Do’s and Don’ts with Japanese penpals

Hi, it looks like the disappearing Japanese pen-pal is quite a common thing. Well, I am no exception. My story has a twist. My erstwhile pen-pal actually visited me (at her request) in the States after just a couple of messages. I played the host, we hung out for a while, she seemed pleased and asked if it was ok for her to visit again next time (next time?) But since then, no replies! (beyond a short thanks)

What could possibly have been on her mind?? saa...

She's beyond comprehension, and so are lot of these people on the message boards.

Haf you made me laugh

"Hi, still alive but busy, cya". :)

I just recieved emails from two women in Japan from here, one is snail mail the other is email pen pal. I have recieved numerous emails from the one. She stated that she had recieved an email from an American male and that he was quite rude.
She stated from the beginning that she wanted someone to help practice her English with, I can accpet that. But exchanging emails with her has been wonderful. The pictures of her town lok incredible. Even if we only exchange a few emails it was still nice talking to her, but it has only been a few days and already we have exchanged 4 emails.
It is nice just being able to write to people in Japan. I have alot of respect for the Japanese and their culture. I wish to learn more, and if having a pen pal helps me than I am more than willing to help them with the English language

I don't understand why you should not tell your pen pal that you are deaf. When I first got my two pen pals last year, I told them that I had both ADHD and androgenetic alopecia a few months after I began communicating with them. One of my P.P's told me that she has high blood pressure, and the other said that she has poor blood circulation, and I wasn't offended. Everyone's got their little secrets, and as long as your comfortable explaining your medical problems, go right ahead. I did, and they didn't mind at all.

This might be off topic, but I read what you wrote on the first page and tried out WorldLingo.

I typed in "You are so cute!!" in English so that it'd be translated to Japanese. Once it was in Japanese, I copied it and asked for it to be translated into English. I got "It is very lovely!!"

O_o; .....

"You are so cute!!" and "It is very lovely!!" are not even close...


I can see now your point in not trusting some language-translating programs. =_=; I can see how it can cause a rift between penpals.

I have a Japanese penpal now for over 3,5 years through this site, I visited him and his family twice and in June I will see them all for the third time. I invited him and his wife to visit me but due to short periods of days off in Japan (he only has 10 days per year while I have 50) he wasn't able to visit my country so far. Hopefully I can host them in the future. Sometimes we both are busy and don't write for a couple of months ans sometimes we exchange mails weekly. Every year on mine and their birthdays and on Sinterklaas (a Dutch holiday when people give eachother presents) or on New Year, we exchange gifts from our countries, like candy, music, tea/food and other typical stuff. It's very nice to go shopping and find things special from my country to give as a present and (of course) it's nice to get something back from Japan. We write about everything, his/my work, family life, his parents/ children, holidays/ vacation, weather, local news, elections/politics, our countries and whatever comes up in our minds. We exchange pictures, he from Japan and I from the countries I visited during my vacations and my own country. Sometimes I wonder if I say something shocking, I'm from a country where people are very direct and there are hardly any taboos, so indeed, my latest love affair was also a subject. And it turned out that he was not shocked but very concerned with my well-being. Very nice to discover. I think he is a real friend and I hope to be in contact with him for many more years.

But, until summer 2007, I had another penpal from Japan, also for almost 3 years and apparently I said something wrong. He did send me many cookies from Japan (brand: Elisa) which I liked but not as much as he did (about 30 packages a year!). I didn't want to hurt him and thought of a solution. I said I was on a diet to loose weight so please no more cookies. I thought that was an acceptable way of saying but he reacted very angry, telling me he would never send me anything again and after two other cold mails I didn't hear a word. So even after e-mailing for years things can go wrong.

Wow, people are still replying to this one.

It's sad that relationship ended just like that because someone disagrees.

I won't be offended if someone didn't reply to me after a few months or didn't like something I said or done. I understand that everyone's different and have reasons for doing so. So, I accept that.

Quite an obvious don't lol.

Never come on too strongly with someone you haven't met before by letter(penpal) you may scare them away or just offend them, not everyone is looking for love by penpal, like someone has said, language and curiousity are main reasons why people try these kinds of things.

I would say, never go into Penpaling expecting romance, if it comes it comes, if it doesnt, you still have a friend.

Maybe your Penpal was trying to be overly friendly or has some issues, a friend wouldn't just not talk to you even when upset..

Maybe he was trying to win your affection with cookies :D

I would say that Japanese tend to not talk when they are upset. It's their way of communicating their anger.

Umm, haven't thought about that. Silence treatment doesn't really work good with penpal relationship. lol Especially, if one can't go to other person's house or call on phone to patch thing up.

Wow that sounds bad, maye you could have just accepted them or even said you went off them now

What you said isnt bad so I dont understand why he would have reacted like that

Naturally, that is why, unless you know someone, its best to watch what you say, incase you offend.

Take the cookies for example.. she could of accepted and just stored away somewhere, some food lasts for a while anyway.

And then as she got to know him more or whatever, she could of said what she meant but in a more casual way, I'm sure then he wouldnt of minded.

But at the end of the day if a friendship can end over something like that, it wasn't much of one to begin with.

You haven't read what I posted, did you? I knew that man almost 3 years, did meet him twice in person and accepted his 30 (!) packages of cookies per year but after 3 years I didn't want them anymore, is that so strange? How should I have said it in a 'more normal way' according to you?

