The 400 year old Matsue Castle in Matsue, Japan

Author: Sam Roth | Major: International Business – Supply Chain | Semester: Summer 2023

As a Language learner this program was great for me. I had been taking Japanese classes throughout freshman and sophomore year with the hope to get to go to Japan someday. Growing up I was influenced a lot by Japan through films like Spirited Away and Your Name which led me to pursue learning Japanese in college. The U of A pushes its Japanese language students to achieve more by offering a minor of Japanese with an orientation on business. As a business major, this program is perfect for me as someone with goals to work abroad in the future. Since starting my Japanese journey, this study abroad experience had been in the back of my mind because it was the perfect mix. Learn Japanese in Japan while staying at a Japanese college and get to talk and make friends with local students. It sounded too good to be true. After applying for the program and receiving help from the honors grant and my professor Miura Sensei, I was finally on track to go to Japan. After the spring semester, we started out in Fayetteville taking the first half of the class in a room in Kimple. Our classwork was very similar to classes I had taken prior, with a mix of quizzes, oral responses and taking notes alongside textbook readings and lectures. As days passed the reality of being in Japan grew stronger and stronger and then finally the day arrived. In Japan we continued our classes at Shimane University in Matsue and Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama. Classes were the same as in Fayetteville, which offered a nice piece of home while abroad. Our Professors, Fukushima Sensei and Omura Sensei, were amazing through the whole process of navigating a new culture. In Japan, they planned group excursions, lectures to attend at the universities and even set up conversation partners so we could have the chance to practice our Japanese with students on a daily basis. At the end of our trip we took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) in Yokohama as a way to get certification of our basic Japanese skill from the Japanese government.

We started off our program in Matsue, Japan, a seaside town on the eastern coast. Since our class was only three hours at the beginning of our day, the rest of the day was ours. My favorite after school time was taking a short walk to a store called Mandai Shoten. It was a thrift store that had everything from Manga (Japanese comics) to tractors. My favorite thing to do there though was play claw machine games with my friends and practice my conversational Japanese. After we spent way too much money on a plush stuffed animal that took us too long to get, we would make our way back to campus where we would say goodbye for the day. I’d take the bus back to our hotel and take a short rest at the onsen (Japanese bath house) and start on my homework for the night.

My experience in Yokohama was a little different. Since Yokohama was close to Tokyo, most of my days I was taking trains to various parts of the city. I would get out of class, grab a couple friends and eat lunch before heading out to the train station. Since it’s very rude to talk on the train we would stand close and in hushed voices ask each other questions about life in America versus life in Japan. My favorite Tokyo memory was going to Shibuya with my friends to shop at furugiya (second hand clothing stores). Each store had a different theme, lots of them being American deadstock stores, with clothes from floor to ceiling with great deals. I ended up buying a red cargo vest for five hundred yen (the equivalent of around four American dollars) and it is now one of my favorite fashion pieces I own.

The hardest part of the trip was returning home because of how long it takes to fly. We forgot to recheck our bags at our layover in Chicago and ended up spending an extra hour figuring out how to get them back. Once we finally got back to America it was a bittersweet feeling of finally being home but still missing Japan. Since Japan is 14 hours ahead of Arkansas, I spent the next day sleeping off all of my airport trauma. Over all this was one of the highlights of my college experience. If I could do it over again I would be prepared for more rain and study more before the trip so I could enjoy more of the culture instead of my textbook. If you are someone pursuing Japanese language learning you need to take this trip. Not only do you come out six credit hours ahead you also get the experience of a lifetime with a new place to call home an ocean away