The Visit to Graphic Novel Cafe.

I have the habit of sitting in some classes that I am not enrolled in, purely out of interest (and also with consent from the lecturer of course). While sitting in Elena's East Meets West class, I heard her talk about Graphic Novel Cafe, a Japanese manga (comic) shop that has recently opened in Shortland Street.

Bingo, it sounded like a potential place I could keep in touch with for the event.

I went about emailing them, and this was during the start of the semester, but to my avail, there was no reply.

I went a step further and called to talk to the person, anticipating a heavy and unfamiliar accent from the other side of the phone.

And I got it alright. I asked the guy politely whether he received my prior email, of which he said yes, but he didn't know what it was about so he didn't reply.

Aaaah, language barriers, don't you just love 'em.

I proceeded to pitch our event to him, and he showed a shrewd of interest because I gave him a vague offer of 'publicity' should he pitch into our event.

The conversation ended pleasant enough, but not without a touch of embarrassment.

While I was trying to get his name, he told me something that sounded like 'Feong'. 

Odd, I thought to myself. Being fairly familiar with Japanese culture myself, I was expecting something along the lines of Hamasaki, Suzuki or Hikaru, or something Japanese. But 'Feong' was no where near my mental image of a Japanese surname.

I was momentarily distracted; and an awkward 5 second pause later, we ended the phone call.

Fast forward 2 weeks later, I paid Feong's cafe a visit with Scott and Elena to pitch the event. I saw true professionals in action - Scott was fantastic in dealing with people - his demeanor, tone, posture and everything just sent me admiring in awe. I have got to learn a thing or two from this guy, I thought to myself, furiously taking down notes in my head on everything about Scott that was worth learning. 

Elena, on the other hand, was very warm and less business-like towards the cafe owner, albeit after a hilarious episode where Elena spoke to him in Japanese only to have him uncomfortably raising his hands and saying "I'm Korean, I'm Korean." Assumptions! Everybody makes them, don't they? I guess it's a built-in mechanism  in humans - you can be wary of it, but you can never avoid it.

Embarrassment bit me in the bum again as I come to realise that he is not Feong, but Seong. To save myself some face (sorry it's a Chinese thing), I promptly adapted to his "name change" and addressed him with his "new" name. It's no wonder his name didn't register in my head as "Japanese", it was downright Korean, I should have known better, having consumed so much Korean media as a Malaysian.

In short, he is a Korean! Running a Japanese business! In a foreign country!

Wonderful combination, but absurd in a way. Scott and Elena were genuinely interested in knowing more about the person, and he was kind enough to oblige by telling us about his rationale behind opening the Graphic Novel Cafe. The irony about his business is it attracts people from all walks of life, except the Japanese.

... Wait a minute, it's a business based on Japanese cultural products, why aren't there any Japanese customers then? Seong's best guess was that manga comics are deemed too "low-class" for the probably upper class Japanese in New Zealand. But it didn't matter - they weren't his priority target market anyways. From the way he put it, the Kiwi and Asian Kiwi markets are good enough to sustain his business.

But on the other hand, Elena also gave a more plausible explanation to both of us after we left the cafe - because of complex Korean and Japanese relationships in the past, no Japanese person would want to be caught dead in a Korean-owned cafe. National pride is the only word I could think of to describe this peculiar scenario.

That illustrates how cultures run so deep in every facet of human life - it's simply unavoidable, and that's why Cool New Asia was setup in the first place - to gain an understanding about all these complex relationships underpinning our very existence, that most of us so easily disregard.

Personally, I have never disregarded the impact of culture in human life - but I do notice how some cultures so easily write-off other cultures - they expect you to be the same as them. But the thing is, we are simply not.

The very fact that I'm a Malaysian student in New Zealand has time and again never failed to demonstrate this fact to me, a fact that I would have to live with and deal with, all part of my internship experience I guess.

Just as a side note, I am so ever grateful for my dad. Without him, I would never dare to dream about studying abroad...