FAQ: What am I eating here in Japan?

It's been close to two years living in Japan. As a student studying full time and active in various activities throughout the week but with limited funds, what do I eat? The answer in Japan, is variety. Let me introduce a sample of what I eat on a day to day basis.

I 'd eaten all my meat at the time I took this photo, but with a couple hundred grams of chicken or pork and the above ingredients, I can whip up a stew for 2.5 meals (for every two servings advertised, I usually finish it in one). The whole process from preparation to serving takes about 20 minutes; very reasonable I think for a hot nutritious and economic meal in winter.

On the left is what is called a retort pouch or a sealed plastic pouch containing ready made sauce. It's not just sauce though, with vegetables and meat and all sorts of other things combined. The packaging says this one pack feeds 2-3 people, but I eat one packet per meal along with rice. Total preparation and cooking time, less than 5 minutes, total cost, around $2AUD.

There are many varieties of retort pouch meals, which often require you to buy and prepare one to three ingredients, to which you add the contents of the pouch, stir and serve. It's all very easy, quick, healthy, and economic. I eat anywhere from one to five of these meals each week.

My classic Japanese style breakfast. There are some days when I get lazy and just go for cereal and milk, but where I can, I make a bowl of miso soup, eat a container of natto beans, include some fish usually the particular flavour of canned mackerel pictured (there are many flavours but this is the only one I really like), Japanese seaweed (tbh Korean seaweed tastes better), along with rice. Japanese breakfast is so easy to make and so healthy, and so cheap! All up one meal would cost me aruond $2AUD.

Another impressive range of retort pouch meals. Unlike the previous showcase, these come ready to eat with no preparation required. Generally they taste better heated, but for example in the middle of the heat of summer I eat them without heating them, and they taste fine. There is an almost infinite variety of these premade ready to eat meals. The great part, is that they can be as cheap as less than a dollar a serve.

This is also another great meal option - good old Western style spaghetti. I learned a neat little trick from one of the cooking shows here to save time, and to optimise the texture of the spaghetti. It's to soak the pasta in water for over two hours (three in winter) before cooking. You can soak it up to 24 hours. If you strain the water and store it in the fridge, it can keep for a week. Surely you'd feel like eating pasta at least once a week.

There are three major advantages of preparing it like this. One, you need a fraction of the water required to boil non-presoaked pasta, because it's already soft so it easily fits even into a mug-sized pot. Two, once the water starts boiling, it only takes one minute to cook. Rather, you don't want to keep it in for more than a minute, for the third major advantage, which is that the pasta cooks al dente all the way through. This is because the water particles have already permeated right into the core of the pasta strand, and all they need is to be heated up by the boiling water, causing the spaghetti strand to cook evenly from outside to inside, thus maintaining maximal springiness. This is super tasty, and pasta + sauce is even cheaper than rice + toppings. But I still love my rice.

You were probably wondering, "where's the instant noodle?" Yep, here it is. But as you can see from the photo, I only ever keep a maximum of two in stock. Because I know they're not a healthy meal option, and it's just too easy to prepare better alternatives to cup noodles. Having said that though, I love Japanese cup noodles. There are so many more interesting flavours than Australia, and for so much cheaper. I bought both of these for less than a buck apiece.

Next, a look at what my cooking apparatuses are like. Top right is a hot water boiler, which I use for heating up the retort pouches, boiling eggs and boiling water for the miso soup and cup noodles, as well as cooking my spaghetti when I'm too lazy to whip out a pot. To left is my trusty rice cooker. It can cook up to three cups at a time, one cup per meal, perfect size. Very space and energy efficient.

On the bottom is my fridge. You may notice I don't own a freezer. I haven't used one for almost a year now, and I've had no problems. It means I have to make a couple more trips to the supermarket, but for the cost saved on electricity on an appliance I can live without, I am more than willing to make the sacrifice. This bar fridge has been more than sufficient to keep the ingredients I need to keep the ingredients I need to make all my meals for a week.

You may also notice that there is no microwave. Most Japanese people place it above their fridge, and stack their rice cooker on top of the microwave. I would too, if I had one. But the microwave, I have also not owned for the past year. And I managed to survive - quite comfortably too. Living in an already cramped dormitory room, I'm glad there was no microwave to further reduce my moving and breathing space.

To top it all off, this is a sneak backstage view of my "stash" for when I'm feeling peckish. As much as I try to be healthy, I still have a sweet tooth to satiate, particularly after a meal. You'll notice, however, that I keep a variety of snacks, ranging from chocolates to sweets to biscuits, and keeping both sweet and savoury (and sour) in store. I like to maintain some variety, even in my in-between mealtimes :)

Hope you found this segment on food culture in Japan as a bachelor insightful. Until next time :)

(ad)mission: complete

It's been a while since I published my last vlog. To be precise, the last time was when I moved into my new accommodation. And so was the time before that.

