[Study in Japan Report] By Mupelwa from UNZA (Zambia)

Mupelwa Namfukwe our former exchange student from University of Zambia, who studied in Japan from April 2024 to July 2024 wrote an essay of her stay in Japan.

My name is Mupelwa Namfukwe. And I am 22 years old, and I come from Zambia. Early this year in the month of April I had the privilege to study in japan at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies as an Exchange Student from my home University, the University of Zambia in the Spring Semester. I stayed in japan from April 3^rd?to July 29^th?2024 and I came as an exchange under the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP). Through the African Studies Center, IAfP and JASSO Scholarship my air ticket and living expenses were covered. Therefore, this report on my stay will be in two folds my academic life and my social life.

Upon arrival, I was amazed at how clean and beautiful japan is, I arrived in the week when the Sakura were blossoming, being a lover of nature and flowers so I instantly fell in love with the place and I was egger to visit, explore and take lots of photos. As if that was not enough, I found the people extremely nice and welcome. The African studies Center and IAfP hosted a welcoming party for the other exchange students and I, there I met a wonderful person called Miho, she was so welcoming and she made me feel at home. We later exchanged contacts and continued to keep in touch ever since, we shared and exchanged our cultures through stories and showing each other photos of what happens in our countries, the differences and the similarities she further introduced me Japanese food but the one that I liked the most was the famous Takoyaki .

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I had never visited any other city apart from Fuchu and Kichijogi until Miho decided to take me to Harajuku. It is a very beautiful city with so many tall buildings, we roamed around and she took me to Harajuku street, I was so amazed at how crowed it was, apparently the street is famous because Justin Bieber was there once and aside from that the street had tasty food. She also took me to Shibuya, where we took photos of the Shibuya crossing and took pictures on a statue that is just near the crossing and lastly we went to Shinjuku were we had lunch at the government office and went to the 45^th?floor just to see the beautiful view of the city. Another very interesting visit was Akihabara the city of gadgets this city throw me off for a bit, as I experienced a cultural shock just by how some ladies would stand in the side of the road and give out flyers while dressed as maids.

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I also got the privilege to attend an African-Japan cultural party at the JICA office where I met and connected with other Africans from my country and countries such as Angola, Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo. I also got to connect with some Japanese where we played awesome and fun games.

Aside from that, my Zambian friends and I decided to visit Disney sea, it was a very awesome and emotional experience for me in that I was taken back to my child hood, the time I used to watch Disney princesses on Television and hoping one day I would meet them in real life .I had never been on a roller-coaster so getting on one was the most frightening, thrilling and exciting feeling I loved it !

My other aim was to get settled and familiarize myself with the learning system. I am development studies major at my home university, so I was really interested in taking classes that encompassed around this topic and I was beyond amazed at how many classes there was. My most favorite thing about the courses I was taking was that they encouraged me to critically think and not just relaying on what the books say or what the professor said. Despite this being new to me, it posed as a challenge and a push to work extra hard as a change maker I ascribe to be through the presentations and the discussions we held in class.

During my stay there, I as well faced some challenges as everything is different from my home country especially when it came to the language. I was not very familiar with the Japanese language so understanding and communicating with people especially in the convenient store and also during the Japanese class was a challenge especially if I didn’t have my phone for google translate hence making a lot of friends was very difficult or having to communicate with people was difficult. Another challenge I faced was the food, I am allergic to pork so I found that most of the Japanese food was somehow mixed with pork. That limited me to having Japanese finest foods, and not only that, the cooking methods were very different in that everything in Zambia is cooked but I was shocked to find out that some of the foods especially fish was ate raw or just glazed and lastly the weather pattern. It was not something I was used too hence the beginning spring for me was cold until it became hot.

The heat was new for me for the fact that it would get hot and humid when in my country it just gets hot and since we have a lot of tress outside it is to go outside and get some fresh air. So I would find myself sweating a lot. But my friend Miho advised me to buy a fun and ensure my AC is on and also drink enough water to rehydrate.

All in all, me visiting and staying in Japan was the highlight of my year, as I got to experience a different culture, a different type of language and a different type of people therefore I can say I had a great time with making long lasting friendships and connections despite all the challenges. And if given more time I would have definitely become used to everything. I am truly grateful for the opportunity and I’m looking forward to coming back. Sayonara!