End of an Era
I sit here typing up this post on my final week in Japan as a foreign exchange student (while at the same time rocking out to some Bump of Chicken) and there’s a mixture of feelings going on. On the one hand, I’ve had an absolutely fantastic time here in Japan. I think I can say without reservation it has been the most eventful year of my life. Not only have I acquired the Japanese language, at least conversationally, I have made life-long friends and more memories than I have bothered to re-account on the blog here. On the other hand, I know that my time is up here and I have return home. I’m quite content with that, though, as I have many people back home I want to meet again, not the least of whom is my family. Besides, I have to graduate from college. If I ever want to return to Japan that’s a necessity.
I figured I’d use this post to give out some final advice to everyone who is thinking of studying abroad, gleaned from my year here. Of course it all boils down to want you want from your time in a foreign country, but this is what I found worked for me:
- Don’t be shy. This is absolutely the most important thing. You are in a different place, hundreds if not thousands of miles from everyone you’ve ever known. You have to be willing and open to meet new people. Not just from the country you are staying in, but people from all over the world who are studying abroad along with you. I don’t think you have anything to worry about anyway. The people I’ve met here are some of the most interesting and fun people I’ve ever met, even if we both have to use a language we are not proficient in.
- Make an effort to get out. This one is particularly important if you came abroad to study language. Don’t assume that just because you are in the country of your target language that you will automatically learn it. It’s just as easy to sit in your room browsing around English sites as it is back home and I know of a couple people here who do just that. Find someway, anyway you can to interact on a daily basis with the native people of the country in which you are living. If you want to have a genuine study abroad experience, as opposed to just an extended vacation, this is very important. The most meaningful experiences you will have while studying abroad will be with people who are not from the same country you are from.
- Join a club. Continuing the train of thought from the last point, I’ve found that the absolutely easiest way to meet people from the country you are studying in is to join a club at the school. For me, this was the 探検部, or Exploration club. I chose this club for a couple reasons. First, I was a Boy Scout back in the day and I’m not entirely unfamiliar with camping and trekking around in nature. Second, I knew I wanted a club that would travel. Thanks to being in the Exploration club, I’ve seen much of the countryside of northern Japan (which is breathtaking by the way). Just make sure you pick a club that suits your interests. If you come to a Japanese college, you will have no shortage of clubs to pick from. They have one for just about everything. But make sure you jump on the chance! Most clubs will be open to accepting new people at the beginning of the semester. Also, don’t worry if you just arrived and don’t have the best language skills. I joined my club barely being able to say hello or introduce myself. Now they don’t stop complementing my Japanese and comparing me to how I was when I first joined.
- Learn to cook a bit. If you want to save yourself a load of money (and who doesn’t in this economy), it’s not a bad idea to buy some cooking equipment and learn to make some basic dishes. In my case, I bought a rice cooker and used it with almost every meal. In Japan, rice is cheap and fills you up. Just find something quick and easy to pour on top of it. Your mileage will vary depending on the country you are in.
- Travel. Even though you are studying abroad and it seems like travel in its own right, you will quickly fall into a groove in the town you are in. In order to properly appreciate the country you are in, I feel that traveling at least once or twice during your stay is important. If money is an issue, there are plenty of ways to travel on the cheap if you do a bit of research. For example, Japan has an excellent system of business hotels that usually don’t cost any more than $60-$80 a night, which includes breakfast every morning. If this is still too much, there are also many hostels around which cost no more than $30 a night, if you are will to sleep with strangers in the same room. Same goes for transportation. The 夜行バス (yakou basu, “overnight bus”) is well known by students here as a cheap way to get down to Tokyo, only $100 for a round trip ticket.
- Alcohol. It will be consumed, especially in Japan. Drinking is a major past-time of students and businessmen alike and getting drunk carries little of the negative stigma it does back in the States. For proof of this, you need only go out to a bar. Every establishment I know of has something called 飲み放題, or “nomihoudai,” where you pay about $15-$20 and get all you can drink for two or more hours. If you are coming to Japan and abstain from drinking, you will unfortunately have a much harder time meeting people.
- Be open minded. A final piece of advice and a fairly obvious one I think. But, if you feel you are incapable of adapting to, quite literally, an alien place, then don’t study abroad. Seriously, don’t. I’ve seen people here who only complain about Japan or the other foreign students and hang out with only people who speak English. They seem quite miserable for it. It’d be better just to not come in the first place. To be sure, studying abroad is not for everyone, even if you have a burning desire to visit a particular country or study a particular language. It takes more than that. You just have to a flexible person.
I hope that this post was able to be of some help. If anyone has any further questions regarding studying abroad, particularly in Japan, just leave me a comment or an email. The next time I write a post will probably be on Eastern Standard Time, so until then!
Themocracy
Wow, can’t believe your year is coming to an end. I’m sorry we never met – really enjoyed following your adventures online though.
