ブラジル知っていますか？

Besides the always present backlog, the tests (it's midterm exams time now) and Japanese study (thing that I've been neglecting for longer than I should...), last week I was busy with something else: preparing a presentation about Brazil.

We were asked to do it by a person of the International Communications Center in Himeji (ok... sounds too important... a lady who works at the Egret building ^^;) because of the NHK drama "Haru to Natsu" （春と夏） that was broadcasted some months ago and had the Japanese emigration to Brazil as background. I think I mentioned that drama in this blog already...

Anyway, so we were supposed to talk about the emigration (immigration from Brazil's point of view) and add some stories from our families if possible, since we're Japanese descents (nikkeis). The funny part was finding out how much I didn't know about it. Even about my family's story... Nothing that some e-mails asking for information and some books and Internet ressearch couldn't solve.

The second problem: putting the data together and building a presentation... in Japanese. I must admit that it's not the impossible thing that once was, but it took much more time than I thought it'd take. And even more to correct it (special thanks to my Japanese teacher).

The third and the reason why this week was a total chaos was something that I thouhgt I'd got rid of years ago: leaving things to be done later... That's a dangerous habit I noticed that had returned in Japan. I must eliminate it ASAP!

Laziness apart, we manage to finish the thing in time. On the presentation day, I still hadn't everything as I'd like to. Most things about my family were still in the "draft" phase and somethings would have to be said by heart. Even so, things went smoother than I thought.

One thing I don't like much is preparing a presentation without knowing the kind of people you'll talk to. So I just tried something formal... And fortunately this is Kansai, so I could relax a little in the moment of truth.

About the people there. More than I had expected (considering that I couldn't invite anyone. The Japanese friends that I'd really like to invite had club activities/part time job/were unavailable at the time by other reasons. Mostly people from the International Center and people who study Portuguese/have been in Brazil (one man had a good Portuguese... I dare say it was better than my Japanese). One person was one of my igo teachers. I should say that they were very considerate with us and our broken Japanese.

So it started with the International Center person making a brief presentation about Brazil, followed by Silvia's explanation about our hometown (don't ask me...), some of our families' stories and I talking about the emigration. After that, a break to eat some "pao de queijo" (the Egret person found a book in Japanese teaching how to make it...) and some kind of game where we try to teach some Portuguese words... We spoke the words associating them with it's Japanese meaning which were written around a poster with a Christmas tree printed (don't ask me...)

As I said before, I think they were considerate enough, so everything ended well. And that event was quite useful for me to notice how my Japanese has improved. Before coming to Japan, I wouldn't even think about doing a presentation in Japanese. Now, although I still nedd lots of time and someone to correct things, I know it's possible. And I was even relatively successfull in saying some family stories from short memos... in Portuguese. Besides, that theme isn't a simple thing to talk about in English or even Portuguese either...