle for a one-month exchange with a host family. However, she didn’t know what was going on in class, so she just observed people. Two years later, Haruna studied again in the US for a full year – a month in Colorado, and with a host family in Kentucky for the rest of the year. She really enjoyed staying with them – notable experiences including gaining 15 kg from all the American food she ate, being baptized without knowing what was going on, dating a guy from the military, and developing a taste for watching American football and basketball.

Haruna’s hobbies include playing the piano and flute, listening to music and watching movies, shopping, playing tennis and basketball, acting like people from American dramas like 90210, and hiking with her dog.