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Grasshoppers or Birds?
(Photo taken by me)
Back in 2013, I went to Japan for study abroad and kept a travel blog in order to let people at home know what I was up to. My grandma still brings it up regarding funny bits and pieces I wrote that she read while I was away. It was especially important because her husband passed away that year before I returned, and his being in hospice really drove me to post about my experiences. During those six months I spent some of the time living in the dormitory and some of the time living with a host family with my host parents and my two young host siblings. I was responsible for getting myself to the train when I needed to go somewhere, I was given a bike and helmet to look after, and I had two extra classes to take in the afternoons on top of my usual three hour Japanese morning classes. All students at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone took these Japanese classes, although we were placed into three different classes depending on how well we did on the placement test. Level one is for beginners, level two is basic intermediate, and level three is for advanced students with two or more years' worth of Japanese understanding. There is a level four, but so few students test well enough for this level that I was told the teachers would simply come together to create individualized lesson plans should someone test high enough. Everyone also took one extra class, but students from my college were required to take two. The choices were: Japanese culture, Japanese economics, or Japanese literature. All were in English, so I chose Economics and Culture. The economics class was taught once a week at one of the two neighboring Japanese universities, and the culture class was taught twice a week in the JCMU conference room by our school's director, American-born Mr. McCracken. Everyone loved Mr. McCracken, who met us all at the airport alongside our residence hall coordinator, who took care of doctor visits (we needed many, what with a pregnant student) and town hall errands regarding our national health care cards. Mr. McCracken was the type to join students at dinner time while eating in the restaurant Coco's attached to the school and encouraged us to be our usual, casual American selves during class, which was a great break from the formality expected from us by our Japanese teachers. I also got to do some traveling to Kyoto, Tokyo, Nagahama, and Nagoya, along with other neighboring towns. Towards the end of my stay, all the students from my college were placed into internships based on cultural papers we wanted to write in order to fulfill our requirements. I spent time at a nursery school owned by the Taneya bakery company and at a restaurant owned by the proprietress of the Ryotei Yasui, a traditional hotel.
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