An AKP Diary

I went to Japan with the Associated Kyoto Program for the 2000-2001 American school year.
I was placed with a homestay family, and introduced to the faculty and staff of the AKP Center at Doshisha University. My eight months in Kyoto were a time of learning, exploring and enjoying life as an undergraduate student. Each day's routine was so much more than ordinary; commuting to and from the Doshisha campus, taking classes with AKP students, having lunch with classmates and taking time out to experience the city took place as well as time shared with host family members, conversations and outings with Japanese students and program-wide celebrations for holidays.

My host family lived within a mile of Doshisha University's Imadegawa Campus where AKP had most of its classes, so the AKP Center provided me with a bike to use to commute to and from school. Some students had a teikiken commuter pass for the subway or JR train, but either walked or rode the bicycle. After breakfast and hanging some early morning laundry on the balcony with my host mother, I was ready for school. Once I learned to ride on crowded sidewalks and maneuver around bus stops and pedestrians, ringing the bell on my bike's handlebars, I was prepared: rides to school took about ten leisurely minutes. I would park my bicycle on campus at one of the many bicycle racks, and head to morning Japanese class. The results of a placement test in the first week of classes decided which class I would attend. A morning of Japanese class usually consisted of speaking exercises, reading aloud from our text, conversation work in pairs or groups, and watching a video or learning to read some new kanji for a lesson. My most memorable lessons involved watching a popular movie in segments, and watching parts of a recent Japanese soap opera, respectively. Sometimes our classes put on skits, or took surveys of Japanese people to practice our speaking and oral presentation skills.

After Japanese, lunch in the Doshisha shokudo commonly followed, or a trip to one of the nearby conbinis (convenience stores) where there were a variety of o-nigiri, bento and other small lunch sets to buy. I often lunched with Japanese students I'd met in my class, the Doshisha-AKP Joint Seminar (in which both Japanese Doshisha students and AKP students studied together). Sometimes, I'd eat outdoors, or in the Gosho (Imperial Palace) across the street. In the afternoon, I'd attend my afternoon topic courses (taught in English) and occasionally an elective course, like anime, Japanese cooking or calligraphy. I took topic courses from a range of disciplines - studio art, history, cultural studies, theater. In the free moments of my afternoons I'd sometimes take a bicycle ride around the city, pick up some groceries to bring home for dinner, or spend some time corresponding with the States in the Doshisha computer labs. Certain afternoons I had my arubeito, so I took the subway to the edge of the city and spent a few hours tutoring kindergarten and first-grade students in conversational English. There was also the possibility that I could attend an occasional field trip with one of my topic course classes, to a typesetter's shop to print up cards for an art project, or to a human rights museum in Osaka for a course on discrimination in Japan.

On my way back to my Japanese 'home,' I could smell the scents of dinners being cooked in the houses I bicycled past. I parked my bicycle in the garden walkway and said "Tadaima" to my host grandparents who lived next door, and petted their two cute dogs. I'd unpack my things in my room and wash up for dinner with my host mother. We would talk and prepare food and eat, a welcome close to our day. My host mother would always patiently ask me about my day, and listen as I responded, in Japanese. We had conversations about all sorts of situations, real and hypothetical. We told each other stories about our lives and had a lot of laughs. After we'd eaten and washed the dishes, I'd retire to my room for some homework, correspondence with friends and family, and time to myself for reading, studying, and planning out my next day. Of course, there was also the marvelous experience of the ofuro, and for some, the futon in lieu of a bed. Life in a Japanese house was one more unforgettable Japanese experience. Student life on the Associated Kyoto Program was rich with new experiences and plentiful opportunities to enjoy life in Kyoto and encounter a new way of learning about Japan and also about oneself.

-- Joanna M. Sturiano --