Everett Anderson

I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Computer Science, having taken two years of Japanese using the "Japanese: The Spoken Language" curriculum. I had wanted to take a year off to travel and improve my Japanese, so I applied for admission to the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies. It's a small program run by Stanford that usually only has about 35-50 students per year, all from major U.S. universities.

Though I had never had many real conversations in Japanese before I left, I found I was able to communicate effectively from the moment I was out of Customs. I chatted with the shuttle bus driver to Kyoto, hotel porters, and restaurant staff. Usually I could convey my meaning, but it was often hard to understand the responses because of the vocabulary. By the second semester, everyone's language skills improve dramatically, but you have to work for it.

The students were smart and friendly, the teachers were wonderful and incredibly resourceful, and Kyoto is a great city for studying Japan. KCJS has language classes two hours a day in the morning, divided into sections based on proficiency exams taken the first week. The afternoons are filled with other classes (students normally take two) ranging from the arts to politics. The workload is fairly heavy (only slightly less than at my university back home), but you can make of it what you want to. The work seems more intense because students spend so much time exploring Kyoto, making friends with Japanese students, and visiting with their host families. The classes are really wonderful, though the language classes tend to stress reading and writing. The other classes were rich and thought-provoking, with considerable outside reading and a few research papers. In the second semester, several courses were offered in Japanese.

It can be difficult to get involved with the Japanese students. The campuses seem far away--around 30 minutes to get to Ritsumeikan, for instance. If you have a bike, Kyoto University is about 10 minutes away, but the weather sometimes plays a factor. The Center can help give you contacts to various student groups, but it's challenging to really integrate into them since they're very intense and time-consuming while you still have a lot of other work to do. Still, the more time you put in, the more rewarding they are. It's easy to study all the time, but some of the best experiences I had were hanging out with Japanese students or talking with my host family. Get out and work at it--meet people, talk, take all the purikura you can, do things together. I spent countless nights talking with my host family about Japan, the United States, politics, relationships, food--everything. I'm still in contact with them, and value the home stay experience highly. I made some of the best friends of my life in Japan.

Remember to keep your generalizations in check. All the foreigners (and many Japanese) around you will constantly throw out stories of their experiences, concluding, "I guess, in Japan, people..."--but you shouldn't necessarily take it as given for everyone. Just because one of your friends stays with a very traditional host family who acts or thinks a certain way, that may not reflect the general population. You will come to a richer understanding of Japan by absorbing everything without trying to make a rulebook for Japan out of every single experience.

There is always a period through which you long for things from back home, and are frankly tired of all the cultural differences and difficulties you face every day. You will get over this so don't be discouraged. Make time to get out and enjoy your friends and everything you can find--a year in Japan is an amazing adventure and a wonderful opportunity!

Andrew Schroeder is a Physics major at Colorado College with a minor in Asian Studies. He spent the first semester of his junior year at Kansai Gaidai University. His essay is reprinted, with permission, from The ASIANetwork Exchange.

My initial experience studying a foreign language came in seventh grade when I enrolled in Spanish. Four frustrating years later as I struggled to make C's in second- year Spanish, I began to believe that foreign languages were not meant for me. So, in a bizarre display of high school counselor "logic," I left the somewhat familiar Latin-based Spanish language with a joyous "Adios" and headed for the completely foreign Japanese language. Suddenly, my foreign language grades improved dramatically. Hiragana and katakana did not come easily, and the grammar patterns presented more difficulties, but I grew increasingly comfortable the more time I spent struggling with the language.

Japanese was fun. So much so, in fact, that I have continued to study it at Colorado College and was accepted for the semester at Kansai Gaidai in the Kyoto/Osaka area. I chose Kansai Gaidai for several reasons. It offers a semester program, and homestays are the encouraged form of lodging. In addition to the language instruction, Kansai Gaidai offers a wide variety of courses.

Language instruction is divided into separate classes for spoken and written Japanese so students with varying levels of kanji and speaking skills can be placed more appropriately. Non-language courses are taught in English and are composed mainly, but not exclusively, of exchange students. From the selection of cultural and business/economics courses, I chose classes in Zen Buddhism, modern Japanese literature in translation, and a studio art course in Japanese brush painting. Several of my fellow students found the business/economics course to be interesting.