So in continuing that tradition, here is my fourth vlog, about… you guessed it. I'll let it do the rest of the explaining.

Autumn semester: Complete

Sorry for the long period of nonresponsiveness! As of this week, exams are over, results have been returned, and holidays begin!

It's been no short of hectic this semester, since the results from this semester and this semester only get sent to our prospective universities. Everyone has been studying the hardest they've been to date, and arguably, the hardest they ever will this entire academic year. There is a final winter semester left beginning in January before we graduate, but we need no more than a passing grade, regardless of which university we are aiming for next year, so I'm anticipating a lot less studying and a lot more enjoying from here. 

Exam schedule for end of semester exams

There was a weekend in the middle of our four day exam period. We were so grateful for it! - till the details of which exams took place when came out. Literally ALL of the time consuming subjects were held before the weekend, while those that took only a fraction of the effort to study for were after it. At the time, everyone was like, I don't even…!

Later I realised that the exams that take the longest for us to write, also take the longest for the teachers to mark. And all of the exams were scheduled to be marked and returned to us the day after exam period was over. Since the exams containing the most content would also take the longest time for the teachers to mark, it made sense that they were given the weekend to have more time. I can sympathise with the teachers here in Japan who operate under such high pressure.

So in continuation of recording my results for future record, and sharing them with those back in Oz:

Kanji writing/reading	99
Japanese grammar	99
Japanese reading	92
Japanese listening	100
Japanese speaking	90
Japanese composition	88
Politicoeconomics	8586
Japanese history	100
Japanese studies	90.4

Not even worth mentioning is how the marking scheme for the politicoeconomics exam has once again been altered post-exam. Should I mention that this time, he also modified the exam itself, halfway through the exam? The topics we learned about this semester were identical to those covered by Japanese high school students - or at least we would have learned them, if we'd actually been taught it properly. Why couldn't he use an established textbook to structure the syllabus and learning content instead of talking about something completely irrelevant to the handouts he gives us each lesson and then expects us to retain both the handout content and what he was talking about? This is the only exam for which I stayed up beyond my normal bedtime, three days in a row, before the exam itself. And it still ends up as my lowest scoring subject. Enough venting from previous posts, so I'll leave it here.

I might mention here that there is negligible difference in final university preferences between getting a 90 and getting a 100. The grading system used by the school here is that 90 and above equates to an "S", 80-89 is an "A", 70-79 is "B", 60-69 is "C", and below 60 is fail. So ultimately, that means the two 100 mark subjects aren't anything special, and instead, for two subjects I failed to get an S grading. According to the teachers, I lose my chances of getting into Tokyo University, since their minimum expectation is apparently an S grading for all subjects.

I'm not disappointed or anything by that, since at least most of the universities in Japan have a high standard of education. If anything, it saves me the temptation of boasting in my own ability by starting to think I did it all by myself, and forgetting God's grace and His sovereignty. I do admit that whenever I contemplated studying at TokyoU these past few months, it only ever fed into my pride, which is already a major spiritual struggle to deal with. I'd appreciate your prayers for an awareness of how I as a sinner have nothing to boast about before God, and to remember how I depend upon the grace of Christ poured out on the cross for my sin.

Sorry for my long absence from my blog, and thanks for all your prayers through that time guys :)

Meeting an Australian Senpai from Tokyo University

Yesterday I met for the first time with an Australian who came to Japan on the same program as me back in 2004. This has actually been the second Australian senpai I've met since coming to Japan, but due to my unfamiliarity with blogging at the earlier instance, I neglected to say something about it here. The first senpai completed her undergrad studies at TUFS beginning of this year, whilst the one I met yesterday graduated from 東大, aka, Tokyo U. And they're both really friendly and helpful people.

In Japan, you refer to people who have gone down the same path before you, "senpai". The one who comes after, is referred to as "kohai". Objectively, these distinguishing terms are just there to indicate who has been around for longer, subsequently having more experience and usually (but not always), age. Even in Australia there are peer support and mentoring programs to connect newbies wih senpais in schools and universities and such, but Japan makes a particularly big deal out of it. Unlike things like peer support and mentoring which only go on for a year or so, the senpai-kohai relationship between two given Japanese people, is forever, or so I hear. The implications are interesting. Say there's a third year male uni student and second year female uni student in a given sporting club. Irrespective of gender, the second year student would continue to use polite form Japanese when communicating with the third year whilst the third year student would use casual language in response, and they'll continue to do so for as many years as they remain in the same club. Even if they start going out, the politeness levels won't change. It's not surprising to see this difference in status, reflected in their communication style, carry on into marriage.

