英米　２年
I enjoyed the presentation so much. The only problem was the fact that it had to end. I have always taken a book as a refuge and the authors, who are complete strangers, as friends I wish I had. By listening to you, I got a new perspective on how to empathize with people in real life too. I think that everybody has a story to tell and if I try to “read” and understand them, we can easily empathize with others an easily as I do with books.

英米　４年
I've lived in America for 9 years, and I've noticed through experience how having a different cultural perspective may at times build a social barrier between others and myself. Before anything, I was seen as “an Asian”. Everyone assumed I couldn't speak a word of English. I was annoyed at first, but after I took that into perspective, I was able to make a connection with those who assumed I couldn't communicate altogether. I made an effort to not only empathize, but to show others that I can relate to them even if I came from a different social background.

フランス　１年
Thank you for your presentation, I think it was really interesting, because I'm interested in psychology and how to use it to understand other cultures (since my major is International Business, this is really important). I kind of relate to the whole point of being empathetic with something and not that much with others, especially when it comes to novels, there are many situations that I've not experienced (and some others that I definitely don't want to) that allows me to be in someone else's shoes, which has allowed me to be able to speak with people who have different ideas from mine. This part also helped me when I first arrived in Japan, I've read a couple books from Japanese authors like Haruki Murakami and Junichiro Tanizaki, and even though the stories are from different times they've helped me to understand Japanese society and their perspective on some topics. Lastly, I'd like to ask before you came to Japan, which books did you read to understand a little bit more the country and their people?

フランス　２年
Thank you for giving us a nice talking today. I think that having empathy is really interesting by many points. However, I have one thing that I disagree with about your opinions, which is that you said autistic people cannot guess how people think and feel. Actually it depends on the person with autism. That is because I have my little sister and she has autism. But she can guess how people feel and think. I know that not all people are included and do not like my sister. But I think that she tried to do that and practiced a lot. That's why she could now. So, I want to say that people can have the empathy perspective even though they are autistic.

ドイツ　２年
At first, thank you for your presentation. It was a really interesting topic and it makes me think a lot. David Ostman said that, “Body language could help us to understand other's feelings, but be careful that sometimes it is different from culture to culture.” It is exactly right. Before human beings can travel around the world now, our ability to empathize was very helpful. I heard that it is only human could imagine how others feel or think. However, now that we have become a multiple society, we have to realize that this ability backfired. So, I think it is important to talk more to understand others especially foreigners.

国際関係　４年
I really liked this phrase “reading stories help us meet people who are different”. When I was s child, I spent my elementary school days in the USA, where at first I couldn't speak English at all. I had no friends but I was sent to local school every day Monday to Friday. There I found interesting to read English children's books like A to Z Mystery Books and The Magic Tree House series. From the books, even though it was a fantasy, I learned how American children think and talk, and things like that. The experience of reading helped my school days a lot, because from the point I started reading I made new friends and learned the language! Now in university, I am learning the Indonesian Language. I took lessons from an Indonesian teacher. She gave me a book called “Orang Orang Biasa” meaning “ordinary people.” I haven't had the time to read it yet, but I can't wait to start reading it to meet the “new people”. My teacher said the book is about Indonesian ordinary people and their daily lives.

留学生
I read a lot these days, but only started some years ago. I immediately felt that reading gives me much more valuable insights into other people's situations and perceptions than for example a movie does. Still though, I often feel a disconnect between me and the story. I just read the diary of Anne Frank, full of tragic, wholesome and relatable situations. I could follow her descriptions and envision them, but would rarely really feel a corresponding emotion. I have the same “problem” with family and friends. I can follow their descriptions of their situation and can logically take their respective, but it rarely affects my own emotions and sometimes and this prohibits me of realizing the full scope of their emotion. I wonder if it would be different if I read more as a child and by that would have more practice in empathy or if it is just how my character works.

留学生
Empathy is quite a fascinating topic, and while I don't tend to give it this much consideration in my everyday life, if I think about it, it has influenced me more than I would suspect. I would say that the most life-changing experience was reading Rick Rmozdan's books, thanks to which I eventually came to understand that LGBT people are not “weird” or “abnormal” like we are often led to believe. I'm still really happy that I was able to realize that and to understand these people way better through the books. There's something probably quite similar to empathy that I do think lots about and appreciate a lot in stores though-the ability to make characters relatable. It's a feat difficult to accomplish, but once you do that, the story becomes something else entirely. In my sense the wizard who demonstrated it to me the author of the manga called ‘Haikyu!!'. I used to hate/ dislike many things featured there: volleyball, loud characters acting childish (and one just had to be the protagonist), but thanks to the author taking their sweet time setting things up and carefully writing all those characters I not only grew to love them, but also empathize with their concerns and passions all the way until I shared the latter. Honestly, it feels like magic to me. Apart from Haikyuu though, I won't that much of good experience trying to empathize with certain people. We constantly try it in my family, at least I think/hope so, and while sometimes it helps, most time it doesn't quite work out. I mean you can at least somehow relate to/ understand that person, you can't quite communicate properly Common interests work wonders for these situations, by the way - I have an autistic friend but us both loosing our minds over that volleyball manga somehow brings us to author level of natural understanding, and not just in relation to fiction. Being able to empathize, one way or another, might just help humanity survive for a bit longer, so I think we should all try and get better at that.

留学生
Today's lecture is about how others help us empathize. I struggle with this topic because of how I see everyone act an around the world. There are times you can see somebody act empathetically toward others within their group, but even when someone shows almost all the same values, sometimes the same person will have no empathy due to a single difference that one individual has assigned a high personal value. This leads to all sorts of problems but can be easily avoided. So again, I can relate to today's lecture due to enjoying reading fictional stories from other countries. This is my hobby. But I don't know if I can understand the same sense of values to these actions especially when others who do the same thing can something be the least empathic people you meet. The action of writing these stories is far more valuable to me, compared to those who only read them.

留学生
Reading a book is s not just about running own eyes out the letters and taking them in exactly as they are written. It takes time and thought. We must step back and take a good look at the panorama. Still it seems to me it is easier for us to do so when it comes to fiction (or what looks like fiction). When we are faced with daily life issues, it feels like own survival brain activates and we act on impulse. We are, most of our lives, struck with the values that we were raised with and it is extremely challenging to detach from them. The world we currently live in is at the same more opened to learning empathy and yet, so drenched with traditional-thought. Ac cliche as it may sound, there's still a long way to go, but we might be on the right path.