It is hard to believe I have already been in school for a month. Time is passing so quickly. It feels like I was just signing up for classes last week.
The Japanese education system is very different from the American system. In Japan, high school is taken very seriously. The students work hard to try and get into the top universities in the country. Some students even attend cram schools at night. Once they get into university life gets easier. University is almost seen as a break in between high school and your job. The university classes are not very hard. They just need to get enough credits to graduate. Their grades do not really matter all that much. When it comes to job hunting, it is the name of the university that really matters. Also, students must find a job their second to last or last semester of university, unless they are continuing on to graduate school, to graduate. This is so different from the American system. At home, high school is considered a joke and university is when you really need to work hard.
The system for signing up for classes was really different. At home, we sign up for classes a semester in advance and have the first 12 days to change our schedule. Here we spent the first week just trying out classes and when you turned in your schedule you cannot change it. During that first week, students are allowed to sit in a class and then get up and leave part way through to try out another class.
The only class that was not decided this way for the exchange students was the Japanese language class. The first day of classes, we spent the morning taking a placement test. At first, I was disappointed in my class placement. I was put in the lowest level. We are using a book I used my first year of Japanese two years ago. Now, I would not trade my class for anything! J I love my teacher. She has a great teaching method and is very easy to learn from. The class mostly focuses on speaking. So, it is the perfect level for my spoken Japanese. I may have some trouble when I have to transfer my credits back, but I will be able to speak Japanese better than the upper level Japanese students back home.
Japanese is the class I spend the most time in. We go to class for 3 hours in the morning 2 days a week. My other classes are ridiculously easy (it is kind of driving me crazy). They are all taught in English and are only held once a week. My favorite class is an anthropological look at current marriage trends in Japan. I will be writing a blog about it soon, so more on that later J I am also taking a class about the architecture of Tokyo from a historical perspective. I love this teacher, She always gets off subject, but I find her tangents interesting. Then there is my business class. I am learning concepts I have already learned back home, but it uses Japanese companies as examples so it is still interesting.
And then there are my classes I barely consider classes. One of these classes I consider a complete waste of time. It is about Japanese Society and Culture, but there is no lecture. We just waste time doing group presentations that really do not say anything of substance at all. But I love my last two classes! They are sumi-e and sadō. Sumi-e is pretty much just an art class. We get to learn how to paint with sumi (black ink). I find the class very relaxing. Sadō is a class about the Japanese Tea Ceremony. So every week I get to go to class and eat an okashi (Japanese sweet) and drink tea. I am learning how to make and serve the tea. It is very complicated. We start out every class with quiet meditation. It is the perfect class to end my week.
Another big difference from back home is my school schedule. At Texas State, I am usually lucky enough to have my Fridays off. At Meiji Gakuin, almost everyone has Wednesdays off. All of the clubs meet on this day. It is odd to have a day off in the middle of the week. And to top it off, my longest day is on Friday. On Fridays, I am at school from 9am to 6pm. But my favorite classes are on that day so I do not mind.
Meiji Gakuin has two campuses, one in Yokohama and one in Shirokane, Tokyo. I attend classes at the Shirokane campus. It is small, but lovely. We have a chapel, tea ceremony rooms, courtyard, and an amazing cafeteria. I love the cafeteria. It is a big open feeling building. It is almost completely made of windows so it is very bright and cheerful. One of the coolest things is the system for getting your food.
There is a glass case that has fake food versions of all of the possibilities. Each meal has a card in front to it that say the number (for ordering), the name, the amount of calories and the price.
Then you go to the machines. You put in your money and push the button with the number that corresponds with your chosen meal. It gives you a slip of paper with the number on it.
Next, you grab a tray and get into the correct line (there have been a couple of times when I managed to get in the wrong line :P) Hand your slip of paper to the person at the counter and wait for your food. Sooo funny story… be careful when you try to turn in line and you have a big bag on your shoulder. You might knock over the metal pole line divider things, cause a domino effect, make a lot of noise and embarrass yourself. Yes, I know this from personal experience. I am not going to eaven try to lie and say it happened to a friend…
There are machines with free water and green tea next to the utensils. So that is the last stop before finding a table.
I think the coolest part of the cafeteria system is at the end. You go to this one area and turn in your dirty dishes. Rubbish goes into the trashcan (there is almost nothing that get thrown away), utensils into one tub, cups into another, rinse your bowl/plate, drop it into the big thing of water and put your tray on the rack.
Oh and the food is good too :) My usual lunch: Kake Soba
Yeah…I know I get entertained by the strangest things, but their system is just so efficient and leaves almost no waste. I wish it would work back home. Oh well. I will finish this post off with some pictures of the campus.
Enjoy, Caitlin
the courtyard
the chapel (side view)
no idea what this building is, but I like the old world architecture
against the modern building in the background
another random building
the chapel (front view)