As a related story, one of our teachers told us about two girls she met who grew up in the same city, and had always been in the same class, and were really good friends. However, somewhere down the track, one of the girls ended up starting university one year earlier, though they ended up in the same university, making her a senpai to her long-time friend. That caused them considerable difficulty, since even though they were such close friends, societal expectations expected them to observe their status difference in the language they used. Apparently the train they used to commute to university crossed a large river, which marked the boundary between two cities. The two girls agreed that once the train crossed the river, they would become senpai and kohai, and when they crossed it again to come back home, they would be normal friends again. Only in Japan.

My Australian senpais and I are all aware of that Japanese custom, but at the same time, we're foreigners so it's ok to talk as friends anyway. Not to mention, English lacks the function to express different levels of politeness that Japanese has so it's frankly quite impossible to communicate such status differences through conversation anyway. Having said that, they still shout me lunch/dinner since I'm their kohai :D

Anyway, to pick up where I left off, I arranged to meet with the Tokyo U senpai yesterday to find out more about what it was like to study there. She just so happened to have a Malaysian friend who came on the same program in the same year as her and graduated with a degree in education from Tokyo U, so she kindly brought her along as well.

Tokyo U has multiple campuses around Tokyo. All students in the undergrad program are required to do their first two years of study at the Komaba campus, and during this time, to take a variety of subjects from both science and arts faculties, irrespective of their major. After that, they do proper study for their major over the next two years at their respective campus, which is the Hongo campus for an education major.

Tokyo U has numerous dorm facilities, but according to my senpai, students from our program are only offered the Mitaka dormitories which aren't exactly close to any of the campuses. Apparently it's like a haunted house… I guess I'll have to wait to find out what that means. Though on the bright side, the rent is １万円, or about AUD$100, per month. To compare, our current dorm rent is ２万２千円 (~AUD$220) per month. Dirt cheap, specially considering it's Tokyo.

I was advised to research into the professors in the Education department well, because I'll need to ask one of them to be my supervisor for the latter two years of study.

Something I was informed about Tokyo U a short while back is regarding their Christian group. Apparently there are a lot of non-Christians in the Japanese Bible study at Tokyo U, praise God! It's been keeping the leaders busy. The flipside, however, is that they've been kept from starting and maintaining an English Bible study group. If I do end up getting into Tokyo U, I figure I may as well be in an opportune position to start one. In the meantime, your prayers for direction for next year would be highly valued. God bless :)

University selection - first post

On Thursday we spoke with representatives from 30 national universities from all over Japan. Although invitations were sent out to all 86 national universities nationwide, clearly not all of them bothered to come all the way to TUFS. Tokyo University was one such university - clearly because it's too far for them to commute from the other part of Tokyo to here, when even Hokkaido university sent one representative (and he was very passionate about his university). Why did invitations only go out to the national universities of Japan? Because in our program, we are only allowed to apply for entrance into a national level university. Makes sense - after all, our study is completely funded by the Japanese government.

First we listened to a 5 minute presentation from each university, which gave us a general overview of what courses they offered, how many students and teaching staff they have, the cost of living in that area, the university's unique characteristics, and so on. Most of them make almost desperate-sounding pleas for us to go study there. It sounds like they didn't receive much of an intake from previous years. Sheds some light on why Tokyo U didn't think it necessary to send anyone.

Next, the university representatives went to classrooms and set up stalls, and an hour long "personal consultation session" was held. In this time, we were allowed to visit any university's stall to ask questions individually (or in groups). However, there were at most three representatives from any given university so the more popular ones inevitably had long queues. The only downside to this part of the schedule, was that it was not enough time! To be honest though no matter how long they make this session there will always be someone who wanted to ask more questions, or visit more stalls, so understandably they had to make a realistic call on the time limit.

Many 'souvenirs' from the respective university stalls we visited

I had time to visit four universities' stalls: Chiba, Hitotsubashi, Yokohama, and Tsukuba. From just the course availability and relevant point of view, only Tsukuba remained a viable option for me as someone looking to study an education-related course. The others either required me to specify whether I was interested in primary/secondary/tertiary/special education, or simply didn't have an education department. Tsukuba, on the other hand, offers a more customisable set of subjects that don't appear to be limited to one specific educational category, such as educational philosophy, educational sociology, and curriculum design. Not only is Tsukuba's course design appealing, but also their accommodation choice. Most university dormitories in Japan either limit their occupants to one year of residency before forcing them to find their own, or is impractically far from uni (e.g. 30 minute train ride), or both. But Tsukuba, very peculiarly, not only has 4000 dormitory spots, but (maybe because of that fact) allows students to remain for the entirety of their degree. They made it clear, though, that that policy has merely remained such up until now, and is subject to change in future.

