It's been 4 years already?

I just realized that next week it'll be exactly 4 years since I left to study abroad in Japan. I could only afford to spend one semester there, but it was such a great experience and now I'm getting all nostalgic just thinking about it.

Since I majored in Japanese in college, study abroad was a requirement for graduation, but I didn't really need much convincing. Penn State had a few different programs to choose from, if I recall, though I really was only considering either Nagoya or Tokyo through IES. I had originally been leaning towards going to Nagoya, but for some reason the study abroad coordinator recommended Tokyo instead, and that's where I ended up going.

The IES Tokyo program was sort of divided up into 2 schools, Kanda University for those focusing on Japanese culture, and Meikai University if you were taking the intensive Japanese language course. Even in the intensive language program, you still had to take at least one (or was it 2? I only remember taking one...) non-language class. Those were almost exclusively taught at Kanda, but Intro to Japanese Society and Culture was at Meikai, and I chose that one for the locational convenience of it.

I was extremely fortunate to be placed in a homestay in Shin-Urayasu that happened to be a 5 minute walk from Meikai University, so I had arguably the easiest commute in the history of mankind. My host family was awesome, but I didn't really keep in touch with them once I left, which I still feel bad about.


The awesome view from my homestay.


To be honest, the "intensive" language program was not all that intensive. I have to cut Meikai a little bit of slack here, since the program was brand new when I went and they clearly had not worked all the bugs out yet. They gave everyone a test/interview, and based on the results, stuck you in one of three classes, Sogo 1, Sogo 2, or Sogo 3 (with 3 being beginner, 2 being intermediate, and 1 being advanced). Almost everyone was in Sogo 2, which was a little baffling. Sogo 3 only had three people in it, if I recall, and Sogo 1 had a total of 6 students, including myself.


Our classroom! This picture makes me so nostalgic.


From what I could tell, all three classes followed a similar formula that consisted of using a laughably terrible textbook and doing skits. OH, THE SKITS. That's some lazy teaching, right there. I'm going to go ahead and say that a full 60% of our class time was skit-related, it was ridiculous. Fortunately, I liked everyone that was in my class, so even when we given awful assignments, I always had a lot of fun. The textbook was written by some crazy old lady who for some reason held a position of high authority at Meikai. It was so outdated that it might just as well have been written on papyrus, and whoever proofread that shit had the English skills of a mildly retarded parrot. As a Japanese textbook, it didn't really need to have English in it at all, but it did, and that English contained such gems as "Legthy elevarors transport passengers the streets". No joke. It also featured some grade-A, borderline-racist classics like "Unlike us Japanese, Westerners prefer to dine in darkness." I don't even know how to classify "Speaking of non-descript existences... how about 'ninja'?" Oh, Nobuko Mizutani, the things you say...

The teachers at Meikai were kind of a strange bunch. They rotated for some reason, as in, we'd have one teacher for a while, then they'd leave us and go teach Sogo 2, I have no idea why they did this if not just to confuse us. I only really remember three teachers well, but I know we had at least one more. First, we had Tani-sensei, who was the strict and disapproving obaasan-type. All I really remember is her going NUTS on one of our classmates one day for repeatedly using a pen despite her constantly telling us to use a pencil. She also got annoyed at our class for not taking our skits seriously enough, but generally speaking, I think she liked us. Then there was Mitsuhashi-sensei, who was BATSHIT INSANE, and though I didn't like her at first, she grew on me. The only thing I remember well about Hatakeyama-sensei was that she reminded me of a velociraptor and I believe that she secretly hated us a lot. There was a male teacher whose name I forget, and all I can say about him was that he had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty and sort of creeped me out.

All of them would make us do several skits a week, both little mini-skits in groups of 3 in front of our own class, and then on a regular basis they would pit the three classes against each other in these awkward skit contests that anyone from the school/staff/random media sources could attend. Meikai liked to seem international, so they really took pleasure in making their foreign students dance like trained monkeys on stage for people to see. What's funny is that they had a sort of "separate but equal" philosophy when it came to us whities. We didn't actually have any classes with Japanese students, and in fact, we never even really had occasion to be in the same building as them. All of our classes were confined to one building that was on the other side of all the athletic fields and all of that, the Bekka. These forced skit performances were probably the only time that the Japanese students realized that we were there, so I can only imagine what strange opinions they must have had of us.

Oddly, there was one skit that our class was responsible for that all the teachers fucking loved. It came to be known as "the mujintou (deserted island) skit", and it started out as a mini-skit conceived by Ryan, Jeffrey Logan-san (J-Lo), and Joe. The teachers loved it so much that they kept demanding encores, and we ended up doing it at least twice after that, including at the IES farewell party. To summarize, the three of them were shipwrecked on a desert island, and after a few days in the heat and without any food, Joe goes insane from the hunger. He says there's no choice but to eat a rabbit that Ryan has befriended. Ryan goes nuts and tells them he won't allow it, and flings the rabbit at Joe in a fit of rage, accidentally killing him. J-Lo witnesses the killing, so Ryan kills him too. Then he looks at their dead bodies and, realizing there is food to be had, asks the rabbit if it likes meat. Ironically, he's now a vegetarian. In one variation of this skit, the last question was followed by a maniacal laugh that only Ryan is capable of producing. No one enjoyed doing these skits, but in retrospect, it was pretty amusing.

Anyway, It's hard to remember specifics now, but IIRC, we had class from either 8 or 9am until about noon. Afternoons were when people had their various culture classes, and since I only had the one, almost all of my afternoons and evenings were totally free. So after a morning of way too easy Japanese class, I'd usually spend the rest of the day shopping/getting curry or Wendy's/going to karaoke with my classmates Ryan and Brette. In retrospect, maybe that's why I my Japanese didn't improve as much as it did, but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!




Purikura! We did so many of these...


[/ nostalgic rambling]