Aileen TS#16

The last tutoring session with my Skype tutee was bittersweet. Initially we had been practicing doing comparisons and contrasts between South Korea and Japan's form of public transportation. I had asked him if in Korea it was the same as in Japan where the train lines are run by a few big companies to which he said yes. Upon reflecting on my time in Tokyo I showed my tutee over Skype my train pass and explained to him the painful ordeal that I went through trying to combine my temporary school pass onto my general train pass in Japanese to the station attendant and my tutee had a laugh. He then started to ask me questions on my time in Japan, if I had experienced or was afraid of any sort of radiation exposure in the water or seafood that I ate while there.

He was referring to the ongoing radiation leakage from after the 2011 Fukushima power plant meltdown. He went on to explain that this was an important event that is still having after effects, even so far as to the local airline he works for. Apparently there was a huge debate on whether his airline should be allowed to fly into Fukushima airport because of the radiation and in the end they didn't go through with it after seeing the reported radiation levels online.

This sparked an intense discussion when it comes to our reliance on news media, especially when its government resources and I tied it back through cultural context on what the US was facing with Trump having banned certain news media from reporting information on him. We both agreed that there is always some corruption in government, always something that is kept hush hush from the public eye to which I tied back to the Japanese government during that 2011 Fukushima event when they were trying their hardest from people outside the area to find out about what was ultimately their huge mistakes. Overall it was a great final session full of self-reflection that I feel my tutee has improved a lot on since our initial session. I'll probably continue keeping up with him even if it's as conversation partners instead of tutee now that this session is over.