Getting Oriented

After four days in Tokyo, we have apparently been oriented. What this means, I can’t quite say. Our first two days were filled with information sessions regarding our specific program, interviews with Michiyo, the site coordinator, regarding our host family placements, and excursions around the city with local Japanese students. These last two days have been official orientation days for the SILS program at Waseda University. SILS (School of International Liberal Studies) made sure that we, along with all of the other international students, were well acquainted with the processes required to register for our alien card, open a bank account, acquire a work visa, and other such important things. They also introduced us to the pinnacle of student life at Waseda- student clubs or “circles”. Japanese students make most of their friends in the clubs they join, ranging from Travel clubs to Uninhabited Island clubs (they talk about uninhabited islands while they drink, and then once a year go to an uninhabited island) to Volunteer network clubs. One of my high school friends is involved in an environmental club at Waseda. Japanese take their participation in circles very seriously, and these groups become their prime interest, even over their studies. In high school, these students were worked to the bone, attending regular school along with cram schools to help them place well in their college entrance exam tests, so by the time they actually reach college they are burnt out and, on the whole, are less concerned about school and more concerned about social events.

Another very key component to our orienting process has been the cell-phone selection process. Literally, the cell-phone meeting caused more chaos and excitement than anything we have done in Japan thus far. Service in Japan is relatively cheap, my total monthly bill (after the first month) coming to around 1300 yen, or less than $15. Plus, Japanese phones are literally years ahead of US models, so although our only options were the simpler free phones, they are nicer than most one can find back at home. We all feel very excited to get this lovely piece of technology back in our hands—In some ways it is very freeing to be disconnected from the world, but I think in this new place we are all looking for ways to stay connected to those we meet, so it’s going to be pretty exciting when we get them next Friday.

The final step to our orientation has been weaning us off of our Japanese student volunteers to haul the 29 of us around Tokyo and instead learn to navigate ourselves. Even myself, with my fatal flaw of apathy towards paying attention to where I am going, am finding my way and am maneuvering the subways better. The Tokyo system is different than others I have used before, so it takes a bit of time to understand the lay of the land. Plus, all of the signs use kanji (Chinese characters), and I am a really awful kanji-reader/writer, so the terminals are a difficult place, but also a great teaching tool!

Anyways, I am officially oriented to Japan. Well, not really, but I can’t believe all the things we’ve done while here already- so much more than I’ve written about yet. I still feel very green, but we sure have packed our days and gotten lots of great experiences. We learn our host family placement results tomorrow!