Culture, meet shock

So the general perception about Japanese education in America is that the students go through murderous curriculum and therefore are somehow better than us at some stuff, but at the same time, the pressure is so great that...well, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

My new roommate (my roommate from JCMU went to a homestay) is from Notogawa (very close). She looked at my friend Lynsey's test score of 79 and said, "That's really good!"

My friend Lauren's teacher later told her that her score of a 70-something was also "really good" because the class average was a 78. Both of these things were said in the same tone of voice you hear most people describe 80-to-90 scores.

Lauren, Lynsey and I come from the "anything-below-85-is-a-failing-grade" school of thought, and completely freaked out my roommate Akiyo when we told her that a 70-range score is, in fact, "really, really bad". I mean, I know the curriculum is different, but if you've been prepared for that kind of thing, you should be able to make in the higher range of scores, ne? If that's the kind of curriculum you've been raised with, it makes sense that you should be able to learn it well enough to score in the higher range of tests.

I don't know how Japanese GPAs work, but apparently the parents run on the same system of belief (at least Akiyo's do).

Yeah. It's different here.