Not long ago, I discussed how Christmas in Japan is somewhat different from the way it is in the United States. Yesterday, I saw the first of those differences in person. Last night, I went to 7-Eleven. There at 7-Eleven, I saw an advertisement for something for Christmas stuck on the window. I don’t remember what it was, and I also couldn’t see it that well because of how dark it was outside, but it was there. Typically in the United States, advertising for Christmas things does not typically start appearing until much later than it does in Japan, as we have another holiday, Thanksgiving, in November. As a result, stores begin to stock Thanksgiving-related items and have Thanksgiving-related advertising in November. Once November is over, Christmas-related items and ads start appearing with greater frequency. One other aspect to Christmas in Japan is of course KFC. Yesterday, KFC started accepting reservations for Christmas. In the United States, eating food from KFC on Christmas would be considered to be a very strange thing to do, as it is considered to be junk food in the United States and as such is not considered suitable for important holidays such as Christmas. In Japan, going to KFC for Christmas is of course normal. For several years after arriving in Japan, I wondered about what the association between Christmas and KFC is, but I didn’t research it until 2018. Researching it again just now seems to give conflicting reports of how this tradition came [→続きを読む]

This will likely be a shorter entry than usual, but one of my Youtube projects that we are currently working on here at Youyou is to introduce the various English-language programs that we offer support for. Basically, by condensing most of the relevant information about those programs’ admissions into a single short video, it will allow the viewer to get most of the important information all in one place without having to read through admissions documents to find the information. By making the information more easily accessible in a manner such as this, I think it should be a lot easier to find the relevant information. For now, we are starting with three schools: ICU, Keio’s PEARL program, and Ritsumeikan APU’s APM program. Ritsumeikan APU’s APM specifically has quite a few different dates to consider for its various application periods, so I hope that being able to have all of the different dates, at least for the current entry periods, all in one place will be beneficial. We will of course continue to do our information sessions in addition to this new series of videos, but having something that you can watch at any time instead of having to attend an information session will hopefully be beneficial. For now, the plan is to finalize these three videos and then to add more of them over time. I am also working on another project for our Youtube channel, as well, so please look forward to it.

Something somewhat interesting happened yesterday and the day before. There was an earthquake recently and I heard that some of the water pipes in some areas of Tokyo were damaged by the earthquake. For the past few days, there has been construction going on very close to my house. While I am not entirely sure if this construction work is actually related to the earthquake, I imagine that it might very well have been, as although I did not get a clear look at what work was being done, the construction workers were working underground for several days, but now the street that was dug up to do the construction work has been restored to its normal state. The reason that this specific construction was relevant to me is that it continued until at least 0230 this morning. I stayed up until then, partially due to the sound, and I continually heard construction sounds until then, at which point I decided to go to sleep. Today I asked someone about whether this sort of late-night construction is normal in Tokyo, and he told me that it is not. Still, this does remind me of a similar even that happened several years ago at my old apartment. The apartment that I used to live in was quite old, and the plumbing had apparently started to cause leaking in the lower floors, so the building’s plumbing had to be completely redone. As a result of this, I had no shower for a [→続きを読む]

I’ve talked before about living in foreign countries and how sometimes you must adapt to things that you may not encounter in your home country. Something interesting happened to me today, and it was something that would probably not have happened to my if I was still living in the United States. Today, the train line that I take to go to work was stopped. In the United States, the public transportation system in most places that I have been to is generally not great. It has generally failed to take me to convenient locations near where I need to go. The last time that I took public transportation in the United States, I took a bus and ended up walking for another 45 minutes or so after getting off of the bus because there were no stops anywhere near where I wanted to go to. In contrast to this, when I use public transportation in Tokyo, the bus or the train is always an extremely convenient way to travel, and it has always taken me to where I needed to go. The trains are mostly extremely reliable, but I have seen the trains stop running several times, including today. In today’s case, the line was temporarily closed, but when I arrived at the station, I noticed that the JR was closed. I went downstairs to the subway to find an alternative way to get to work. I was talking to the staff at the station when the staff got [→続きを読む]

Yesterday, I decided to start playing a certain famous game that was released only in Japan by Sega in 1996. One of the characters in this game speaks using the Kansai dialect. I have no difficulty understanding this dialect, but listening to it for the first time in a while reminded me that while I can understand it, I can’t speak it myself and I also don’t understand how it actually works. This, then, led me to doing some research on the dialect and how it works. While I was doing this research, I thought about the perception of this dialect and how it has been portrayed in various forms of media. Somewhere around the same time, I realized that English has something similar with its various different accents and that people have difficulty placing my own place of origin due to my own accent, with even my own aunt once telling me that I sound like a Canadian. I thought about how these various dialects are used in media, as well, and I realized that this sort of usage is very similar in both English and in Japanese. As I began to type this blog entry, I also realized something else; I have also studied both German and Spanish, and while I have basically forgotten the overwhelming majority of what I once learned about both of those languages, I do distinctly remember a few things about regional dialects for both of those languages, as well. My German teacher was [→続きを読む]

