I've been studying English conversation on NativeCamp for two months.
One NativeCamp student said on social media, “Male learners tend to choose young female teachers. It's okay, but be careful! You might end up copying the way women speak English.”
I laughed out loud when I saw it.
For English learners, motivation is important. I agree that talking with an attractive person of the opposite sex can be a good way to stay motivated.
Fun fact: my former English teacher was a hot native English speaker. He was Italian. Why did I choose him? Of course, I saw his profile photos, and he looked really good in them. However, he wasn't as good-looking in person as he was in his photos. His photos were a little misleading!
In the end, I ended up taking his lessons for two years because he was a great teacher, even if he wasn't as good-looking as I'd expected.
Now, I prefer taking lessons with Black women who are native English speakers. Their pronunciation is clear and beautiful. I'd like to become an engaging speaker like them.
Finally, I read Haruki Murakami's latest book, titled Kaho.
I don't want to spoil the story here, but I enjoyed it.
The main character was a woman. Personally, I've loved many of the female characters Haruki has created. In most cases, they had some kind of trauma. They were naive and somehow attractive.
However, the main character, Kaho, wasn't a typical Haruki Murakami heroine. She wasn't the bold type, and she wasn't very confident. She was more like an ordinary person.
At first, I was a little confused about why Haruki chose her as the main character. Strangely enough, though, I felt some sympathy for her, and that made it easier for me to get absorbed in the story as an ordinary reader.
This book didn't leave as strong an impression on me as some of his other novels, such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But I loved this book, and I appreciate that he is still writing new novels even though he is in his seventies.
My husband's friend is also an expat in ※Nepal. He has been there without his family for three years. Finally, he is going back to Japan next year.
He said, "I decided to go back to Japan. Honestly, I'm fed up with cooking just for myself."
If my husband said something like that, I'd be pretty upset.
In typical Japanese families, wives often prepare meals for their husbands and children. In most cases, wives probably find it annoying to prepare every meal too, except for women who absolutely love cooking.
He has only been making dinner for himself for three years. It's not a big deal. Wives have their own jobs too, but they are often expected to do most of the cooking.
Even though people are paying more attention to gender equality these days, men and women still don't always share the responsibility for housework equally. In reality, many wives are still expected to think about what to cook three times a day. Is that really fair?
（※For privacy reasons, I’ve changed the country where he is stationed.）
