Riddle Me This
So I'm a bit confused at the moment, which shouldn't surprise most but...anyway.
I have a friend who is attending the same university I did while on exchange to Japan, I've explained a few things, like how the apartments are set up and what to expect weather wise upon arrival, and today I found a picture of the subway map and circled some stops of interest (importance) I told another friend who I went on exchange with and the reply I got was somewhat surprising. I was told that I shouldn't have done any of that, that my friend needs to figure that crap out by himself and that's part of the experience of going on exchange in the first place. The tone was very condescending and I felt as though I dunno I'd beaten a puppy or something. So my question is this, why do people feel that part of the whole experience of going on exchange is the utter sense of confusion and hopelessness that you have when you first arrive to a new country, where you don't understand the language terribly well and everything is flipped on it's head? When did we decide this was a good idea? I would have loved for someone to explain to me how the subway worked, or that the strange thing in the kitchen was indeed the hot water heater. Yes, part of exchange is learning how to function in a foreign country and learn a language etc etc etc. But I mean, how can you profit from all the culture and language around you when your spending hours trying to figure out how your air conditioner works? Maybe there are some people who like the whole idea of being thrown into something totally unknown but I certainly wasn't one of those people and I'm sure my buddy who will be getting on a plane in less than 3 weeks to go to Japan isn't one of those people either.
Frankly, I am tired of feeling like the things I do to try to help people are bad. I'm tired of having people ask me questions which I am more than happy to answer and then being told "They have to figure it out by themselves" and looked down upon because I babied them.