Map for English by Shoko

In the class on April, we were asked to draw the map of the world on a piece of paper. What I drew first was the picture of China then Korea, Japan, and etc… Although the task given by the instructor was very easy, I struggle to draw a complete map of the world and took me times until the instructor say stop. Looking at my map, I didn’t have any confident because my drawing was not really good since I had difficulty imagining the geography of the certain countries, especially the countries in Middle East and East　part of Europe.

              After we drew the map, we were asked to share the map to other classmates. I was quite embarrassed to show my map to other classmates because as I said, my map did not look complete. When I saw the map drawn by my friend next to me, I felt strange and wired because she drew the map differently than what I have drawn and moreover, I was really surprise to see a lot of people draw the map differently than me.

              From what I have seen so far, no one drew the map “exactly” same with other class mates. There was a map of Korea in the center and also I found a map that was hardly recognizable which continent he or she has drawn. The map that most surprised me was a map drawn upside down. First, I did not understand what she drew because I never seen this kind of map before. I did not recognize until a person said that is a map of the world drawn upside down.

              For what I have drawn for my map, I centered Japan like other official maps that are sold in Japan. Like me, most of other Japanese students did the same drawing Japan as the center of the map. To compare my map to other non-Japanese students, it was quite different. Most of the people put their mother country as the center of the world map, while few of them centered the United States. For those people who centered the United States were not from that country but they said that because they have life experience or learned American based education: is the reason why they drew the United States as the center of the map. This made me realize that each people have different image of map and draw the country that they think is the most valuable or have influence on. For example, I am born and raised in Japan so I have only seen a world map with Japan in the center of the globe. Because I grew up in this environment, which Japan being in the center, I never thought of a world map that looks like the map drawn by my classmates. Education in this case plays a huge role in people’s imagination. Like other foreign students, if I was born and raised in outside of Japan, I would probably did the same and it would be same even if I was a Japanese who got educated in another country.

            In conclusion, people have different ideas and perspectives and its mostly depends on the place where they were born and raised. People educated or raised surrounded by country’s atmosphere, will follow view -points of that country. At last, as a world map drawn in the class indicated, no one has exact same image or can create a same idea with others.

Shoko