I am so grateful to have been able to take part in an exchange year in Japan. I went to Keio University which is centred in the heart of Tokyo meaning that I had to commute almost everyday into Tokyo which was such an amazing experience! There were so much that I learnt with lots of mistakes and learning curves that I was able to think about and overcome. I would like to share some of them in this blog post to detail how to help get through challenges faced abroad and how to make the most of them for your experience.
My first challenge is that I would like to talk about is how different Japan is when it comes to talking to others especially because Japan is an extremely polite country. You have to be prepared to to say so many thank you’s and also the amount of bowing you have to do! The first week I was in Japan I was amazed at how instead of saying thank you, people will just gesture with a bow too show respect for the other person. This carried through to my whole year and how I made many mistakes and learnt a lot from what I experienced as it is something complete different to the UK. Especially bowing, there are certain ways to bow and even certain times you may not think you have to bow, such as letting someone through a tight spot, but you do actually need to bow to show recognition to the person that you are letting them through or visa vera. I think this is great because sometimes it hard to hear someone say thank you so its nice to see the gesture. Additionally, some bows can go deeper than others for to show respect to the person. For example if you want to show greater gratitude to someone, you would bow at a 90 degree angle, but if you want to say thank you to a cashier, you would just simply do a head cock.
Another thing to do with politeness is the queuing. Queuing here is taken very seriously from train stations to escalators to restaurants. This is one thing that will be extremely important as Japanese people are used to the orderliness, so sometimes when me and my exchange friends would go out, we sometimes did not follow the orderliness due to culture shock and because we didn’t know what was the right way to treat it. However, because we were in Tokyo, there were lots of signs up (in English too) about where to que which made understanding queuing culture a lot more easier. So make sure before going to Japan you are aware that Japanese people do take queuing seriously!
Other learning curves I experienced was making friends with international students. I think this is the one that people are most afraid of because its hard to make friends in general when starting a new university or company and on top of the fact that its in a new country! But it was actually quite easy. Even though they are slightly culturally different from you, because most people are comfortable with speaking English, its quite easy to communicate with people! Additionally because you are in a different country, you become even closer with them because everyone is quite nervous about being in a new country. This also means you have great people to contact you if things go wrong or you need someone to help with something. They are also great to go out with!
Speaking of going out, it can be quite challenging to have to not only adapt to a new country, but also a new university. However, I feel as though this is fine because the university knows that you will struggle in your first month to settle so they make it easy for you by helping you as much as you can for example with an extensive document which is easy to read and lists everything you need to know how to settle, directions and also any important key cultural differences that you would find useful to communicate with people. I also found that they made the classes really easy to follow and the teachers were super helpful with any questions.
Tokyo is quite an accessible city and with its smooth transport system, it meant that going around was super easy to do! They have tonnes of different lines however, they are all marked very clearly such as the famous Yamanote line being a certain green and my line that I used to get to Keio Mita Campus was on the Meguro line which changes to the Mita line, which shows it on signs and even says it at the station. And yes, some lines do change even when on the train but this is actually extremely helpful since you can stay on the line rather than having to get off and on again. Additionally, you can get a reduced train fare as a student at your local train station meaning that all train fares are free from your local train station to the school, even in between so you can do lots of free journeys to different places. For example, me and my friend would study together at an amazing cafe near Tokyo and this was great because the fare would of been £2 converted each way but with our ticket it cost nothing!
In conclusion, I would say that doing a year abroad in Japan, especially if it is your first year abroad, was easier for me because of the amount of help in English and the amazing friends that I made during my time. I think being able to share experiences with new people is amazing but there is also so many opportunities that I took to travel solo as Japan is amazing to go to so many different places and experience the different cultures around Japan. I would highly recommend people to experience a year in Japan as you won’t regret the life changing experience!