Varenica: "Throughout this exchange, I experienced being independent for the first time. It was also a great chance to try a lot of new things."
During my two-month exchange in Japan, I stayed in Chiba Prefecture, an area that includes part of greater Tokyo. I attended a private high school in a town called ‘Kimitsu’ and experienced the daily life of a Japanese first-year high school student.
On school days, my day started at 6:40 and I caught the bus at 7:30. The high school that I attended was two towns away and it took around 50 minutes to commute one-way.
Living in a rural area wasn’t such a big difference to where I live in New Zealand, Kapiti, and I also frequently go to Wellington, so the 50-minute drive from my host-family’s house to school was normal for me.
The subjects my class took included classes in English, math, science, Japanese, computers, social studies, world history and P.E. We also had school on Saturdays for half a day.
Every Friday, we had a two-period-long arts class. We got to choose between art, music and calligraphy. I chose calligraphy, and while I was there, we created ‘New Year's Cards’ and practiced using the brush by drawing the animated anime and manga characters Anpanman and Doraemon.
Varenica at a theme park with her host sister and a friend
A huge part of Japanese high school culture is the clubs. Although I didn’t join a club, I did occasionally join my host sister and went to the English Club.
During club activities, they research information and practice debating. They have club activities five times a week, which last for around three hours. So club activities finished at about 7pm, and I arrived back at home about 8pm. I found out it was common to have very late dinners.
My host family resides in a rural town in Chiba and the ocean is just around the corner from their house.
Once in a while, the town holds a small community event. The one I attended was a mandarin throwing event.
The men stayed at the front with boxes of mandarins and the grandmas all went up to the front with their plastic bags open while the younger adults stayed at the back, ready to catch some mandarins.
I expected them to gently place the mandarins in people's bags but they actually threw them at you.
Kids making the traditional Japanese rice cakes, mochi
A part of traditional Japanese culture I experienced was making mochi (a glutinous rice cake with filling).
There was a yearly mochi making event with a small community of people in the city of Kisarazu. It was a very family-friendly event.
Everyone had a role to play: men pounded the mochi and women and young kids shaped them. Younger kids were also able to experience pounding the mochi with smaller hammers.
At first, I was nervous since I had only been in Japan for a week, but everyone was very welcoming and considerate of my Japanese skills. They always included me in their conversations and gave me something to do, so I didn’t feel left out.
Throughout this exchange, I experienced being independent for the first time. It was also a great chance to try a lot of new things.
Something that was a bit of a shame was that it was quite hard to get to know my classmates due to the limited amount of time I was with them. But one thing that I really liked about Japan was that the people there tend to always be more optimistic and positive about everything.
If I had the chance, I would definitely have liked to stay in Japan longer.
The Asia New Zealand Foundation helped Varenica study in Japan with a Japan Study Grants thanks to funding from Nakashimato Co Ltd. of Japan.