I get asked a lot of questions about this whole big escapade. It gets pretty tedious explaining myself over and over again, so I’ve decided to kill about 20 birds with one stone and put up a blog post with an FAQ.
To all you curious people, here you go:
1. How old are you? I’ll be in 11th grade next year.
2. Isn’t that young for exchanging? Not at all. While many more students go in college and some in their gap year, there are still a lot of teens who exchange in high school. 11th grade is the most common high school year to go since you’re usually considered “old enough” and can catch up on credits senior year.
3. Will your high school credits transfer from Japan? Ha! I wish I knew. Japan is sorta iffy because it’s a lot harder to transfer grades if you’re testing in a language that not many people over here can read. Also, the grading system is crazy different, so yeah. For the most part, us Japan people can get math, gym, and art/electives. English almost never transfers. History and science are just the luck of the draw. I took 10th and 11th grade English this last year to make up for the English gap, and at my school you only need 3 years of history and science, so I’ll just finish those if I need to senior year. Math is the only thing were not sure of yet.
4. Are you going to a Japanese high school? Yes. I’m not going to an international school, an American school, or any of the above. I’m going to a straight-up, 100%, authentic Japanese high school. And, yes, I’ll have a uniform, if anyone’s wondering.
5. But aren’t the school years different for Japan? Yes. Japan works on a trimester system that starts in April and ends in March (wikipedia it, they explain it better than I). I will be entering a 2nd year high school class at the start of their second trimester, and I’ll be leaving after my first trimester of 3rd year high school (the equivalent of an American senior). Rotary Youth Exchange makes it work, but how I’m not sure. They’re just amazing.
6. Do you know Japanese? Not really. I can form basic sentences and say all the textbook greetings, but that’s about as far as my speaking goes. I can understand some of it, too, a lot more than I can speak. And as for writing... there are 3 “alphabets”- a basic syllabary (hiragana), a syllabary for foreign words and names (katakana), and those scary Chinese characters known as kanji. I know hiragana very well, but my katakana needs a lot of work. As for kanji, um, I know the numbers and little else. I’m working on it, but there are some 2,000 to learn to be “proficient” in Japanese writing.
7. If you don’t know Japanese, why on earth are you going to Japan? So I can learn it! One of my main goals is to come out speaking near-fluent Japanese and being able to write with more than just hiragana and katakana. I’d like to learn around 1,000 of the basic kanji (if that sounds crazy, it probably is, but I’m aiming for it!). They say most students can hold a basic conversation at three months, and more in-depth stuff at around seven or eight, so I’m not too worried about learning conversational Japanese... but I am a little terrified of the first month or so when everything will be VERY, VERY confusing. Wish me luck!
8. Why are you studying abroad? This question would take a good 10 pages of 2pt font to answer thoroughly, but I’ll do my best to make it brief:
--To learn another language.
--To experience another culture.
--To get to experience high school in another culture.
--To gain more perspective on the world.
--To be able to say, “Yeah, I’ve lived in another country.”
--To get to live with another, no, THREE other families.
--To make new friends from across the globe.
--Because exchange students are some of the coolest people you’ll ever meet.
And lastly:
--Because I can. Why not?
9. Why are you studying abroad IN JAPAN? This one I think I can answer a little bit easier. Maybe. But I’m still sticking to list format.
--Japan is awesome. Some people think it’s a crazy country, but I’ve always admired it and wanted to learn more about it.
--I really, really want to learn Japanese. Personally, I think it’s one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and a good one to know. Plus, being able to read in a script other than our basic alphabet will be neat.
--I love Japanese culture. It’s very elegant and refined, but it’s got another side that’s... well, look at a picture of Tokyo at night and you’ll see what I mean. There’s an art to everything. It’s sooo amazingly awesome.
--For those of you who don’t know, I’m an avid violinist, and Japan is a country full of violinists. I’m 99% sure that I’ll be getting a violin teacher in Japan, and I’m hoping to improve my playing and skill with music a great deal. But even if by some miniscule chance I don’t get a violin teacher, I can guarantee you I’ll be playing. A lot. I’d be playing a lot anyways, but yeah.
I think those are the main points... If there’s something else, I’ll write it later. And I’m sure I’ll have new reasons as time progresses.