I want to find a university in Tokyo for next year, because I want to find a job teaching English while I study, and the city connecting Japan to the rest of the world undoubtedly offer the best incentives for doing so. That helps me narrow down my choices, and it leaves me with two other universities to check out before I can decide what order to submit my preferences in - Tokyo Gakugei University, and of course, Tokyo U. They didn't come on Thursday and didn't send any information packs either so I'll have to go to them.

Nagano trip

In celebration of the end of exams, we went on an overnight bus trip to Nagano Prefecture with our entire cohort. In total there were 54 foreign students in our program, 4 teachers and 11 Japanese students.

Our first stop was the Suwa taisha, a Shinto shrine. What's a trip around Japan without visiting one of these. Some people went to try their luck at the lottery available at Shinto shrines which apparently tells you how lucky you are. We also saw many wooden plaques hung with prayers written on them, most of which were about academics or getting a job. There were some things explained to us about characteristics of this particular shrine, though for me overall it was mostly a time of just admiring the architecture, since I didn't have much to do with its religious aspects.

Wooden prayer plaques

Shingen Mochi, a delicacy in Nagano. It was very yummy :)

Next we visited a wasabi farm. This was a unique experience, since it was apparently the largest producer of wasabi in Japan.

Statue of a wasabi plant.

Wasabi require a lot of fresh water, and apparently several hundred tonnes of water are run through the plantation each day.

We walked around the wasabi plantations, and at the end some people tried some "wasabi ice cream" and "wasabi beer". I personally was disappointed that the beer was normal beer with shaved wasabi added into it, instead of being brewed from the wasabi plant. The ice cream was just vanilla with shaved wasabi added into it. Neither tasted distinctly of wasabi.

We then visited Matsumoto castle.

What was particularly meaningful to us arts students was the fact that we had just learned in history class this half semester about the Shogun who had this castle built. The narrow staircases that connected the five floors of this castle were also interesting. They were apparently specially designed to make it difficult for invaders carrying swords on their backs e.g. ninjas to climb, since their swords would get stuck between the handrail beam. Very strategic.

The fish in the moat were very friendly.

At night we stayed at a traditional Japanese inn, called a ryokan, and had traditional Japanese meals for dinner and breakfast. Aside from the sake wine being withheld from our meals, it was certainly an experience to behold.

Traditional Japanese dinner

Traditional Japanese breakfast

Japanese meals are famous for being not just pleasing to the palate, but also delectable to the eye. One saying we learned in class was Japanese eat with their eyes as well as their mouth. The variety was amazing, and so was the quantity of dishes they would have had to do afterward. Everything came in small quantities, but there was overall so much food that even I struggled to finish it all (but eventually did in the end).

The next morning, we set off again by bus, headed back home, making various stops along the way like the day before. Our first stop was the Zenkoji Buddhist temple. We weren't permitted to take photos inside the temple.

It was really beautifully decorated, which makes sense of why it's such a popular tourist site, but visiting a shrine and a temple in such close proximity of time once again got me pondering upon the syncretic nature of Japanese religion. The way they seek to bring the two into harmony instead of accepting one and rejecting the other reflects upon the Japanese culture.

Our next stop was having a crack at making buckwheat (soba) noodles.

Four were assigned to each table, and we cooperated in first making the dough from the pre-prepared flour, then rolling it flat and cutting it into noodle strands. After we had made the noodles which took about 40 minutes, we divided into four portions and took them home. We were advised to eat them as soon as possible to enjoy the freshness, but I didn't eat mine until lunchtime two days later, by which time a lot of water had evaporated and it started smelling differently to when it was freshly made. It wasn't inedible, but it didn't quite taste like the handmade noodles we had at the ryokan during dinner, haha.

Our last stop, was my personal favourite - apple picking! We were allowed to pick as many apples as we could eat on the spot. What was unfortunate was that we only had about 30 minutes to apple pick before we had to leave so I was only able to eat five apples. There were six varieties planted in that particular apple farm, so that meant I didn't get to try all of them. But the ones I did eat were certainly very tasty.

Overall it was a good break. Unlike my various holidays during the summer break though, this had a heavier emphasis on sightseeing. Though we theoretically visited Nagano, it felt more like just having fun in Nagano than getting to see Nagano itself.

In class today we learned about a certain village in Nagano Prefecture called Shimojo. What's interesting about it is that although Japan as a whole has been experiencing a continuous decline in the birth rate for about 30 years, Shimojo has actually seen an increase. We learned about the cost cuts made by the government to subsidise housing for families, and to build parks where mums with young children could spend time together, amongst other things in order to encourage childbirth. Taking some time out to visit somewhere like this instead could possibly provide a better perspective of what Nagano is really like, not just as a tourist attraction. Still, our trip to Nagano brought us closer together, and we got to know better both foreign students and Japanese students alike.

