...cultural exchange killed a part of my soul

Back when I was studying in Japan, our school had this thing called 'cultural exchange'. The point was to bring Japanese students and foreign exchange students together during lunch (which lasted for like an hour) and have this little 20 minute talk where Japanese students could ask questions about our respective countries, cultures and anything else and also practice their English. In return the foreign exchange students had the opportunity to make new friends. In theory it was a great way to bring people together, increase their awareness of other cultures and help foreign students find their place in the school. In practice it was a horrendous train-wreck of awkwardness and cringe.
Oh sure, not all of the sessions were like that. I did have like two meetings with Japanese students that were kind of okay... But most of the time I felt like a part of my soul was dying when I was talking to these people. Not that they were bad people - the whole situation was just so. incredibly. uncomfortable...
Here's the thing: we, the foreign exchange students, didn't have a choice. We had to do it. The school demanded it of us. Our names and countries of origin were put on a schedule and Japanese students could come along and sign themselves up to talk to us. Oh sure, you could just not show up but it was kind of... frowned upon, I guess. And since I hate people frowning on me, I had to go. Every. single. time. Oh, how I regretted it.
The main problem I had was the language barrier. The sessions were supposed to be held in English but a lot of the Japanese students participating were really struggling. They were either too shy to try to speak in English or they really didn't understand anything and my Japanese wasn't nearly good enough to be able to bond with them or find common ground. This resulted in a lot of awkward silences and the Japanese students fidgeting around while looking confused and trying to remember some random English words. Here's what a generic conversation went like:
Me: 'So... what are your hobbies?'
Student: 'Uh... huh? What...? 何...? Uh... '
Me: 'Your hobby? Do you have any?'
Student: 'Any? Uhhh... What... any mean?'
Me: 'しゅみは何ですか?'
Student: 'Ah! Oh! Right! You have hobby?'
Me: 'What? I was asking you- Oh, whatever. Nevermind.'
Then there was this one time when I was having a really awkward conversation with a Japanese guy who kept nodding at every word. His English was actually pretty okay but he kept leaning closer and closer as if he had trouble hearing me and I was leaning further away because I was getting creeped out... and I also had pretty bad coffee breath. Then there was the usual question almost every single student kept asking me:
'Do you have a boyfriend?'
'No, I'm single.'
'How old are you?'
'Twenty-three.'
'Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! And no boyfriend?!'
I'm not even joking here. That was their reaction. Apparently in Japan being single at twenty-three is as good as being born without fingerprints: you hear that people like that exist but you've never actually seen one.
The worst session, however, happened during second semester. I was supposed to be the one in the exchange but since we already knew how awkward it could get, Mary decided to join me. She didn't have anything else to do and I guess we were hoping it would be more fun this way. We were wrong. So, so wrong. Two seconds in we realized that the two girls who signed up for the exchange basically didn't speak any English... but they still wanted to try. What followed was the most awkward and excruciatingly slow conversation I've ever had in Japanese.
First we tried talking about their majors. They seemed extremely confused when we asked them anything in English so we tried mixing in some Japanese to make things go smoother. This... kind of worked... maybe...? After some awkward silences and us trying to rephrase the question in a simpler way we found out that the girls were English majors. Well... That was... interesting. I had the urge to tell them that they would probably do better in any other field but... it would have been too mean - and they probably wouldn't have understood me anyway. So, we still had fifteen minutes to go and - as always - we decided to bring up the subject of hobbies (because it was a tad more interesting than talking about the weather).
'So, what are your hobbies?'
The girls exchanged a confused glance and whispered to eachother in Japanese, trying to figure out what we had just asked them. We repeated the question in Japanese.
'Ah! Hobby!' one of the girls went triumphantly, 'My hobby is shopping!'
'Uh... okay...? Shopping. Great. And yours?' I turned to the other girl.
'Ah... umm... my hobby is eating.'
Eating? Really? Like... what people do to survive? She does it as a hobby? I blinked a few times and tried to think of something to say to that. Something that wouldn't be super sarcastic.
'Um... Do you mean you like cooking and trying different things?' asked Mary, trying to be helpful.
'No. Eating.'
Ah. Wonderful. Her hobby was eating. Breathing too, probably, but I guess she was nervous and forgot to mention it. During my time in Japan I got to ask the hobby-question many times from many different people and honestly, some of the answers they gave were just depressing. Especially the girls. Sure, there were some that had genuinely interesting hobbies and did something fun or exciting but in many cases their hobbies were 'shopping', 'magazines' (no idea, what they meant by that - guess they just really liked reading magazines... but not books!), 'TV', 'make-up' and 'clothes' (not designing clothes or anything like that - they just liked to buy clothes and make themselves look pretty).
I'm not sure many of these girls understood what a 'hobby' really is. Sure, it is defined as an activity you do for the sake of enjoyment and I'm sure many people enjoy eating but... It shouldn't be something that keeps you alive. Just like sleeping isn't really a hobby. Or bathing. Or peeing. Those are just things people do because they're either detrimental for our survival or just necessary to function in society. I think I can safely say that I didn't really get much out of the whole cultural exchange thing. Most of the time I got looks of disbelief when I told people I was single or confused looks when I told them I was from Estonia. Nobody ever knew where Estonia was. But that's a whole other story that I'm not gonna rant about today.