I was asked to do a guest article for SandBook: Penpals and Swappers, an online magazine devoted to penpals. Their website has not only the magazine, but also a “Penpal of the Month” contest, information on traveling notebooks, information on cultural events, penpal adds, etc. As a big advocate of penpals and further cultural learning, how could I refuse?
So, I am now published in SandBook, issue 9. You can see the full magazine here.
Or, if you don’t feel like searching of my article on pages 12-13, you can read it below:
Pen Pals: How You Talk
By: Rachel Brazeale
I have had several successful pen pals to this day, including Manami from Japan, Josefine from Germany, Gabrielė from Lithuania, and Gabriella from Sweden. As an American girl who has never been to Europe or Asia, getting to know these four girls was a big learning experience for me. I have learned about different cultures, different parts of the world, history, and four amazing young women. But I have also learned something about penpals in general – the method of communication matters.
My first pen pal was Manami. We got each other’s name and address through the Japan Penpal Association. I was twelve years old, and she was fifteen. We wrote letters to each other, by hand. Sometimes we sent each other pictures, or little, light-weight gifts.
I am sixteen now. Manami is twenty. I am applying to colleges and she is currently in law school. I keep twelve of the letters she has sent me over the years on a box. But the letters have stopped coming.
But we are still in contact. Our medium of communication had switched to Skype, only for us to realize that she goes to bed when I wake up. Instant chat was not very easy to maintain, so we went to e-mails. I do miss the feel of paper in my hands and the excitement of getting a letter in the mail, but e-mailing had an allure to it I couldn’t deny; I didn’t have to pay for postage. For a broke teenager and a college student, a free method of communication is always better than paying for stamps and envelopes. Also, the letters used to take days to arrive, and if you forgot to reply immediately, the other had to wait even longer to hear from you. E-mail, on the other hand, is instant and your penpal gets the letter as soon as you write it.
This method worked nicely with Josefine “Fini” as well. We got each other’s e-mails in a similar way that I got Manami’s address, and we started e-mailing last year and have continued to do so at a continuous rate. It was a good method for us and we were well matched penpals with common interests. Our e-mails got longer and longer over the months. We talk more than Manami and I talk, probably because Manami is very busy with school and Josefine and I are closer in age, so we have more similar things to talk about.
One would think this pattern would continue, and that e-mail would be the communication method of choice. But that’s where one would be wrong. E-mails did not work well with Gabrielė. We were slow to write each other and the e-mails were pretty short. When we moved to Skype, the conversations lasted longer and we talked more. She probably just didn’t check her e-mails are regularly as Josefine, or maybe the e-mails felt too formal for her. Either way, instant messaging worked much better.
Instant message also worked better for Gabriella, though through a different medium. She preferred Facebook. We talk the least out of the four, mostly because it’s hard to catch each other on Facebook. With Skype, a little message pops up in the corner of the computer screen to tell you your friends are on their computers. Facebook is a little harder to catch someone on, but it is easier to follow your friends on it. I can see her pictures and check up on how she’s doing (if I break out the Swedish-English dictionary) even if she’s not online.
In the end, the method of communication that works best will depend on how old you are and the penpals themselves. Some people prefer different methods of communication than others and you just need to figure out which works best for both of you. The most important thing is to like each other and get along. If you are both open minded and eager to learn from each other and enjoy each other’s conversation, then I am sure you both can find a good medium with which to converse.
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