The Nagoya Gakuin University is located in central Japan, high on a hilltop, overlooking Seto City. This is a semester or year-long study abroad. This study abroad is great for any East Asian Studies-Japanese minor.
For more information about Nagoya and how much it will cost go to the ISU International Studies link.
Coming Soon...
Dr. Roger Thomas
Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Campus Box 4300
Normal, IL
61790-4300
Name: Charles Engle
Program: Japanese @ Nagoya Gakuin Daigaku, Japan.
Duration: 1 year.
My first day in Japan was very interesting. I could read almost nothing, the first people I met were Korean and I could only communicate with them in poor Japanese. Not a problem, my new friend Ho-young was great. Upon arriving at my dorm, I thought, "Oh my god, what have I done," I was not very impressed with the dorm. It was also located atop a rather large and imposing hill (we later dubbed it an honorary mountain). However, I ended up staying there an entire year and no warmly remember it as a home away from home. There were some strange things for sure, giant bugs (I now understand where Godzilla and Mothra come from), weird food (some tasty, some not), some very unique individuals. My dorm-mates were from all over the world. A lot from China, some from Australia, some from Korea, some from the US, and some from a few other countries. Also the first day of classes was a wild ride, it was a very intense approach to learning, but the teachers were nice if sometimes strict. The people at the school were all nice or curious of any foreigners and the clubs were easy to join. I made a lot of friends in the Boxing club.
Day to day life was school during the morning and afternoon, walking back to the dorm for dinner and maybe going downtown or out to eat. The dorm life was great, I got to hang out with my friends everyday and we could do almost whatever we wanted. There were some rules, but overall it was much less restrictive than life in the US. Also the area of Japan I was in was great for going jogging in, my friend an I would often run up to 10-15 miles a couple times a week. We'd go everywhere, stopping by rice farms, public parks, temples, hot springs, and the whole time we'd talk to everyone we met along the way. Running is a great way to see a country and to stay in shape. A typical week would involve classes and working out at the gym or playing pick-up basketball everyday until the weekend then we'd go to downtown Nagoya and go to the different restaurants, clubs, and bars, and finish with singing Karaoke until catching the morning train and get back to the dorm at around 8 am. Also the shopping is phenomenal, they have every store imaginable and its even better than the US. Also in Tokyo a run through Harajuku aka the Fashion Freak Show of Japan is a must. I also recommend getting a piercing or two while you're there. Traveling on trains is great fun too, its always a blast to draw connections to movies like "Lost in Translation" or "Trainspotting" Also the chance to go to many historic landmarks, like castles, temples, markets, and museums was great for expanding my cultural knowledge. Life was a grand adventure.
I met my girlfriend whom I'm now engaged to in Japan, she's from Thailand, I met my best friend in Japan (He went to ISU but I had never met him until then). I also made many good lifelong friends who I talk to regularly in both English and Japanese. The trip was a great time to be adventurous outgoing and to meet everyone I could and to make as many new friends as I could.
Nightlife: The nightlife in Japan is amazing. There is plenty of things to do and the only limit is the amount of money you have. I've probably been to half the bars in Nagoya, and I call a few of the owners and employees of those establishment friends. I also went to the largest club frequently and had a great time mixing it up with people from all over the world, especially Brazil. Karaoke bars are a great after-hours place to go and most Japanese frequent these places. You'll become a master at any and all songs in English, Japanese, and any other language you try out. The bar scene is great, there is a bar for every taste. One of my good friends, Jack, owns a bar in downtown Nagoya and every night he performs the best flair bar-tending in all of Japan.
