By Mihori Umeda and Haruka Sasaki
Amy is an international student from California, USA, where she is a student of California university Chico college. Her major is criminal justice. She said, “When I first started college I did not really know what I wanted to major in, but I was interested in the field of criminal justice, so I took a couple of classes to see what I thought about it and loved the classes, so I decided to major in criminology.†Amy came to Nagoya in March to study Japanese, and she is going to stay until August.
Japan is famous for animation in foreign countries because some Japanese animations such as Pokemon are broadcast in many countries. Amy was introduced Japanese animation by a friend and she loves it. Her favorite Japanese animation is Detective Conan. Also, few Japanese movies are released in the USA, but some Studio Ghibli’s movies are shown in movie theaters. Spirited Away which was awarded an Academy Award in 2002 is especially famous. However, she said Howl’s Moving Castle is the best of all Studio Ghibli’s movies.
Spirited Away which was awarded an Academy Award in 2002 is especially famous. However, Amy said Howl’s Moving Castle is the best of all Studio Ghibli’s movies.
Amy experienced some culture shock in Japan. At first, she said, she was shocked because there are a lot of stairs. Yagoto station’s stairs are particularly long, so going up the stairs makes her tired. Second, Japanese University has a time schedule. She said the length of school hours is flexible in her college. In Japan, classes finish nearly on time, but in the USA, the ending time of classes is undecided. Therefore, her lunch time is different depending on the day. Third, she noticed that college students wear high-heeled shoes at university. In the USA, most college students wear jeans and sneakers at university, so she was very surprised when she saw Japanese students for the first time. Finally, the Japanese language has many different ways to count things. For example, in English, people count thing simply saying “a pen,†“a notebook,†but in Japanese, they are “ippon,†“issatsu.†It is difficult for her to use different ways to count depending on the thing.
We are so glad to hear that she really likes Japan. We want her to enjoy the rest of her stay in Japan.