Comments on the first video-chat (by Andreas)

I had a good time meeting and discussing with the american students and the technical difficulties aside, it was a good experience. For us Swedish students, we're already quite used to Adobe and comfortable with this kind of setting from doing it for years. I couldn't take the time to read the blogs prior to the first meeting, but I did afterwards and was very much impressed with the professional effort and amount of work already done by the american students. Especially, the good amount of self-reflection and introspection on the topics. I look forward to do this again and I hope that minor technical issues won't get in the way, that we will have enough time to work with the topics and that everyone will have a good time!

Commercials (by Sara)

 In most countries where there is television, there are also commercials. It is both entertaining and interesting to contrast and compare commercials from different countries, as well as investigate which commercials there are and think about whether the commercial still makes you want to buy their product even though you are from another country. Also, if one watches enough of them, one can almost sense an element unique to the different countries.  Here are some commercials that I think it is interesting to compare:

a)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVEDW4YdIHw&feature=plcp (in this commercial the title is “IKEA in reality” and the message is that IKEA is interested in how people “in reality” lives because this is what inspires them)

compare that to

b)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUQjQh6PVhY&list=PLEE3C355EC6C044DD&index=1&feature=plpp_video

and this (though I could not find one with the same topic as the other two, this one should still be somewhat interesting, the message is that even in a little space you can still make something interesting)

c)       http://www.youtube.com/user/ikeajp?feature=watch

Then there is this to compare:

i)                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQKfQIYzNbY (their message is that one should wake up one’s yesterday-self and wake up the yesterday-honda)

ii)                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVOSma0vco 

iii)                 http://www.youtube.com/user/HondaSverige?feature=CCoQwRs%3D  (the message is that if you do not give up, you’ll always find something new)

And then there are always the funny ones. This is what I found when searching for funny Japanese commercials in Japanese:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLaqqdpCfg4 (what do you think? I’m not sure I get it…)

When I searched for funny Swedish commercials in English, this is what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poFFwwbpfFI

And when I searched for funny Japanese commercials (there was a lot of them, so this one was chosen purely on random, also the amount of Japanese celebrities in these are awesome) I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnQYTGJQMkM

As an addition, this is what I found while searching for the others:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6tBr6PMkBY (good thing I’m not a twin…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CooI2Y2dTmw  (how many of you know of this?)

Did you find the commercials good? Did you feel like buying their product? Is there any element in the different commercials that you find very “Japanese”, “Swedish” or “American”?

Andreas' Self-introduction

My name is Andreas Ekberg, I'm soon to be 30 years old, I'm married with a slovenian woman since 6 years and we have a 5 year old daughter together.

I've lived abroad in Czech Republic and Slovenia for a few years and studied a little bit of English, German, Slovene and Japanese on university level, but some time remains before they are properly finished with degrees.
Currently I'm studying a preparatory year for engineers at LTU in Luleå parallell with German from University of Dalarna.

On the side I work as a semi-professional musician at "The Road House", which is a rockbar & restaurant as well as an eventclub. We play everything from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's as well as modern music in the range of jazz, blues, rock, pop.

I have not yet been to Japan, but I plan to finish the bachelors degree in Japanese from University of Dalarna and then take on an international masterprogram in physics where one semester will be located in Germany and the final semester will be in Japan.
In particular, the intention is to work with Japanese linguistics and philosophy for the thesis and later on if possible, maybe continue the asian / religion / philosophy studies on a higher level.

If possible, I would also like to go to Japan before this takes place and see it for myself.

I have many interests, although most of them are academical; music, philosophy, religion, psychology, linguistics/languages, math and physics. Otherwise
I of course enjoy Japanese music of all kinds, as well as anime; which was my first contact with Japanese over 12 years ago.

Daniel's Sefl-introduction

I'm 24 years old, live on the countryside outside Lund in southern Sweden and study at Lund University to be a pilot. I've studied Japanese for more than 6 years, including 2 years in Japan and 2 years at Dalarna University, the rest being self-studies. I've also studied physics for 3 years at Uppsala University. I want to move back to Japan in the future.

Japanese things(?) that are popular in Sweden

Sara's Self-Introduction

Hi everyone!
My name is Sara and I live in a cozy little town in Sweden called Lund. My major is behavioral science, but I have also studied quite a lot Japanese and Japanese history. My interest in Japanese culture is very general (I tend to find some topic, subject or aspect that I become really into for a few months before moving on to the next one). Right now I'm very into Japanese translation and Japanese politics/economy (but I have had other obsessions before these that I love to discuss). I am participating in this project because it seems like an interesting and fun opportunity. I hope we will get along and have fun together with this!

Welcom to

the Dalarna University - Gettysburg College

Japanese Culture Project!

Thanks for visiting!

The Dalarna students are looking forward to exchanging thoughts and ideas on Japanese Culture with the Gettysburg students.