One of the downsides to my trip was that I fell off a cliff and broke both my heels! Actually, it didn't hurt nearly as bad as you think. The fun part was I got to go on a fun ambulance ride and then to a hospital and then later through surgery to repair my bones. It was a crazy experience shouting and cursing at doctors in English and Japanese as we each fought to understand each other and to help one an other. My stay in the hospital was a blessing in disguise because my Japanese improved tremendously. The downside was that during the month long stay in the hospital I started to go slightly stir crazy. Eventually the let me out, and I was soon using crutches to go out on dates, to go shopping, and I even convinced my friends to piggy back me up and down the few hills to the gym so I could work out. While it was a serious situation and it involved lots of paperwork and stress for my parents, myself, and the school staff, I still have a light hearted view on the whole incident. My return to the hospital came when a friend of mine accidentally broke one of my front teeth. It took me quite a number of trips to the local dentist before I eventually had a nice real looking fake tooth installed. In the mean time I just told everyone I was a hockey player back in the US, the girls loved me.
The all time ultimate experience I had in Japan was climbing Mount Fuji with three of my friends during a typhoon. We had decided on climbing the Gotemba route, thats the longest and hardest route up Fuji. So we ventured forth from our hotel, which a local had said was a brothel but it ended up being located above a club in actuality, and we hopped in our taxi and zoomed through the densest fog I've ever seen to the 5th station on Mount Fuji. On the way we each bought a few waters and candy bars from the convenience store along with $2 rain coats. What could go wrong? So out of the taxi, and up the mountain we go at midnight. We wanted to catch the sun coming up at the summit but kamisama had other plans for us. After a thousand feet or so the fog gave way to rain, the rain would eventually stop, and finally we halted, huddled behind a blue barbed wired shed at around 11,000 ft. The summit was not far but at this point, the typhoon miles off of Japan's eastern coast was smashing its winds into the side of Fuji. All manner of rock and stone came tumbling past us, and once we were almost blown off altogether. Eventually we were forced to turn back due to concern for our lives due to the weather, but we gave the mountain a few choice words then quickly retreated. Our raincoats did not fare very well, as we came down the mountain, I'm sure we looked like post-apocolyptic madmen a la Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome to the unfortunate Japanese owner of the rest stop at the bottom who we woke up in order to have a taxi come pick us up. Eventually we managed to get back to our hotel where through a few retellings, our story became quite epic.
The classes I took ranged from golf to historical linguistics. Each day I attended an intensive Japanese language class which focused on speaking, reading, and writing. The classes followed our textbooks in addition to supplemental activities. We would routinely give speeches and presentations, write essays on a variety of topics, and read all manner of literature both in the textbook and out. Apart from the core curriculum, students were allowed to choose a number of electives. I chose golf and linguistics my first semester and then history, culture, and a society class my second semester. The classes were all rather demanding except for golf and required a good deal of study in order to do well. The course material was generally interesting and I enjoyed learning all about Japanese culture.
There is a distinct difference between Western and Eastern teaching methods. The difference was not always as apparent depending upon the teacher, however, I would often be at odds with my teacher over tangential matters. This included wearing hats in the classroom, drinking water, snacking, issues with grading, and a variety of other petty things which taken in aggregate can become very annoying when faced with the blatant favoritism and lack of enforcement in regards to the Japanese students. All this aside, I did learn quite a bit from my teachers and I appreciated what they had to offer. The idea in Japan is that the student should bend to the teacher's method, not that the teacher should cater to the students needs. It took me quite awhile to achieve a happy medium and the cat and mouse game the school and I played over our problems was at times serious and comical. Looking back, I see flaws on both side of the table yet the enormous potential of being in a foreign country is quite worth a few arguments here and there. I credit my growth as a speaker and student to all the input I received outside of the class room from my many adventures. Remember, when abroad, go wild, be adventurous and be curious and willing to learn everything.
PS. I wanted to add, I climbed Mt. Fuji 6 months after my surgery. The surgeons, nurses, and doctors in Japan really are quite remarkable. Upon returning to the US, I had a surgeon, one of America's leading bone surgeons, from North Western University examine my heels and he said that my Japanese doctor did a bang up job of it.
All in all, it was the adventure of a lifetime and I was determined to let no one, no thing, no mountain, or any trifling injuries stop me in my quest to have as much fun as humanly possible.
