First final essay: Cultural Experiences In Japan: Japanese College Life

Blake Foster

December 20, 2010

Japanese Language, Culture and Society- Fall quarter

Cultural Experiences In Japan: Japanese College Life

In the Spring of 2010, I arrived at the University of Hyogo in Kobe, Japan, to begin an academic semester that I went about half-heartedly; due to my own selfish reasons, I did not regularly attend a lot of the classes (though I did go to class every week) I had been signed up for. I simply had better things to do, or had better things to do the night before and needed the recovery. The reason for my candidness on how I treated school during the first half of my exchange is to make a point: during this second semester, things are little different in terms of how seriously I take class attendance, but the reasoning for it has changed. During the Spring I was not used to college life in Japan; now, during the Fall and likely throughout the Winter, I am completely used to college life in Japan, and therein lies the problem. Not going to class becomes as important, if not more so, than going to class in terms of being immersed in the Japanese college experience.

For classes specifically designed to teach foreign exchange students such as myself, I regularly make the effort to attend classes and to complete work. The same goes for any other classes to which I feel obligated to. Aside from these classes, however, are the ones where I am merely a tourist. Professors lecture on about material difficult in any language, well above my personal level in Japanese, while I sit back and make the occasional attempt to comprehend why Company A and Company B have a sullied contract in terms of Japanese property laws. In the position of tourist, however, and in the more active position of a student, both on and off campus, I have gained a deeper understanding of the Japanese college system. By looking at and comparing all of my classes this semester, I will explain my thoughts and conclusions that I have reached so far on this exchange.

The aforementioned bit refers to a class on civic and private law which I enrolled in. This class does not even require students to fill in attendance; students can earn credit for simply taking the tests. The professor simply lectures on specific areas of the required text books, and the tests are largely made up of copying sections of the text books to fill in the answers. Due to this system there are several students in the class that I have only seen once or twice. Some students did not even come to a class until four or five weeks into the semester. The looseness of attendance and the possibility of being able to pass tests by knowing what sections of text to copy creates a somewhat unusual atmosphere for a university setting. Often, there are a group of dedicated students who takes notes at each lecture. Aside from that, however, are students who move in and out of the classroom for intervals sometimes as long as thirty minutes at a time, and toward the beginning of the semester, students who even purposely behaved disruptively to the dismay of the professor. While these students eventually stopped regular attendance of the course, their initial behavior was something I found a bit shocking. It certainly contrasted with the typical atmosphere of university classes from my experience in the United States. It was almost as if these students still felt like high school, or perhaps more aptly, middle school students. The impression was that college in Japan still, on many levels, functions as a natural step for a vast number of Japanese young people. The entrance exams that they are required to take in order to get into a reputable university certainly has an effect on determining who stands as “college material”, but exam-taking too is so engrained in Japanese culture that it remains as a given fact of life rather than a personal endeavor to seek higher education. Thusly, if a student enters a good school in Japan, it was because they did everything they were supposed to do, not necessarily because they went above and beyond to get there. In this way, Japanese college both functions as another step in the traditional Japanese system, and also as a liberator from the system. The students who feel liberated, from what I have seen at least, tend to outnumber the ones who still study and go to class like they were still preparing for college entrance exams.

Initially, I wanted to try and keep up with the lectures in the civic/private law class. This would prove to be a short-lived effort. Every lecture tends to take the same exact context in terms of describing property and contracts, rarely diverging from the professor's nonstop pace. The methodology of the professor's teaching appears very old fashioned; his way of teaching never shows the sign that he feels the need to impress his students. His command and no-frills presentation of lecture material shows that he puts himself in a clear position of teacher to student hierarchy, even if the students could care less. While I do not try to fully make out the contents of the lectures, being able to see a professor teach in such a way has been educational in itself. In comparison to other professors who seem just as apathetic as the students (to be fair, though, I have not really witnessed any professors who performed at an insufficient level), the professor in the law course displays a uniformed and traditional way of teaching, regardless of how times have changed. Seeing the professor's style of teaching as well as the behavior of the students has deepened my understanding of the Japanese college atmosphere.

Another class that is conducted by a professor with an equally traditional teaching style, albeit a slightly warmer one, is the course entitled “Interchanging Societies”. In the same way that lectures are conducted in the law class, the flow and presentation remains the same each class. As a result, it can be difficult to continue paying attention. This sentiment can be felt throughout the class. Since this class requires regular attendance to receive credit, the students are somewhat more focused than the students in the law class. Every class students are required to write down their thoughts on the course and hand in what they write on an attendance slip. Lately, the professor also regularly calls out random students and asks them questions in regard to what they wrote on their attendance slips. Some students I have seen write a lot down on these slips, which is unexpected when some of these students are the same who skip classes more often than others. It makes me wonder if a little bit more appeal to the opinions of students would prompt them to be more intellectually involved in schoolwork, which is the case in the United States and particularly at Evergreen (although, constantly hearing the opinions of students does not always prove to be a flawless way of learning). Because students are required to be more intellectually engaged in the lectures there is a more serious academic atmosphere.