Oh, and I meant to say – great advice in this post! A must for all those heading to uni in Japan!
Awesome post.
Especially like the last point about being open minded. A lot of people miss that.
can you tell me of any study abroad programs that offer financial aid for study in japan?
I’ll disagree rather strongly with the ‘Alcohol’ bit. I can understand where you are coming from but seeing as you have not experienced the inverse, can also see and say why you are wrong.
I am Muslim (gasp! shudder!) and have met a great deal of people in Japan without ever sipping an ounce of alcohol, and the friend I stayed with in Saitama who does not drink for the same reasons has more contacts and knows far more Japanese people simply because of his personality and fluency in Japanese than any Western gaijin in Japan I have ever met.
Drinking til drunk does not carry the stigma it does in the US, correct; however the inverse is also true, namely, that not drinking does not carry the stigma that it does in the Western world either (though certainly, if working in a traditional company in Japan, you will find hard to socialize with coworkers without it – not any moreso than in the US.) Certainly you are not shunned in Japan for not drinking the way you are instantly seen as strange and prissy in the West. And heaven help you, in the States especially, if it’s because you’re Muslim (gasp/shock/horror).
So anyone reading this who does not drink, take heart, especially if you are Muslim – if you’re having trouble meeting people in Japan, it’s because of your own attitude, not because you do not drink. Be open, be confident, be honest, be kind, and you will meet lifelong friends. And again, if Muslim, take heart that Japan is alien to the Crusader era societal heirloom that is the deep running mistrust and hatred in the West, especially the US, for Muslims.
Fin.
I did a year abroad in Nagoya wayyyy back in 1999, and these thoughts are right on the money. Good to see people who really understand what study abroad is all about. I’m going to mention this post on my blog, thanks!
Why on Earth would you ever leave? Let alone to go back to America? Are you nuts man?
Great post, and very helpful information. Thanks!
I’d just like to add to ‘Uthman abu Mu’awiyah’s post, since I completely agree with it.
I don’t drink either, and not because I’m Muslim, but because I don’t like it. And so I don’t even have the convenient religious defense, which would be much easier to explain to people.
Regardless, I’ve lived in Japan for 3 months now, and every single one of my friends are Japanese people who I’ve met here, many of them at clubs and bars, which I go to because I’m a DJ and simply enjoy the music scene here (Osaka).
So if you don’t drink for whatever reason, forget about it being a problem in Japan. It isn’t. It has nothing to do with anything. In fact, Japanese people have been much more tolerant of my not drinking than Australians…
I’ve received quite a few comments up to now about my alcohol comment. While I was there, there were plenty of people who didn’t drink, particularly fellow exchange students. However, I just found personally that all the major social circles I was in, namely my club and other friends that I made, that the major social activity we did together was drinking. Obviously, this won’t be true for people who don’t like to drink, they’ll just make other friends. I just found it striking that almost everyone I knew, including several professors, all drank together on a weekly basis.
Having said that, thanks for the insight! I hope that your comments will help to reassure those people out there who would prefer to study abroad dry.
I agree with the drinking thing… it’s generally much more acceptable not to drink in Japan. I do drink normally, but had to give it up for health reasons towards the end of my year abroad in Japan, and none of my Japanese friends said anything bad about it, although they were a bit surprised.
I got back to England and there was immediately pressure on me to drink whenever I went out, and people kept on saying “Oh you poor thing, not being able to drink!”. There just isn’t the same kind of pressure in Japan.
Yes, lots of Japanese socialising revolves around going out drinking, but if you end up going with a lot of typical Japanese girls, you’ll probably notice that a lot of them will have one drink maximum and then have ウーロン茶 or something for the rest of the night.
I completely agree with everything else you said. I did pretty much exactly those things when I was in Japan and had the best year of my life. I’m trying to apply it again now that I’m living here, but it’s much more difficult when you’re not in a university environment (and on the complete other side of the country from the social circle you built up the first time round). But yes, very solid advice! It really makes me sad that some people who I know didn’t do any of this stuff.
Jen, I think you nailed the drinking thing, especially for girls. Most of the time when I went out and there were girls (not the ones in my club though, the way they drank you would think them alcoholics lol) they usually took it easy and did end up getting sober stuff. When you do nomihoudai, they always have a menu of soft drinks like juice, tea and soda and I often took advanatage of that myself.
When I was in University, my 4th year there was a big hubbub about 3 Saudi Arabian exchange students coming for the first time to my Uni to study for a year. The school went all out in preparations. They held school-wide assemblies about Islamic customs and set up an empty classroom as a prayer room. 3 Months after they came I spotted them in Shinsaibashi trying to pick up Japanese girls. They were wearing their Saudia Arabian clothes that they said made things a lot easier. We ended up going out drinking and man, I’d never seen anyone party like they did. I always wonder what happened to them after they went back to Saudi Arabia.