Autumn mid-semester exam results

Mid-semester exams timetable

So I finally get around to publishing a post on the day that I intended to. Today we finally received all of our results from our mid semester exams that ended last week. Although it is unthinkable to receive our exams back so early in Australia, the reason I say "we finally received" is because last semester, the day after exam period ended, we received all our tests back.

Anyway, here are my results, both to inform those back home as well as for my own future record.

Japanese reading	92
Japanese listening	93
Kanji writing/reading	100
Japanese grammar	98
Politicoeconomics	81 85
Japanese history	100

The tests for Japanese were noticeably more challenging than the last time around, as are reflected in my results. Having said that, I didn't get that many wrong - one question was commonly worth 3 or 5 marks, so one incorrect answer brought you down from 100 to 95.

I'm extremely happy to get 100 in history this time round. Having solely studied science subjects for most of my life, I'm not much of a history person. The thing I hate the most about history is the fact that it's 10% understanding and 90% memorisation - the opposite of chemistry and mathematics, for example. But somehow as long long as something is somewhat related to Japan in some way, I have more motivation to learn it. It was with a personal desire to understand Japan's history better that I studied it this semester. The more I learn, the better picture I get of this country. And admittedly, my prejudice against history is slowly changing as I grasp the value of seeing myself against the backdrop of a bigger slice of the time spectrum.

Another subject I thought I'd point out, is that just like last time, politicoeconomics happens to be the only subject where the marking scheme was altered after the exams were marked. I emphasise that what was modified was the marking scheme itself, which personally is a bit beyond my comprehension. It meant that the one setting the test (same guy as last time, and same guy for at least the past 10 years in this program) didn't really know what he was looking for from us. How are we supposed to know what to offer if the teacher doesn't? I'm beginning to feel sorry for the teacher for my condescending attitude at his teaching style, and do acknowledge that he deserves some credit for what he does. It's only hearsay, but from what I understand, he's past the age where he can legally retire, but the school has retained him because there's no suitable replacement for his position yet. I guess he's thinking he wants a break now as well, though he probably has much on his plate by this stage. People inevitably get busier the older they get. I've been observing that also in my life and that of all my friends over the five years since it first occurred to me.

Another half semester down!

I am so happy that mid semester exams are over now that I wonder whether my feelings can be communicated through my words. Bit by bit, my quiet time with God has shallowed in time and quality. This semester has become hectic to the point where I don’t even have time to reply to my email messages. In other words, happenings in my local world are such that it leaves no room for the digital world, so apologies for my absence from my blog. Having said all that, I am nevertheless thankful to God for the fulfilling local world experience that have eventuated. And at the least, God has granted us Christians from this program to continue meeting weekly to read His word and to pray together without interruption. We met up again today, in fact, and it was a time of encouragement.

In the big scheme of things, many, if not all the students in my program are struggling with fitting everything into the time frame we are given. It hasn’t all come unexpectedly, as have been warned about this autumn semester. It appears that this semester's results, and only this semester's results, are submitted to our prospective university. That means two main things. One, this semester's results are incomparably more important than both the previous semester and the next one. Two, our cohort has suddenly become competitors, not friends.

Well ok, on the last comment, to be accurate it's not exactly everyone competing against everyone. If two people want to study the same major at the same university, there's competition, but if not, then it's ok, they can remain your friend. Having said that, there are about 15 people in economics and most of them want the best university possible. I'm glad there isn't that sort of competition for education. As of the moment I know of one other person, and our preferential universities are from different regions.

Anyway, to pick it up where I left off, we just completed our mid semesters:

Friday 10/4 Politicoeconomics (why is it always first??)

Monday 10/7 Kanji reading/writing

                          Japanese history

Tuesday  10/8 Japanese grammar

                          Japanese listening

Wednesday 10/9 (Today) Japanese reading and comprehension

And best part of all, Thursday and Friday (10/9-10): Excursion! :D We are going to Nagano city and Matsumoto city in Nagano Prefecture by bus with our entire cohort, four teachers and 11 Japanese students. We'll be leaving early tomorrow so gotta sleep early :P

But for the moment, a few comments on why the semester has been so busy. First is politicoeconomics. I have vented enough already so I will refrain from repeating myself, but I will say that I spent at least 5 times more in both time and effort for this one subject than any other over the final week leading up to exams. And I wasn't the only one who lost sleep over this subject. It wasn't because it was particularly difficult, since Japanese history (and getting high marks in Japanese) was about as difficult, but the completely disorganised structure of the subject combined with the increased expectation that comes with having progressed half a semester further meant that we didn't quite know what, or how, we were supposed to revise. As a result, our study efficiency was reduced, and thus the increased labour. I am pretty sure it is still going to be my lowest scoring subject nevertheless.