Nonetheless, the number of students with their heads down on their desks asleep remains relatively high, particularly because the class takes place after lunchtime. Sometimes students will sleep the whole class, wake up and fill out the attendance slips. Some students will come into class at the last minute just to fill out the slip and go. The lectures in Interchanging Societies do more to feed a massive amount of graphs and statistics than to interpret the data presented; the interpretation comes through the questioning of students and the professor explaining his experiences, but this aspect of the class does not always sustain the attention of its students. Though the professor is undoubtedly a veteran of Japanese academia, the traditionalism of his teaching style, although not as rigid as the professor who teaches law, still conflicts with the shortened-attention spans of the modern generation of students.

In somewhat of a contrast to the two aforementioned professors, is the professor of the course “Comparative Cultures”. This professor shows a great depth of understanding how to capture the attention of students, and has a fatherly charisma that engages the students and often draws laughter with colorful remarks. Though the course material is often a bit above my level of Japanese understanding, the lectures are enhanced by various visual presentations. The professor has been to various foreign countries and uses the photos he took there to juxtapose aspects of Japanese culture with cultures of abroad, at one point even using a research project done by a Japanese woman on an native tribe in Nova Scotia, Canada. By Japanese standards, his teaching methodology is relatively progressive. Professors like this often have a reputation among students for being “interesting” (quoted because the word for “interesting” in Japanese has more varied meanings in Japanese; such as funny, entertaining, etc), which is something I noticed when I was in Japan back in 2005 on a high school exchange; the more eccentric teachers earned a lot more points with the students. While this does not separate educators like this as being more skilled than the more traditional ones, it does show how cultural changes in the younger members of Japanese society has created a gap between traditionalist methods and more progressive teaching.

An even greater distinction between these professors comes from my seminar professor, a man who boasts about his wildness during his the days of, at times, radical Japanese student protests during later 1960s. More cynical than leftist, he always finds some way to make a snide twist on what his students are talking about during seminar, whether it be ridiculing his perceived inanity of catchphrases for Japanese ecological conservation (he took particular exception toward the phrase “kindness to the earth”) or his students' tastes in cuisine (McDonald's for one, although he admits to eating there on occasion). Instead of functioning within a traditional style of education, he tears the walls down in his conversations with students, even at times using polite language when speaking to his seminar students (most of them are female, and he is well known for his kindness to the fairer sex). His presentation of knowledge at times borders on self-indulgence in his own intellect, always asking students if they know of rare and underground topics, likely already understanding that they have no clue whatsoever. Also an instructor of the French language, a language and culture he often exclaims his fondness for, he carries a totally Westernized persona that has earned him a reputation in his many years of teaching.

For classes that teach foreign languages, the learning atmosphere also takes somewhat of a turn from traditional teaching styles. As language classes often teach culture at the same time, this is necessary in order to effectively teach another language. In the Chinese Communication course I take, the attitudes of the students contrasts to how students behave in typical classes. Because the instructor demands confidence and clarity when they speak in Mandarin Chinese, students have gradually grown more comfortable in class. The language instructor, a Chinese woman, has a very strong and straight-forward attitude, which some students describe as “strict”, which seems odd in that the attitude of the instructor appears more open than the traditional teaching styles of other professors. In this sense, some Japanese students may prefer a traditional learning environment where all they need to do is listen and take notes. Classes that actively engage students can create tension in that many Japanese are afraid to make mistakes, which in a way makes any class that intellectually engages students personally a contrast to traditional Japanese culture. Often times Japanese students will say nothing in response to a professor's question; some professors allow this so that the student does not feel embarrassed, but in the Chinese Communication class this is unacceptable. Some students respond well to this pressure to try until succeeding, as it builds their confidence when they get it right; others who are more apathetic toward learning may view it as an annoyance.

Another professor who teaches both “Technical Japanese” and “Intercultural Communication” uses a similar teaching style. This professor, who is Japanese, heavily involves herself with coordinating classes and programs for foreign students. As a result, the way the professor interacts with the Japanese language class, only made up of foreign students, shows an experienced understanding of intercultural education. This carries on into “Intercultural Communication”, where about half the class is made up of Japanese students and the other being made up of me and some Chinese students. Conducted all in English, the professor does her best to create an open and communicational environment. The differences between how the Japanese students, Chinese students, and I respond to the lectures and learning exercises show the sometimes stark differences in cultural attitudes. Due to the high level of communication involved in the class, as well as the all-English factor, there are very few students (around eight or nine) that regularly attend classes. This shows that culturally, Japanese college students are more comfortable with the more traditional styles of learning, because it requires less of their personal input; whether they are satisfied with this style of education, though, remains a question.