Here at Youyou, I have a few different responsibilities in addition to supporting students. One project that I continually work on is that I usually have an ongoing set of presentations that I give. There are several variations of these, with one of them focusing on liberal arts education in Japanese universities and one of which focuses on English economics and business programs in Japan. Next month, I am doing two of these information sessions. One of them is the liberal arts presentation. I think that a lot of students are interested in applying to various liberal arts schools in Japan, so providing them with relevant information is always helpful. It also gives me an opportunity to answer questions that students may have about application to those specific schools and to explain the admissions processes and requirements in a way that is easy to understand. My other information session, however, is one that I have never done before, a new one that I am currently researching for and preparing. This new information session will be officially announced shortly, but for now, I can say that it is something that is of great interest for all students who wish to get accepted to any school that has requirements for English proficiency. I think that this sort of information session will be highly useful to such students. Given the current state of the world, with international travel greatly restricted, I think it’s highly likely that many Japanese students who wish to study [→続きを読む]

I have talked about the difficulty of translation between languages before, but I’ve been thinking about translations again recently, so I decided to write my thoughts on the subject in greater detail this time. Right now, I am currently at a level of proficiency that allows me to consume some Japanese media entirely in Japanese. Some things are still well above my level of comprehension, such as scientific, political, or highly technical topics, but for the most part, I can understand pretty much anything that I encounter. This has, in turn, caused my confidence in my ability to understand to increase greatly. I am now at the point where I am considering replacing a lot of my translated Japanese media, mostly video games, with the Japanese versions. Those are the original versions of those works, in most cases, although there are some exceptions, as I do have several Japanese games that were actually written in English to begin with, but for the most part, Japanese is the original language. I don’t really need to do this, but it doesn’t really prevent me from considering doing it anyway. I have found that my ability to understand another language has allowed me to understand the things that don’t work well in English or can’t be translated to English at all. There are plenty of Japanese jokes or words or expressions that do not work well in English. The reverse is true, as well. Because some things simply do not exist in the [→続きを読む]

Today I want to talk about something that I have discussed with my students several times recently. Some of them have mentioned that they sometimes have difficulty writing essays for various reasons. Sometimes they have difficulty with getting started. Sometimes they have difficulty deciding what to say. Sometimes they know what they want to say but have difficulty with finding a way to type or write what it is that they want to say. There are other things that might be difficult, whether it’s spelling or punctuation or grammar or even something else entirely, but I have found a way that helps me to easily write strong and well-planned essays in only minutes. Basically, the first thing that I do is to understand what it is that I need to write about. This goes beyond simply reading the question, as the writer must first understand what it is that the question is asking for. Once I understand what the question is asking for, I will immediately decide what structure I want to use to answer the question. Once I do this, I’ll decide on the content and write what I need to write. With this approach, I have found it very easy to write quickly and effectively. I think that, with practice, it is very easy for me, or for anyone else, for that matter, to be able to quickly and easily write a suitable essay for almost any purpose. While this does allow the writer to quickly write essays, [→続きを読む]

Typically, I have found that the final four months of the year are the busiest part of the year for me at Youyou. Lots of the English-language programs have their admissions periods around this time of the year, with quite a few of them having similar timelines and sometimes even similar requirements. What I want to talk about today, however, are some of the non-academic things that I think of during this time period. One of the things that I associate with this time of the year is actually something that’s something rather simple; our office hours change during the summer and then return back to our typical times at the beginning of September. There are things to learn from such a schedule change, however, and it’s possible that you have encountered such a change before, even if you’ve never really thought about it. If your change your daily schedule, such as deciding to wake up at an earlier or later time than you typically do, your body will eventually get used to this new schedule. This is typically quite apparent when you find that you have to wake up considerably earlier than you usually do for some reason, such as having to wake up early to accomplish some task that you normally do not engage in. Your body might not like it if you do this, causing you to feel more tired than you normally do, but it’s entirely possible that you might encounter such a situation. In the [→続きを読む]

Recently, I have been planning a series of videos for Youyou in English. Although we do have ongoing videos in Japanese, I decided that it would be an excellent opportunity to expand beyond just having Japanese videos and to have English ones as well. Basically, my plan is to discuss things that pertain to studying in English, of course, but also to discuss other related subjects. One of my students recently mentioned to me that she would like to study abroad. Many of my other students have mentioned this to me in the past, as well, or have specifically mentioned that they want to study abroad or are at least interested in possibly going to study abroad. Some schools or programs may even require a study abroad period as part of their graduation requirements, as well. I myself have not participated in an actual study abroad program, but I have did go to a university that is located outside of my home country, so I think that my experiences might likely be somewhat interesting to students. One of my coworkers has also studied abroad, so we are planning on discussing our experiences with studying in and also simply being in other countries, as I think that our discussion will likely be highly interesting for those who are interested in studying abroad but have not had the chance to do so. Another aspect that I would like to explore, one that is also related to study in other countries, is specifically [→続きを読む]