10. Where are you gonna live? The first place I’ll be living is in Konan, Japan, but not a lot of people know where that is. If by any miracle one of you knows where Otsu is, I’m living very close to there. However, many people don’t know those places, so I tend to just say, “I’ll be living near Kyoto.” I’m actually about 30ish minutes away from Kyoto, but it’s close enough to use as a reference point. And I plan on visiting Kyoto many, many times ^^
11. Will you be staying with a family or in a dorm or what? One of the things about Rotary is that during the course of your exchange, they place you with about 3 different families. “Family” can mean just about anything: it could be a single 70 year old woman who lives on the countryside, or the CEO of Toyota (no joke, it’s happened before) and his family in the heart of the city. You could have 5 siblings or no siblings at all. You could be super rich or relatively poor (though Rotary wouldn’t place you in a family that couldn’t support you). But whatever you get, you get, and you deal (unless something is really horrible and you just can’t deal). What’s really cool is that by the end of this exchange, I’ll have 7-8 parents and a bajillion siblings :)
12. So, who is your first host family? That, my dear friends, is classified information. I will say that I have a sister and 2 parents, and they all seem very awesome so far, but beyond that I’d like to respect their privacy.
13. You’re going to Japan, so you must be a huge anime nerd, right? I hate this question. Truly, honestly despise it. But I won’t say that there haven’t been people who go on exchanges to Japan purely because of their television and comics. There have been. I’m not one of them. Just because I LIKE manga and whatnot doesn’t mean I’m going to Japan BECAUSE of them. I want to experience JAPAN, not just their comics. I can read comics in America. I can’t live in Japan in America. And if you can’t tell, I’ve been asked this question one too many times and had one too many people stereotype me about this, so here’s your answer. I’m NOT going to Japan for anime. I’m going so I can become bicultural.
14. How long is your exchange going to be? Surprisingly, a “year-long” exchange is not actually a full 12-month year. It differs among districts, but my district has me there from late August to mid/late July. So, yeah, mine’s pretty much a year. But other areas have theirs from July-May, August-May, July-June... The list goes on.
15. What is Rotary? Rotary is an international service organization. They do A LOT. You can look up exactly what on www.rotary.org, but essentially they help people on a community level. People in a city will form Rotary clubs (many bigger cities can have over 100) that work to support the starving, help those who need help, crush crime, etc. They’re quite amazing.
16. How does Rotary Youth Exchange work? Uh... complicatedly. First, I need to explain the divisions of Rotary. Each club is part of a district, or a certain area of land. For instance, the western part of Virginia could be a district, or maybe the middle of Nebraska. So, if a club is within that area, it is a part of that district. Also, each district is assigned a 4-digit number to keep everything in order.
To be an exchange student, you must first get in contact with a local Rotary Club a year or so before you want to go on exchange. Once you talk with them, you fill out a BIG application from the Rotary website. It requires letters, signatures (only in blue ink, or else), doctor forms, dentist forms, basic information, pictures, a lot. The Rotarian helping you through the process (probably the district chair of youth exchange) then turns in your application in November-ish. The application goes to Rotary headquarters, where it is approved or denied by around early December. If approved, it goes to your division (in my case, the Eastern States Student Exchange) where they pick your country for you. It’s not like you have no choice at all in what country you get (you write down a list of 5 top choices), but if they don’t want to or can’t send you to any of your picks, oh well! I was EXTREMELY lucky to get my #1 choice of Japan because there were about 3 people applying for every one spot in Japan.
THEN once you’ve been approved and your country is chosen, your application is sent to that country. A district in that country approves you, usually in January or February. After you are approved for a district, the people there go about placing you within the district. For instance, I was placed in D2650, but that covers 4 prefectures. I had no idea of knowing if I would be in Kyoto, Shiga, Fukui, or Nara, much less what city! The district finds a club that is willing to host you, and then you finally are placed in your first host family/school/etc. After this is done, they send all the info back to you, usually between March and June (I got mine in May). You receive information regarding your first host family, school, district rules, country rules, club rules, host counselor- LOTS of stuff. You also get a cool name tag ^^
That’s pretty much how it works. A travel agency books your flight, then you’re off to your host country. Your host family/counselor/someone picks you up at the airport, and the adventure begins!
17. Are you scared or excited or what? I am terrified and thrilled and anxious and excited and a little sad and very happy and so-many-emotions-it’s-hard-to-sleep-some-nights!!! Being an exchange student requires great ability to deal with random onslaughts of plethoras of tangled emotions. Part of me doesn’t want to leave my home and friends and parents, but the other part is just itching to jump on that plane and be in Japan already! But, all in all, I can’t wait!!! ^^
I think that sums up most of it. If there are any other questions/etc, leave them in the comments section below!
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