About a month into my fourteen-week stay in Japan, I had a revelation similar to (although to a greater degree) my experience as a high school sophomore Spanish student. I realized that simply being in Japan did not necessarily mean my Japanese was going to improve by leaps and bounds. I had a subconscious belief that a special ingredient in Japanese water enables all who drink it to conjugate verbs at conversational speeds. I naively expected to soak up the language without a great deal of effort. Failing Spanish vocabulary quizzes was nothing compared to my inability to order pizza toppings in Osaka. I realized I was not making the effort to learn and practice conversational skills.

At Kansai Gaidai, a university whose Japanese students are primarily English majors, the Japanese students' English was far better than my Japanese. So I was tempted to speak to everyone else in English and to forget that I was in Japan to improve my Japanese. I was afraid of making mistakes in Japanese. But I came to realize that if I waited until I could say everything perfectly or if I continued to hope that I would simply absorb the language, I would never be able to speak. Then I began to speak Japanese as much as possible.

The greatest single help in improving my language was my host family. My transcript from Kansai Gaidai lists Professors Naitoh and Komaki as my Japanese language instructors, but it would be more accurate to give much credit to my homestay brothers. Going home to an environment in which English would get me nowhere, especially when dealing with my four-year-old and six-year-old brothers, meant I had to make the effort to struggle through my broken Japanese. The certainty that the younger boys were cheating me blind in the Japanese equivalent of "Go Fish" forced me to learn how to try to keep up with their attempts at covert dealings. (I suspect that when I left Japan, I skipped out on a 1500-yen gambling debt.)

Now that I am back in the States, I am often asked whether my trip allowed me to become fluent in Japanese. While I must answer "no," I also say that I am pleased with the Japanese I was able to learn and how much fun it was to learn it. Classroom instruction was indispensable to building vocabulary and learning grammar, but equally important were the informal conversations outside of class. There are still many conversational situations in which my Japanese is not up to speed. Placing a reservation for an airport shuttle bus, for example, proved to be over my head.

However, I can order pizza and be confident that the toppings will be what I want. (I miss the variety of toppings available in Japan.) Most importantly, using the meager Japanese language skills I now possess, botched conjugations and all, helped build friendships in Japan which will last a lifetime.

David Boyd, a "mature" student who returned to school for a second degree a number of years after earning his first one in economics, graduated from the University of Colorado in August 1997 with a major in Japanese and a minor in math. He spent his senior year at the University of Tsukuba, in Ibaraki Prefecture, on a University of Colorado exchange program.

From September 1, 1996, until August 1, 1997, I attended the University of Tsukuba as a foreign exchange student, and my experience there was probably the best of my life. Although I had been in Japan for several weeks a few years earlier, that was my first extended stay . Many of the university's other foreign students were also there for the first time, and most of them also found their time at Tsukuba highly rewarding and enjoyable.

This is not to say that everyone liked it or that everything about it was wonderful. Some students who had lived in Japan prior to their year at Tsukuba were disappointed. This was especially true of those who had spent time in Japan as high school students. High school exchange students generally live with Japanese families and receive a lot of help and attention from them. They also tend to be a novelty at school, and so again they are the center of attention, and can make contacts and friends among the Japanese students quite easily.

At Tsukuba the foreign exchange students live in the same dormitories as the Japanese students, and the dormitories are, by American standards, dilapidated, dirty, small, and strange. For example, the rooms are not furnished with dressers and do not have closets. There is a sink in each room, but there is no hot water; in fact there is no hot water anywhere in the dorms. Also, there are no bathing facilities in the dorms; everyone uses the dormitory community bath, and students pay 170 yen each time they use it. I must admit that it took me a while to get used to dorm living, but I actually enjoyed it once I got over the initial shock.

Although we lived in the dorms with the Japanese students, it was not easy to become friends with them. However, most of us made good friends among the other foreign students very quickly. I particularly liked this aspect of Tsukuba. I made friends from Senegal, Korea, France, China, and Australia, among other places. Through talking with them I learned a great deal about their countries and those parts of the world as well as how people from those places view Japan and the United States. This was a real education.

I did make several really good Japanese friends, but it took quite a lot of time and a great deal of patience. The Japanese students are very busy, not so much with classes and studying as with their club meetings and activities. Club membership is a real commitment; if a member misses a club meeting it can be a serious matter. As a result the Japanese students do not have a lot of time to develop new friendships, and it seems to me that the Japanese are more reserved in making friends than are American college students. Friendships develop more slowly, but if a friendship is made, it is not a casual or superficial one.

The upshot of all of this was that those who had previously found it easy to make friends expected the situation to be the same and ended up being disappointed when friends were difficult to make. At the beginning of our stay all of the foreign students had a lot of time when we were alone. Those of us who had no real expectatons about how easily we could get to know the Japanese students were much less likely to be frustrated and disappointed. Although it took longer to make friends, the friends I made will be friends for life.

