More nature, camping

I had a lesson in the morning where a group of middle aged women told me the usual stuff about how Japanese people love nature and cherry trees and soon.

In the afternoon, a class of different middle aged women asked me about the upcoming Golden Week holidays. The whole country gets about a week off at the end of April, start of May. Sounds nice, but of course it's Japanese so there's often a day or two of work in the middle.

Anyway the following exchange brought up a few common themes: Japanese work hard, Americans have looong holidays, every country outside japan ie 'Gaikoku' is the same...

"How do you say Golden Week in English?"
"Well, we there isn't a Golden Week in my country so we don't use those words. But the holiday name is golden week so I think it's fine."
"You don't say Golden Week in America?"
"It's like asking me how to say Kochi Super in English. We don't have Kochi Super in my hometown but it's ok to say 'Kochi Super'"
She laughed. She understood that part.
"How about Golden Week? Do you say "One week holiday'?"
"If a newspaper talks about it in English they probably say 'Many Japanese travel during Golden Week, which is a week long holiday during the spring."
"What's the American name?"
"We dont have a week holiday in the spring."
"Sping vacation?"
"We dont have this holiday in America. It's a Japanese holiday."
"Only in Japan?"
"I'm not sure if it's only Japan but i think so."
Another student jumped in to help. "Americans take a holiday in summer!"
The other students burst out laughing. "Looong holiday!" They were making gestures for long, spacing thier hands apart and zooming them out past their shoulders.
"Why so long? One month or two months?"
"Americans dont have 1 or 2 month holidays in the summer."
"ha ha sure they do. Lots of other holidays too, like Christmas."
"No, really, we don't have the summer off."
"C'mon, everybody knows that foreign countries have loooong holidays!" (These women dont work by the way)
"Some do. France, germany, I think Italy maybe."
"See? See? I told you! Gaikoku has long holidays."
"Yeah, but Im not from France. For me, France and Japan actualy are 'gaikoku' France has long holidays, it's true. So does germany-"
"Germany? No way! They work hard."
"Well, anyway, some countries in Europe have long holidays. I dont know about India. France has 35 hour work weeks, nice summer holiday, germans get 6 weeks I hear..."
"Oh, I envy foreigners!"
"Me too. I never had a 6 week break from my job."
That sort of undrstood that one. Im sure it will come up again but I could tell from the momentary pause that something registered that just because french people have long holidays doesnt mean Americans do. Which is also interesting because when Im in other classes people tend to very selectively compare the US with some other country that excels in that field and conclude that the US is deficient. In other words, the US vs France in food. The US vs Brazil in soccer/football, the US vs China in anciant history, the US vs sweden in social welfare, US vs. Italy in architecture. No one compares the brazil vs Sweden in architecture for example. If an American says USA is good at something, lets say durin swimming championships he's jingoistic but if the uSA isnt No1 at something be it gymnastics or bridge building people say "Hey, how come you're not No. 1? Why did you guys mess up? Don't you care about what other countries think?" Anyway, my point is that people tend to lump 'the land of foreign' together, but can be VERY selective at other times But I digress...)

UGH, NEED TO FINISH AND WRITE A CONCISE VERSION, WILL DO LATER