Study Abroad

On September 10th 2023, I went abroad for the first time to Japan to study abroad. With the CISabroad program I was able to study at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama for approximately one year. Prior to this, I’d already taken a year and a half worth of Japanese classes to help me prepare for the trip, which is required as part of the Language and International Business Major. My classes at Clemson educated me about the language and culture, but studying abroad served as an opportunity to truly experience those things first hand. I wanted to go to Japan to get out of my comfort zone and grow not only my language skills and cultural awareness, but also as a person. In the year that I studied in Japan, I was able to accomplish not only those goals, but also connect with the people much more than I originally anticipated.

​

Before I came to Japan, I hadn't spent much time improving my Japanese speaking ability since I lived in South Carolina, a state with a Japanese population I could count on one hand. It seemed like a waste of energy to practice since I’d have little opportunity to speak Japanese outside of class. In Japan, I suddenly had all the opportunities I wanted, but lacked the skill to take advantage of them. Learning to speak Japanese immediately jumped from the least important skill in my mind to the most important. I’d underestimated how vital being able to comprehend and speak a language is to daily life.  Basic activities like ordering food, following instructions and asking for help were suddenly challenges I had to psych myself up to do. Textbook practice can’t truly prepare you to hold a conversation with someone in a different language. I realized my Japanese classes at Clemson or Meiji Gakuin weren’t going to be sufficient if I wanted to be able to hold a natural conversation in Japanese. Despite being surrounded by people fluent in Japanese, I still struggled since I didn’t want to bother them with my poor conversation ability. Since returning from Japan, I still maintain a stronger dedication to improving speaking and listening compared to before I studied abroad. A large reason for that being because I want to return some day and talk to the friends I had made while I was there and make new ones.

​

A meaningful and memorable experience I had in Japan was the time I spent with my tutor during the spring semester. She was a police officer on maternity leave who decided to volunteer as a Japanese tutor to fill the time. At first, we would meet up at the library once a week to talk about everyday life and culture in Japan for two hours. After a month, it turned into me going along on family outings with her husband and daughter. I got to experience her husband's very delicious home cooking and teach their daughter a bit of English. The whole family spoke little English, which meant I couldn’t use English as a crutch to convey myself. They were very patient as I tried to express myself in Japanese and forgave my countless mistakes. The combined factors of not being able to rely on English and not letting myself be disheartened by my mistakes allowed me to make rapid improvement in my speaking ability.​

​

​Naturally, culture in Japan is vastly different from the United States given their distance from each other and I noticed this most prominently in Japan's hospitality. This is easiest to illustrate by talking about service workers like restaurant staff and convenience store clerks. In the United States, chatting with the staff casually is common and even considered polite. In Japan, staff speak very politely and don't deviate from the script that their role requires. It very much felt like the staff in Japan try to be as invisible as possible to the customer while performing their duties. This is something I feel is further exacerbated by the increasing replacement of service staff with machines. As someone who has never been interested in chatting with service staff I saw this as a pleasant difference in culture, but I saw that other international students struggled with the reserved attitudes staff had.

​

​Another major difference I noticed was the ubiquity of cash in Japan. The United States is essentially a cashless society and cash-only shops are very rare even in rural areas. I only keep cash on my person in the rare event that I lose my card or a store's card reader isn't working. In total, I've used cash no more than 10 times in the United States. In stark contrast, I used cash hundreds of times for transactions in the year that I spent in Japan. Japan had many small shops and many of them didn't accept card payments. I noticed this most often with ramen restaurants which handled their transactions with cash-only machines. In rural areas, cash was the status-quo and you wouldn't be able to buy anything without it. Having to use cash in Japan made me more conscious of my spending habits since I could see how much money I was losing with every purchase. I still haven't used cash since coming back to the United States, but the experience made me aware of how the ease of card payments makes it easier to spend more than intended.

​

Studying abroad had a strong effect on how I conduct myself both during my time in Japan and after returning to the United States. Not being Japanese and not speaking the language very well made me very aware of my status as a foreigner in Japan. In the United States, I could effortlessly blend in with my surroundings because I looked like an American and knew America’s cultural customs. In Japan, I looked very different from everyone else and didn’t act anything like a Japanese person, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. I realized my actions could affect how the Japanese people I met view Americans as a whole, so I was very conscious of how I acted in public. Additionally, I wanted to deepen my own understanding of Japan by learning the cultural intricacies. Properly learning the etiquette for visiting and praying at shrines, for example. I didn’t think I could ever escape the feeling of being an outsider by doing this, but I atleast figured I could avoid being a nuisance. After returning home, I still use this experience to remind myself in social interactions that I don’t always just represent myself, but also the people associated with me.

​

Overall, studying abroad in Japan was one of the best things I ever did. Learning to navigate a vastly different culture and society taught me a lot about myself and the people around me. The many stressful situations and numerous mistakes I made taught me how to survive outside of my comfort zone and not be so afraid to leave it in the first place. A skill that has proved to be repeatedly useful since returning to the United States. I highly recommend anyone study abroad should they have the opportunity.