Tsukuba is an unusual town. It is rather small but because it is located in the middle of a rural agricultural district, it can seem isolated and rather dull. However, Tokyo is only an hour and a half away by train or bus; and Tokyo of course is not small, rural, or dull.

The university offers a variety of classes for foreign students. In all honesty students were generally unimpressed with the quality of the Japanese language classes, but this seems to be a fairly universal reaction to language classes regardless of the university. Some students improved a great deal, but many thought the classes were a waste of time.

However, there are also classes taught in "easy" Japanese especially designed for foreign students and "returnee" students. Returnees are Japanese students who have received three years or more or their post-elementary education outside Japan. They have different admissions criteria from other students and are not expected to know Japanese as well as the regular students. These classes covered many interesting area including Japanese history, nature, politics, economics, and architecture. I took the architecture class and really enjoyed it despite--or perhaps because of--having to struggle to understand the lectures and reading. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment when I could understand what was going on. Students who took some of the other classes also liked them.

The students in the International Relations department take classes taught in English as part of their required curriculum. Foreign students also take these classes. I took quite a few of them in the aresas of international relations, economics, and political science. The professors in several of these classes were nationally or internationally recognized scholars and were excellent teachers. Others were not so good. Interestingly, the Japanese professors who taught in English tended to be better than the native English-speaking professors.

Finally, all regular classes taught at the university are open to foreign students. Those with superior languages skills can take those classes for credit, but students who would simply like to attend regular classes for the experience and exposure to language can audit them. I recommend taking at least some classes in which the regular students enroll. Those classes provide good opportunities to meet Japanese students with similar interests. They also give an inside look at a Japanese university and university education.

In concluding this overview of my experience at the Univeristy of Tsukuba, I want to emphasize the importance of keeping an open mind and attitude. Be prepared for everything to be different from the way things were in the U.S. Rather than comparing and complaining that things are not the way they were at home, try to accept and experience the way the Japanese do things. The last advice I will relate is something I was told by all of my professors before I left for Japan: you will learn more about Japan and the Japanese outside a classroom than you could ever learn inside one. You can sit in a classroom in the U.S. and learn the Japanese language, but you can't meet Japanese people and encounter Japanese society in America. Spend most of your time and energy doing the things that you can only do in Japan.

My name is Erin Nelson. I was an exchange student at Rikkyo University in Tokyo during my junior year at Washington and Lee University (Lexington, Virginia). I had a wonderful year at Rikkyo, and would like to encourage students to study abroad.

I had taken two years of Japanese at Washington and Lee and could speak basic Japanese before leaving for Japan. However, upon arrival in Japan, I discovered that my listening comprehension skills were quite limited. My host family often reverted to English during the first six weeks I was there. I became mentally exhausted every day just concentrating on listening. After two or three months, though, I noticed an improvement in my listening comprehension.

At school, I took approximately five Japanese classes and three regular classes each semester. The Japanese classes were very beneficial, although I often found myself frustrated when observing the superior kanji and vocabulary skills of Asian and European students.

The regular classes I took were great for exposing me to Japanese, but I understood very little of them. I panicked during the first week of classes since I had expected to actually understand the lectures. I was soon assigned a tutor who had lived in Australia and spoke fluent English. She was also in most of my classes, which was a great help. She and I are still friends; I just got an e-mail from her recently.

On the social front, I was part of a group called "Koryukai," which consisted of both foreign and Japanese students interested in international exchange. We had lunch together once a week and had various gatherings and parties (Christmas party, trip to the beach, etc.) It was a great social outlet, and I am still in touch with several of those friends.

I chose not to join one of the universityıs clubs at first because they were too intense for me. I was more interested in exploring Tokyo and experiencing Japanese life. But in April I joined the tea ceremony club at Rikkyo, which was not so strict about practices. We practiced twice a week -- once at school and once under the direction of our teacher at her home. Little did I know then that the tea ceremony would become an integral part of my life. I am presently applying to study tea full-time for a year in Japan.

I did take advantage of all my free time while at Rikkyo. I became a Tokyo expert of sorts -- always visiting new neighborhoods. I traveled in Kansai and Kyushu, and also spent four days in a Zen convent doing zazen.

My year at Rikkyo was probably the greatest of my life so far. I would highly recommend studying in Japan, and also doing a home stay. My homestay family was wonderful; I still meet up with them whenever Iım in Tokyo.