People Taking Pictures

So I'm in a fairly small town in Japan. You could walk across the town in less than an hour and everyone knows the head of my study abroad program (like seriously I've run into people everywhere from the grocery store to the street in front of the main house to some random rural road that ask me if I know him). There is something like 11 foreigners in this whole town, nine of them students from my program. It isn't uncommon to get stared at or get pictures taken of us.

It happens a lot with our students from the English lessons. After lessons they will take pictures with either everyone or their favorite instructor. Three of the boys have fanclubs so lots of girls like to take pictures with them. When we ran into some of the kids outside of class they wanted to take pictures then too. At the Nagaoka Edamame Festival some random lady wanted a picture with some of the kids from the foreign teams. When we went to go visit a high school a class of kids who wasn't going to work with us came in just so they could take pictures with us. We ran into some of them at the festival too and took pictures with them then as well.

Then there is cameramen. During our visits to the city office and to an elementary school we had a cameraman following us around. We have been in the newspaper once or twice already. At the edamame eating contest the cameramen were all over us. Last night at the festival a cameraman saw me and Lion boy standing there watching the dancing then had us pose for a picture.

It's definitely odd to have this much attention. I'm just a normal American college student. The only day a newspaper person ever came to a place I was I had a fever and couldn't attend. I met the mayor of the city of Ojiya and I've never even met the mayor of my own tiny town. It's rare to even take pictures with my friends.

My guess is that foreigners are just so rare that people want to take pictures with us and show that we are enjoying "real Japan." Most foreigners are in very touristy areas but we're here walking around small town festivals. The younger generations in Japan are very picture and selfie oriented so taking pictures with fun crazy foreigners that cheer loudly, yell good morning at all times of the day, and do whatever weird stuff we do is fun for them. Older generations are happy we are enjoying Japanese culture and not just wandering around the crowded streets and bright lights of Tokyo.