Languages and Foods in Japan (This is a body of the e-mail to a penpal of mine who is from Malaysia and currently studying in the UK's university) Hi, Thank you very much for your reply! :) Don't worry about writing back. I don't care whether your reply is early or late because I know you are busy with your study, so please write anytime when you can :) As for UK, I know a little about their culture because I majored in British literature, but not as much as you, I guess:D Although I haven't had the definite plan yet, I'd love to visit there some day XD Wow, thank you so much for the detail of languages in Malaysia! That is very interesting, Malaysia's language teaching system sounds advanced and completely different from ours. Japan is a country that has only one race. We learn English in schools too as a compulsory subject, but once we leave schools, we have no chance of using it, because everyone speaks only in Japanese outside. So most people forget English at the same time that they graduate the schools. Thus we are very famous as one of the worst English speakers in the world XD And thank you very much for having interest in my country :) Yes, sushi is one of the representative foods of ours, but actually, is not been eaten quite often, as you say. The main reason is that it is a bit too expensive to eat everyday. When it comes to sushi, we need to prepare the fish used for raw consumption, it is required more freshness than the normal fish which is to be cooked as broiled or boiled. So the fish used for raw consumption tend to be costly compared to normal one. Therefore, for many Japanese people, sushi is a special food, which mainly eaten during celebration times, for example, someone's birthday or at the time when their family relatives are gathering. The most popular food of ours is...Umm that is very difficult question, because we have many kinds of Japanese foods, I can't choose one, but I can say rice and miso soup are definitely included when we eat Japanese style meals. In addition to them, we usually have two or three plates, for instance nikujyaga, broiled fish, vinegared dish, tempura, Japanese omelet or something. How about you? In malaysia, what kinds of foods do you usually have? And in UK, can you eat them? Or do you usually have British foods when you are in the UK? Take care!