Freshman seminar in Japan immerses students in unique culture

by Amanda Peterka

Yes, the food is different. Octopus oin a stick is not something you see at MacDonald's.

Amanda is second from the right in the front row, joined by fellow freshmen headed to Japan for the summer seminar. The freshman seminars abroad are a relatively new phenomenon at Michigan State and the Japan seminar abroad is only in its second year. Any freshman is eligible to take the seminar for two credits. The trip works on a first come, first serve basis.

At the beginning of last summer, if someone had asked me what I knew about Japan, I would probably have mumbled something about samurai and geisha. The only reasons I chose to go to Japan on the Freshman Seminar Abroad program was that it was about as far away from the United States one could possibly get and I’d have massive bragging rights when I returned.

I really can’t even begin to describe how much the trip expanded my limited view of Japan and the way I view culture as a whole.

The majority of the time we spent in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities. We visited Tokyo for three days. There is something uniquel about Tokyo. Even though it is a huge, bustling city, it also exhibits a certain calmness that I have difficulty finding in any American cities. We also toured Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nara and went to a baseball game in Kobe.

Unfortunately, the trip was a seminar abroad, so we did have to do some work to earn our two credits,which involved attending class a number of times, doing a group presentation and writing a short essay, but on the whole the workload for the class was not difficult at all, and there was plenty of time for us to explore Japan.

Alcohol was easy to come by since the vast multitude of vending machines contained beer. Basically, if you could reach the money slot, you could get your hands on pretty much whatever you wanted.

The people were polite and friendly, which was a welcome change from the United States. This became apparent as soon as we stepped back into America and were greeted by a brusque attendant who rudely directed us to the line for U.S.citizens. On the other hand, in Japan we met people who apologized to US
for not speaking English even though we were in their country.

The food was also certainly different than anything I’d ever tasted before. We ate a lot of seafood and a lot of noodles during the course of our two-week stay. However, the food was healthy, and I actually shed a couple of pounds by the time we arrived back in America.

The toilets were also different, as we all found out the hard way, meaning we all got sprayed a
jet-stream of water after experimenting with the buttons next to the toilet seat.

I tried to come up with my favorite aspect of Japan or my favorite place we visited, but I just couldn’t. Everything I saw and did left a mark on me that will resonate for the rest of my life. I can’t say enough about the trip. I met wonderful people, I saw amazing sights, but most importantly I experienced a culture I previously knew nothing about and in doing so learned more about my own culture and myself as a person.