International Exchange

Frontier of International Exchange

Mygdalsky Volodymyr (Faculty of Law, Part-time Lecturer, Doshisha University)

  Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Doctor of Informatics at Kyoto University, Part-time lecturer for the Faculty of Law (Russian law systems and politics, Differential and Integral Calculus, Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics) at Doshisha University, acquired JLPT 1, Member of the Russian Interpreter Association, and a freelance interpreter.
  To many young people, Japan is a “Dream Country” by being economically developed and politically stable. As myself being one of them, I still cannot forget the feeling when I first stepped into Japan as a “Monbusho” sponsored as a foreign student about ten years ago. Being in an era of global mobility, it is very important to ponder over the issue of education for international students. Not only to support their academic success, but to also deepen the understanding of Japanese history and culture and to promote international exchange.
  Looking back at my own experience as an international student in Japan, I remember the bewildered feeling when I found a big difference between the “image of Japan” and the “real Japan.” I was disappointed as I found a huge shadow of American culture here and there; however, I was impressed to find “good-old-Japanese taste” in refined and modest expressions and carriages such as an “apologetic attitude.” It took me a while to rebuild the image of Japan but I was able to accept the modern Japan after being with Japanese people and discussing my honest impressions of Japan. I am sure that most international students in Japan have their own image and expectations of Japan and will go through the lag-time to accept the reality. In that case, they should find someone who will stand in the middle to listen and to give advice.
  Once I accepted the gap between my image and the reality of Japan, I became more enthusiastic and wanted to know more about Japan. At the same time, I wanted to people know me better too.

* Reprinted from the Cross Culture News No.10 on May 14.