Module 8.3
You Can't Avoid Uchi

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Molly tries to give a personal gift to a neighbor of her host family, who was bombarding her family with gifts in order to get Molly to teach English to her son. Molly fails to realize that the neighbor's gifts had an element of bribery, so they didn't really need to be returned, and that the gifts (which included large radishes) were not made to her but to her family. This reciprocity centers on her family's uchi, rather than on Molly as an individual. When Molly's okaasan realizes she is going to give the neighbors a gift anyway, rather than ignoring the neighbor's "bribes", she hurriedly substitutes something from the household for Molly's "individual" gift.

Kaarina's experience is somewhat the opposite of Molly's. Her homestay family regards her home-baked Finnish biscuits and cinnamon buns so highly that they are anxious to give them to one of their close soto relationships. Here Kaarina's baking was actually being given from her family uchi, rather than from her as an individual. In a sense they were giving her baking, and asking her to take more to their friend, because they wanted to share these rare delicacies with a close friend. Kaarina totally misses the fact that her gift-giving was being calculated from the standpoint of her family's uchi, rather than her as an individual. And like the stories in Module 8.1, Kaarina has been "pulled into" uchi in juxtaposition to the soto friend her host family wanted to share her baking with.   

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