History, as well as the other Japanese tests, were structured quite similarly (which meant structured predictably) to the previous semester, so it was overall fine. Just put in the hours, and the marks will come. It was indeed straightforward, but some may view it as too artificially academic. Majority information recall questions and negligible idea synthesis questions means we aren't examined on whether we truly understand the information. But considering where we are at with our studies here, I think it's an appropriate means of solidifying our foundations at the very least, for tertiary level thinking when we enter university. Not to mention it standardises the grading for university selection next year. The above reasoning applies in the reverse to politicoeconomics, as it should have been made apparent.

Our results will come early next week, when I'll post them up just like my previous ones. Till then, Nagano, here we come :D But first some sleep.

Spring end of semester exam results

おひさしぶりです！(Long time no see!) Finally back from all my domestic trips. I hope to document each of my trips in more detail in individual, dedicated posts in the coming week. I am aware that I've said similar things in the past, and nothing came to fruition, but this time, there's one difference: holidays have started! Technically, holidays started on July 20th, but it hasn't felt like it till now.

So this post is the first of many overdue posts. I came back from my final trip this summer holidays on the 17th of this month, but I have been cramming flat out for my PTC correspondence exam since that time until today, when I finally sat it. To give an update on my previous post, I have turned down the Japan Tent international exchange, made my (possibly more than one) would-be homestay family very sad by cancelling, and instead committed to studying the remainder of the PTC course to the best of my ability. After all, I'm not doing this course for marks alone. The whole reason I began it was to get to know the Bible better, and it would defeat the purpose if I studied merely to pass. So I sat the two and a half hour exam for Introduction to the Bible at 2pm today, and used up the entire 2.5 hours. The good news is that I could answer almost everything, so it showed a good understanding of the subject content, praise God! Report of results will come in time. Thank God for the generosity of my church pastor who served as exam supervisor and made this all possible!

In the meantime, the following table displays my results for our end of semester 1 exams. I intended to write this on the 19th of July, when we got our exam results back, but haven't until now sorry >.<

Japanese speaking	90
Japanese composition	88
Japanese listening	100
Kanji writing/reading	100
Japanese grammar	98
Politicoeconomics	79 91
Japanese history	99

I figured there are numerous benefits to putting up my results here. Since my official job at the moment is student, I'm sure people back home want to know how I'm faring in that department, so I'll let my results do the reporting. Another good reason is that this will help me keep track of my exam results, as we have been advised to do.
I'm thankful to God for the marks that have eventuated. Our responsibility is to make the most of the opportunities and abilities he's given each of us, but the outcome is up to him. As I like to phrase it, trust God and do your best, and God will do the rest. Whether I get 45%, 65% or 95% doesn't matter; God will give me what he deems best.

These exams have on the whole been well structured in achieving their purpose of assessing our progress. We had to fill out a questionnaire on the quality of the teaching in the semester, and my responses were largely positive. The one exception, however, was politicoeconomics, as I vented at length in a previous post.

You'll notice that the dodginess of the subject is reflected in my mark above. The mark change was approved when I spoke with the teacher who set, marked, and reviewed the exam (without any cross-checker). Why did my mark jump from 79 to 91, you might be wondering? The whole difference came from one question. And that question, was entirely a mathematical one.

Because venting in only one post isn't enough for me, I'm going to vent again that you don't set arts students maths questions in a timed exam. Or if you do, at least do some practice in class, or actually tell us before the exam so we can practice. The question I lost most of my marks on was a question that required us to look at age statistics and calculate population proportions using raw data. We did look at the same data in class, but the teacher did not get us to work out a single math problem in class or for homework. He then proceeds to set us a 15 mark question, of which I only got 3 initially. To be absolutely clear, I understood the concepts and formulae needed to work out the numbers. So after I reasoned with him that I demonstrated my understanding by writing down all the formulae correctly and had written down the relevant figures but that we weren't allowed a calculator and I ran out of time calculating, he finally consented. I wonder how many other students in the class lost marks not because they didn't know their stuff, but because they couldn't divide 66,987 by 12,692 without a calculator. Yes, I bring shame upon my Chinese family. To give the full story, I admit that yes there was a shorter way by using alternate data on the sheet, but that still involved dividing something like 89.1 by 26.8 without a calculator and without being warned before the test, which is my primary complaint, and I maintain my position.

In any case, the first term marks don't count for this subject (precisely because the university knows unexpected things like this happen). So it doesn't matter whether I got 79 or 91, it doesn't affect anything. However, I strongly dislike the structure of this subject.

Start of summer holidays! Time to - get busy…?

It's been one week since end of exams, and one week into the summer holidays - and boy has the past week been busy. Before I realised it, it's approaching the end of the month, and I've only written one blog post (excluding this one) during this time. And that's not about to change (the busyness, and not the sporadic posting, hopefully) as the summer holidays progresses, and here's why.

