This summer, I am going to study in Japan. I will be spending 2 months at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Japan, which is on the southern island Kyushu, in Oita prefecture. Beppu is near a volcano called Mt. Futago, and as a result has many hot springs, which is what it is famous for. The city has undergone an urban renewal project recently, of which the university is a result of. It focuses on international relations and business. The closest airport is in Oita, the capital of the prefecture, which is famous for a tempura-fried chicken, as well as being the only city where it is legal to serve puffer-fish intestines.
I have traveled internationally a lot before, because my father would travel a lot and take us with him. We would often travel to China, passing through Korea, Taiwan or Japan. As a result, I am very well traveled, and know the procedure of the airport fairly well. However, I don't feel like I know the process perfectly, though, and am very nervous about getting lost or losing my luggage. My flight requires me to transfer through Tokyo to Oita airport, then take a bus from Oita airport to the university. I only have about an hour and a half between my arrival in Tokyo and my flight to Oita, which is a bit less than what we normally plan. Hopefully the amount of traveling I have done will lessen the homesickness that's usually associated with studying abroad, but I haven't been away this long before. Navigating around the city shouldn't be too hard, since I know some of the language, and many people in Japan speak English.
During the two months I spend in Beppu, I will be spending most of my time attending classes and studying. I will be taking 12 Japanese classes a week, Monday through Friday, and I may be taking an English Language class depending on what is offered, and if I feel I can handle the workload. I will be taking the equivalent of at least Japanese 201, assuming I place into the correct class from the placement test. I hope to use these two months to get as close to fluent in conversational Japanese as I can, as well as become more independent. If I have a similar experience as I had during the STAR program at NAU, then I should be able to become more independent, just in time for my parents' 6 month trip to Malaysia. I am hoping to have many chances to practice. I will be going into town and shopping, since there are community kitchens, and since I have to pay for my own food. There is also a weekend farmstay with a more traditional family, who may not know English very well, if at all.
I decided to take Japanese because I am 3/4th Chinese, and 1/4th German. However, my parents speak two different dialects of Chinese, which do not share much between them. As a result, I never learned Chinese. I'm quite the nerd, so the foreign language I was drawn to was Japanese. I have been told that when you learn East-Asian languages, you should start with Japanese, then learn Chinese, then Korean, as Japanese is harder than Chinese, and Korean is supposedly the English. This works out great, should I decide to learn Chinese. I originally decided to study in Tokyo this coming school year for the whole year, but my parents were wary of dropping me into Tokyo with 2 semesters of Japanese, and offered to pay for me to go during the summer before going again for a year.
As well as having language goals, I have a few social goals. I am hoping to make some friends from other countries who I can practice Japanese (and English) with, past studying during the program. Making international and national friends will give me a strong base of practice partners and connections all around the world. As mentioned before I am hoping to become more independent from my parents.
I also have some personal goals over the next two months, which are fairly trivial compared to my language and social goals. My first goal is to get better at Starcraft II. The game is very popular in Korea, practically being the nation's national sport, but it is not nearly as popular in Japan, but it is a very intense, fast game requiring a strong and fast mind. Again, it is a fairly trivial goal, which will fall by the wayside if I get very busy with school and socializing. My second goal is to teach myself some Maya. Autodesk Maya is a 3D modeling program. I have some friends who are studying game design at CCC, and they have asked me to do graphics for them once they learn more. However, NAU isn't the best place to learn game graphics, so I have decided to teach myself. Finally I hope to lose weight. Japanese food is much healthier than the average American food, having much less salt, sugar and fat. Portions are also much smaller, and with a limited budget, buying snacks and extra food may not be the best decision.
The Japanese people are socially much more conservative than we are in America. Older values of the women staying at home, and holding your elders in very high respect are still strongly in place. Crazy styles are seen in the media, but they are most often from Akibahara and the other shopping districts in Tokyo, not in smaller cities like Beppu. Many of the foods and social values of Japan aren't anything strange to me, since I have grown up in a Chinese household. Art and music in Japan are very distinct, being almost instantly recognizable, and is often called “eccentric” or “strange” in the West.
The primary religion in Japan is Shintoism, a form of Buddhism. There are also most of the other major religions, other forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism, even Islam. However, many Japanese only identify with Shintoism and Buddhism by birth, not necessarily following the religious values of any one religion. On Google Maps, there are some temples marked on the mountain, but I probably won't get to visit one.
The economy of Japan is primarily exports based, exporting a large amount of electronic and other advanced gadgetry and parts. As a result, Japanese companies have quite a bit of money. They are also an exporter of video games, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, due to the fact that 2 of the 3 major platform publishers, Sony and Nintendo, are Japanese. However, the small size of Japan means coal, oil, etc. are imported. Because of this dependence, Japan has a diverse source of energy, from oil to hydro and solar power. As such, Japan is a pioneer in nuclear and hybrid energy. The Japanese economy boomed after World War 2, with help from the United States. The economic sectors in Japan are all protected by the government, perhaps overflow from previous insular economic and social practices. As of 2010, the conversion rate between the Japanese Yen and US Dollar is 88JPY to 1USD, down from about 100 to 1.
While I'm in Japan, I am hoping to blog every day. I will be taking lots of pictures, which I will be uploading to Flickr or Picasa, and video which I will upload to Youtube. The audience of my blog will be friends, as well as internet users, and will cover many, many topics. The url is http://meloninjapan.blogspot.com.
