APU is located in Japan, but since it is an international university, I realized that I could end up graduating in four years without developing a deep understanding of Japan and Japanese people. I decided to go on exchange to Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto to experience the ‘real’ Japan and study history that even most modern Japanese people don't know.
I focused on Japanese literature and Kyoto Studies.
I struggled with difficult vocabulary, but now I can read novels in Japanese
At Ritsumeikan, I was in the College of Letters, so I spent most of my time studying Japanese literature. My lectures covered everything from children's literature and the Tale of Genji to women in literature, and I learned about all about Kyoto from when it was the capital of Japan in the Heian period up through modern day urban planning.
Meanwhile, in my seminar, I studied post-war literature. We read books by Shohei Oka and Taijun Takeda, two big-name post-war writers. The literary analyses were full of difficult Japanese words, and I struggled to understand them fully. I asked my Teaching Assistant (TA) many questions and spent all of my weekends immersed in research. Now I can understand lectures in Japanese, and I even like to spend my leisure time reading Soseki Natsume and Ryunosuke Akutagawa novels in the original Japanese.
Outside of class, I tried many new things. I joined a workshop on community development, a poetry reading and some local festivals. But the activity I dedicated most of my time to was carpentry. I spent eight months learning about traditional wooden architecture.
Using what I learned in Japan,
I want to change the world from the grassroots level
After graduation, I plan to obtain an elementary school teacher's license while continuing my carpentry training in Norway. I initially chose APU so I could become a United Nations employee and help change the world. (That is why I studied environmental conservation.) But I started to think that I could change the world from the ground up by becoming a teacher and teaching younger generations about ethics and the value of respecting nature and our fellow humans.
To change the world, community development is key. To 'see the forest for the trees', I believe you can create a vibrant community if you value what is closest (i.e., family) first and gradually expand your sphere of influence from there. This is the kind of community where everyone watches out for everyone else and people develop values that are good for humanity. These actions may be small, but I think changing the world one step at a time is important. With my carpentry work, I hope to build a strong community with robust horizontal bonds like those of years past.
Advice for students who want to go on exchange
I firmly believe that, no matter what you do, success is the natural result of dedication. That is why you should never hesitate to try the things you want to try. When it comes time to look back on your life, you won't regret the things that you did, you'll regret the things that you didn't do.