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20 July - Holidays began

26 July - Today

27/7~5/8 - Shizuoka homestay program (where Mt Fuji is)

6/8 - Day out with KGK Christians at Tama Church

7/8~10/8 - Summer camp teaching Japanese middle schoolstudents English in Tochigi Prefecture

10/8~12/8 - Driving around Tokyo with Dad

13/8~17/8 - Okinawa trip with Dad

18/8~25/8 - PTC exam period

21/8~28/8 - "Japan Tent" International Exchange in Ishikawa Prefecture

2/9 - Second (autumn) school term commences

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Phew. Even contemplating such a plan overwhelms me. As you may have noticed, the Japan Tent trip and the PTC exam period overlap. Which is a problem, since the pastor from Tama church and I had previously arranged to have the exam set on 24th August. That's a bit of a problem. The problem is that I was only notified by the Japan Tent people yesterday that I was accepted, so I couldn't factor that into my summer planning. I always have the option of moving my exam earlier, and being able to attend the Japan Tent, but it depends upon the pastor's availability and even then, I will have virtually no time left to do my summer homework (which I haven't started). Please pray for wisdom in how to navigate this decision, what to keep and what to sacrifice.**Update, I have withdrawn from Japan Tent, to opt for more study time for the PTC.

A shout out to those back in Australia who came back from MYC and AnCon respectively! I can see on Facebook that it was an edifying time of delving into God's Word and fellowshipping with one another. I hope to join you guys same time next year when I come back to visit during my holidays :)

End of Semester exams - Sem 1

Six down, two to go! One today, one tomorrow.

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On Friday I had Japanese reading, composition, and Japan politicoeconomics. Reading was easy, but that means I had to be extra careful not to lose marks on silly errors. The composition was fairly ok, but I won't be expecting a perfect score. The question was easy enough - pick any experience in Japan so far, and write a structured, coherent piece 600-800 characters in length in 70 minutes. The time pressure was very stressful for some people though. The girl sitting next to me in the exam was from the top class (class A). With 20 minutes left to go, she had only written 400 characters. One friend only managed to write 400 characters in total when time was up (incomplete composition). So it was definitely not an easy test.

The politicoeconomics test has been the worst by far. The reason why it was so bad wasn't primarily due to difficulty. The worst thing about this subject was the course structure, from week 1 to final exam. As someone aspiring to become a teacher, I have a lot of criticism about how this subject was run. It's obvious that all of us are still getting a grasp of Japanese, so we will struggle with language. But instead of going through and explaining possibly difficult concepts in the written material (which, goes without saying, should then be assessed), the teacher chose to use a mix of sparse Japanese and poor English to talk about topics largely unrelated to the written content. Having poor English wasn't the teacher's fault, but forcing us to computate unfamiliar content in near unintelligible English wasn't a very smart teaching method in my opinion.

Furthermore, this has been the only class so far where the learning objectives of the course haven't been clearly outlined. We found out which topics covered in class would come up in the exam, and still, we didn't know what the exam structure would be - will we be writing short response? Multiple choice? Calculations? We were all caught unawares when what we were assessed on was largely our ability to write kanji, our mathematical ability, and ability to memorise tables of figures. Firstly, fair enough that we should be expected to know the Japanese word for GDP and GNI (gross national income). Of course we touched upon them in class, but not once did he write out those kanji for us, or hint that it was of great importance. I studied them because I personally wanted to learn them, but I never expected a direct question asking "write the kanji for GDP". Also, this is not a subject testing our mathematic capability. However, I literally spent 3/4 of the one hour we had for the test trying to divide 28,980/58,460 to find the ageing index and figuring out which three foreign nationalities in Japan had the greatest increase between 1960 and 2010, using a table of 30 countries. Again, it would not have been so bad if we had been told beforehand of our expectations for this course. But I honestly had not idea we would be required to calculate figures on such a minute scale, and I have a feeling I wasn't alone. On top of all of that, there was even one question directly asking us to identify the four countries whose names had been removed from that table, by looking at their population growth from 1960-2010. China, Korea and Brazil were countries brought up in class, and they were reasonable to assess us on. But why Philippines…? As far as every member of our class is concerned, we did NOT talk about the population of Filipinos in Japan. I am VERY annoyed that not only did he never hint at our need to study the six (ridiculously) detailed tables we'd been handed out in the possibility we'd be asked to fill in one of them, but that he even chose a piece of detail that wasn't of prime importance.

Lastly, and most importantly, there was not one question testing our understanding of politicoeconomic concepts. It would have been nice to be asked to explain what GDP was comprised of, or even how the GDP of Japan has changed over the past 50 years, which were topics covered in class, but not even slightly required in the exam. In short, this exam didn't assess our grasp of the overall aims of this course at all, and for that reason, it was a poorly thought out test. After hearing the feedback from his students after the test, even our teacher had second thoughts on putting so many calculation based tests into an hour-long exam. I get the feeling he didn't try very hard in teaching us, for most of the semester, using my own experience of teaching children over the past nine years as reference.