Well, it's difficult to say anything definitive on this subject because everyone is diffiferent. However, there are general trends that exist within cultures. The Japanese, for example, live in a particularly closed society without much exposure to foreigners. They are very anxious to please foreigners and not cause offence but they basically feel that they don't really know how we are thinking. I think for a lot of Japanese people who are interested in studying English it is exciting to have a foreign penpal. I also think that the ability to speak English can confer a certain degree of status within Japanese society, which seems to prize intellectual ability very highly. It's also seen as very cool. But keeping penpals of any nationality is difficult because on the internet you just don't get the human feeling of speaking face to face. It's kind of cold and people are busy and tend to prioritise their friends who live near them. Japanese people are particularly busy, often working or studying long hours. Also, many people in Japan get interested in English and the get very rapidly disappointed because they find it difficult and stressful to communicate. This isn't everyone but many people decide on learning English but don't seem to realise the level of dedication and effort required to learn such a totally alien language. another thing is that japanese people are basically not very trusting compared to people of other nationalities. They tend to slowly cultivate social relationships over months and years. The beginning period of a relationship even between two Japanese people tends to consist of conservative platitudes and probing questions so as to ascertain the personality of the other person. On many occasions I have started a freindship with a Japanese person and expected too much too soon. They just don't want to meet every week or exchange emails every day. They want to slowly build up trust and confidence that you are a safe, decent person and go from there. This is further complicated by the language barrier. A small misunderstanding or perceived breach of etiquette can have a lasting negative effect for Japanese people. Even young Japanese people hve been conditioned into a much stricter set of rules governing interpersonal relations than the avergabe American or European person. So, just because a Japanese person starts emailing you it doesn't mean you can rush in and expect a lasting friend. More than likely, they were driven by a desire to practice English and if they like you and find your emails courteous and pleasant they will eventually commit to a lasting friendship. This may explain why you have found it hard to keep Japanese penpals to a certain extent. I doubt it has much to do with being deaf or having been to the emergency room. It is true that Japanese society is still less than accepting of physical and mental problems, but on an individual basis I doubt many of them would hold something like that against someone. They are much more likely to be bothered by an outpouring of personal information itself than what that information actually is. With Japanese people personal stuff often comes later, after trust has been gained. It can be frustrating for Westerners who can't be bothered with 'aisatsu' and so on and just want to make a quick personal connection. And this problem is furtjher complicated because Japanese people are extremely reluctant to reveal their true feelings if they feel uncomfortable. They are far more likely to say they are busy or simply stop communicating.

Per my gaijin understanding of Japanese culture, aside from the many reasons mentioned why someone might stop contacting you, they furthermore might not explain the reason for stopping partly to avoid any confrontation whatsoever, partly because people who match each other well should understand each other without having to explain everything.

Btw, this is "gaijin" again. This is not about penpals but its a similar matter: I met a really nice Japanese girl a few months ago at a bookstore. We started talking, ended up talking a lot, and exchanged contact details before going separate ways. A few days later, I left her a message asking if she would like to meet for lunch or coffee... no response.

A week or so later she send me an SMS to find out how I'm doing. I let her know how happy I was to hear from her and tried another invite... silence again. Weeks later I get a missed call from her but no VM ...this sort of cat and mouse has happened more than a few times. If am silent for a while, she contacts me in an indirect manner (except a few phone calls I unfortunately missed). I get the feeling that she is shy but if she were not interested at all, she would not continue to contact me. I have tried: let's talk or email, meet at a cafe, go for a walk in the park -- nothing. I also only tried one of these invitations at a time on occasions surrounding the times she tried to contact me, then I lay low. How can I find out what she wants and maybe actually see her again?

I don't think it's JUST a Japanese thing when penpals disappear. The flow of emails are probably based on how busy they are at the time. I just say, if you have lost touch with a penpal or they don't write to you anymore or as much, find another one and from time to time, write your old pal to say hello. They may reconnect after things calm down for them. I'm always looking for penpals in Japan because I love the country so much :~)

Wow, this forum is so cool! I'm having my school vacation right now and happened to come across this! Nice!

Hi Everyone here!

Hmmm... so should we just be our natural self (that is BE OURSELVES) or do as the Romans do??? Well, I guess it's better to adapt to others' cultures and differences. I wonder if you are pleasing others but at the same time, you are also torturing and faking yourself.

As for 'Friends Forever', I don't think it's likely to be true because friends come and go. How about pen-pals? I believe it is the same too. It's the memories that counts.

By the way, I wonder why it is so easy to make friends via online unlike in public places; be it on the train, bus or shopping centres. I just don't understand. I noticed an incident whereby the one who gets himself/herself approached would definitely be looked twice with hostility.

Anyone knows why? Perhaps I should post this question in another thread.

Oh ya, another question: who are the majority ones who have pen-pals? Are they intellectual people? Or average ones? Hmmm... I wonder how people judge a person as an average or below-average as there are the EQ and the IQ.

Quite a few times. Basically I will reply to their ads on this site. Mainly just introducing myself in Japanese and they email me back with the usual Nihongo wa jyouzu desuyo. Then I email them back and hear nothing from them again.

Luckily I do have some really good penpals that I speak to on msn or by email regularly and they're great. In fact one of them ( a rather good looking female) may be coming to my school for a month and my parents have offered to accommodate her. I did have a contact in the Iwate prefecture though and haven't heard back from her since the little earthquake they had there.

One thing to bear in mind is that I always speak Japanese to my penpals. I have found that they like that rather than having to use a translator all the time. Problem is I can't really say what I want to say to them as my Japanese is only good enough to respond to them and give them fairly simple answers. Luckily thanks for such programs as Firefox and Rikaichan (which beats any internet translator easily) I can understand what they are saying and am just confused in situations when they may use Japanese colloquialisms and their local dialect. Also I think that being able to talk on msn has really helped.