19th Annual International Understanding and Cooperation Essay Contest
Elementary School Competition Winning Work

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What I think about International Understanding

by Saeko Kawataki
Sixth-Grader, Chuo Municipal Mimura Elementary School

I started to become interested in international understanding when I lived in Sweden for about a year because of my dad’s job. The school I went to was an international school, and each class had almost 20 students of many different nationalities. At first, I was at a loss because there were lots of people whose countries I hadn’t even seen or heard about when I was in Japan. And on top of that, I couldn’t understand the English they used at school one bit. But with body language and gestures, I was able to communicate, make new friends, and be understood by my teachers.
At that school there was a world map that everybody in my class helped make together. We wrote and drew out each country’s name, capital, and flag, and then pasted them onto a big world map. I still remember the sense of accomplishment I felt to make that map. And thanks to the team-work needed to make it, I was able to become close to my new friends. And our understanding grew even deeper.
Just before the start of summer vacation, an American who was doing a home-stay came to visit my school. He came right during math period, when we were playing with geometric puzzles. I sat next to him and we did the puzzle together.
I think it’s hard for people of different nationalities to understand each other in a short amount of time. First off, the languages are different. And because different countries have different climates and geography, their cultures, histories, and foods are different, too. I think the biggest mistake people make is to judge other people the exact same way you would judge yourself. Other people come from environments different than the ones you lived in, so their way of thinking about a certain thing would be different. Nobody thinks the exact same way you do, anyway. So even if the other person’s way of thinking is completely opposite your own, instead of saying, “I won’t be able to get along with that person so I won’t play with him,” you should recognize that “it’s just that person’s individual way of thinking.”
But there are also ways to interact that are the same all over the world. Like music or art. And you can communicate through your hands and body. Even sharing in happiness or sadness can be one way to interact, because those are things you feel in your heart and think about in your head. If you take on a challenge together, you’ll definitely make an emotional bond. You can find the similarities and differences between yourself and the other person, which can lead to you understanding each other. I think that the key to mutual understanding is heart-to-heart interaction. By having such interactions, you can stop being afraid, let down your guard, and start to have fun.
Lately the number of foreigners in Yamanashi Prefecture has been increasing. For me, this means that the number of chances to interact with them is increasing as well. I’d like to have fun and grow close with them, forming a trusting relationship that has nothing to do with nationality or if their lives differ from mine.
International understanding is not something you do alone; it is something that the whole world has to do together. I would like to see people all over the world form friendly relations, cooperating to make a safe, peaceful, and equitable world.
Every single human being has different likes and dislikes, and I think it’s hard enough for “beings” of the same nationality to get along well. But if you all try to work together to accomplish something, play, talk, and basically just live together, then you will naturally start to understand more about each other.
I’m sure that people from other countries take pride in their nations just like Japanese take pride in Japan. So in the same way, I’d like to value every single person—their standpoints and ideas—just the same way I value my own.
I used to try my best to hide from others the things that I knew I wasn’t able to do. But writing this essay, I realized that people all have different individual qualities—and that I don’t have to hide who I am. So from now on, I want to live honestly—to others, and to myself.