For the other Japanese language class I attend, “Japanese Language and Culture”, there has been a new language instructor in charge of the class. The prior semester was conducted by the aforementioned professor from “Intercultural Communication”; this time its a younger, newly wed Japanese woman who brings an even lighter-hearted teaching style. While the students, all Chinese, seem to enjoy her presence, there is a noticeable gap between the somewhat serious demeanors of the Chinese students and the cheery, sometimes sappy teaching style of the new instructor. The way the class is conducted seems more akin to a primary school atmosphere than a university. If the students of the class were Japanese, they might actually enjoy it more than the Chinese students. Because Japanese schools, even in high school, treat students like they are still children (and as a result, they tend to act more like children), Japanese respond better to cutesy-ness in their education. This attitude sometimes even extends into university learning environments; the attitudes of Japanese students appears somewhat more childish than Chinese or American students, at least from my own cultural perspective. This too is an aspect of Japanese college life that I have become more aware of throughout this last semester.

The attitude of going to class in Japanese colleges also starkly contrasts to the United States. As I mentioned before, Japanese students view college in a similar way to how they viewed high school and middle school; as an obligation rather than a privilege to education. While in the United States, a student in college who does not attend any classes even while paying tuition would likely be viewed as a complete fool; in Japan it is a norm. Upon bringing up concern about a friend's lack of attendance in classes (a student who is already on his fifth year of school, who still needs to take a full load of classes in order to graduate within the academic year [some students take care of all their class credits by the third year, only requiring the completion of their seminar class]), a friend of his said “I think it's fine for him to go at his own pace and do the things he wants to, don't you?”, to which I brought up the financial issue of college tuition and how delaying graduation only flushes money down the drain; he reacted as if he had not considered that aspect, saying “Oh yeah! You're right, that is a waste”. This supports the notion that college education is such a given in Japan that even while paying money to take classes, not going to the classes one's paid for is considered a rebellious act. The mainstream attitude of the Japanese learning establishment that the path of going with the grain, studying hard and graduating college to achieve a company position (a path that is more frequently leading to dead-ends in Japan's staggering employment rate) does not help to foster enthusiasm for going to class among more individualized students.

As I am not required to pay class tuitions to the University of Hyogo, I have felt a bit less guilt from falling into this same pattern of not going to classes regularly. While more dedicated to experiencing the learning environment than the last semester, I have found that not attending class is just as necessary to understanding Japanese college (a convenient loophole, yes, but it carries a great deal of truth). Being involved in club activities, specifically the Folk Song Club, well-known for its less than studious members, has inevitably added to the habit of skipping classes. Doing this, however, shows how a lot of college students tend to act in Japan more than simply sitting in class. Students will go out for nights of drinking even in the middle of the week, and spend the subsequent day recuperating instead of going to class. Some students will go to school nonetheless, on little to no sleep, and simply show their faces for class, which can often be sufficient in receiving some amount of class credits.

After seeing how a lot of classes function, as well as the fact that the classes operate on semesters rather than quarters (which arguably suits today's attention spans better than the semester system), it is almost impossible for most students not to become totally disenchanted with academics. Writing about what went on in a day's classes on my academic blog reflects the tediousness of the class cycles. Though the University of Hyogo is by no means a subpar institution, the critical aspects of what I have described in this essay more reflect the stagnation of the Japanese education system itself. Many Japanese professors I speak to echo these sentiments when I express them, even when I said the Japanese college system is almost completely useless in teaching critical thought in its students (an extreme statement that was nonetheless greeted with various degrees of agreement). The way in which students struggle with the graduation theses they are required to write also reflects the lack of critical thought development. Students are concerned more with the amount of research material rather than focusing on what their thesis is, what there thoughts on it are, and how they will prove it. Granted that students everywhere can struggle with graduation theses, the problem in Japanese colleges is that memorization of facts and statistics is emphasized over interpreting them. This can be seen in the class on law and in “Interchanging Societies” in terms of traditionalism in lectures, and seen less in classes like “Comparative Cultures” where the course is designed to provoke thought on studying one's own culture in comparison to others.

Granted, the world of Japanese college academia is far larger than what I have described. By no means do I mean to paint a critical picture with a few brush-strokes. What I have experienced and considered thus far, however, reflect the preconceptions I had about Japanese college even before arriving on this exchange. While the critical aspects have provoked the most though, the University of Hyogo has also offered a great deal of education for myself both in and out of the classroom environment. By getting a better grasp on Japanese college education, I not have a deeper understanding of Japanese society as a whole, which has made this quarter and the exchange itself an invaluable experience. I look forward to what I will see and experience in the last academic quarter of my Evergreen contracts and the last month of a the semester here at the University of Hyogo.