Here ends my venting. Needless to say,  I will be writing all this in the feedback survey we will be receiving at the end of the exam period. It negatively affects the learning ability of everyone taking this course.

Between our first day of exams (last Friday) and the second, we had a long weekend - yay! It was called Marine day, and I have very little idea of its significance up until now. Maybe I'll do a bit of research later on. Anyway, it was a much needed long weekend, to study Japanese history. I'm not exaggerating when I say there was an obscene amount of content that had to be remembered. I think I learned to write the same amount of new kanji over the three-day long-weekend studying for history as I did for this whole semester of Japanese class combined. Not to mention, we had to learn the significance of these words as well (though that was much easier than learning the words themselves since they were all related). I must have spent 75% of my waking time over the long weekend (amongst eating, attending church, and not showering) studying for history, and 75% of that time learning kanji.

The other two tests, listening and grammar, were not too bad. Again hoping I didn't make silly mistakes, because I checked very carefully.

Today is the speaking test, which will involve receiving a topic, being given 30 seconds to think about what to say, and one minute to say it. We will receive two topics in total. Not much I can do in the way of preparation for that, so it gives me time to write this ^^

On Friday, we get all the results back. At no point in my Australian school education experience have I ever received back an end of semester exam result so quickly. Only in Japan.

So this post turned out a bit longer than I intended it to be ^^" Apologies again for ranting.

Visiting Musashi Sakai Red Cross Hospital

First of all, a big public thanks to everyone who has been praying for me. I can attest that your prayers have made a difference, and been a huge encouragement to me. I know that God has been good in answering prayers I've requested, but also prayers I've prayed for others. I was informed by +Michael Tong in our google hangout last night that a non-Christian who visited our church back in Australia whilst I was still there, has attended on numerous occasions, as I prayed that he might. But again to exceed my expectations (and everyone at church, it seems), he has been reading the Bible at home of his own initiative! Praise God. Aren't I concerned he might see this post? I think it would be a good thing for him to know people have been praying for him!

And I don't know if it was because you prayed that I'd get better, +George Mason, but your prayer has been answered, haha. As I promised in an earlier post, I'm documenting the outcome of the specialist visit last week Friday. Apologies for the time delay; it's been a full on week. Also, happy golden week everyone!

I didn't understand everything that was going on, because my Japanese is still limited, but as far as I could ascertain, there were no GPs in this hospital. Since every person who goes to the hospital has at least some idea of what abnormal condition they have, from the beginning you ask for a doctor specialising in the field you want further examination in. For example, I was referred to the respiratory specialists ward. I also saw a neurological ward and a pathological ward. I suppose if you somehow caught three different types of illnesses simultaneously, it's up to you to go to each respective ward for the check-up.

The next thing I was surprised about was how young the doctor who I consulted was. He was a respiratory specialist no doubt, but he looked younger than 30 - although I have noticed that Asians generally look younger than their actual age. So anyway, his diagnosis was the same as the doctor at the university, 咳喘息. No photo of the doctor either. Asking the doctor for a photo would be quite strange.

What was also strange was the design of the medicine, although "different" might be a better description than "strange". Can you guess what the purple thing is used for?

On right left are tablets, but they are seriously tiny. Each tablet was the size of a pimple (ok maybe a fairly big pimple). They are certainly easy to take. I don't know what the proper English name would be for the contraption on the left (in fact don't know what it's called in any language) but it's like an inhalant. You can slide the tab on the spine of the container to expose a mouth that dispenses medicine in powdered form, which you inhale.

What also surprised me, for the worse, was the medical bill. Just a note that the exchange rate is approximately 1AUD = 100JPY.

It might be normal to expect $300 for a specialist consultation, but due to both my limited experience with medical bills and my stingy student perspective on money, it sounds like a lot to me. Even with the health insurance card that all students in Japan are offered, after a 70% discount I still had to fork out $90 for one appointment. The most annoying part is that the receipt doesn't tell me where the majority of my fees came from, since the consultation itself apparently cost $3. Additionally, the medicine set me back $30, also after applying the 70% health insurance discount. The moral of the story is don't get sick in Japan. Especially if you don't have health insurance.

On a different note, praise God that I managed to send out this month's prayer letter on schedule! Thanks for +Lauren Tsang's farewell present, which motivates me to continue sending out my letters on time.

I keep it with all my other keys, so that every time I need to lock the door or use the bike, I am reminded of Ephesians 6:19 and that I have the support of everyone's prayers back home, and certainly yours :)