Saturday, June 10, 2006

Catching Up With The Ever Expanding Flow Of Experiences

Although I was planning to quickly knock up another update to inform you about all the serious stuff, contrary to the image you could have get from the last post, I am also doing, I just couldn’t get round it. And the reason is that we are doing some projects for school which I am taking pretty seriously. I know that in this blog I have never informed you, about the exact content of what I was doing, as in studying, at University. One of the reasons is because it was basically all stuff related to improving my Japanese, such as reading text, writing essays and holding speeches. We also had lectures concerning a whole range of subjects loosely related to Japan and it’s culture, and because it was not a succession but all were stand alones it really depended on the subject and the teacher if it was interesting. Those classes are finished now but that doesn’t mean there is nothing left for me to do.
But we had the really nice opportunity in the second semester to also take some of the regular classes the Japanese are taking, although we can’t take the exam (which is not too bad, because as for credits for my home-university I receive none). In the end there are 4 classes I am taking, namely the Japanese Constitution, Law and State, Japanese Philosophy and Film Studies. All 4 are really interesting, with quite inspiring lectures who know what they are talking about. One of the things that did struck me was the total absent of reading material in preparation for the class, or otherwise assignments that had to be prepared in advance for the exams.
In the framework of my program I am following two literature classes, as well as a seminar in sociology for which we have to conduct fieldwork. With 2 friends I am investigating into youth deviant behavior, as well as general feeling towards, high schools (age range of 15 to 18 years) and what relation this has with ranking of the school. Japanese High schools all offer the same curriculum but it depends on how good you master this curriculum if you are able to process to a good university, which again is helpful for finding a good job. So in Japan there is a ranking of schools that are very successful in getting a lot of their students into good universities. Our fieldwork consist of conducting interview with people who are now in Kyoto University, as well as people who are working in the entertainment industry about their school experiences, the attitude of their schools towards behavior that broke the school rules, such as underage smoking, drinking, using drugs, going to pachinko parlors.
It`s really nice experience conducting this sociological fieldwork in the country that you are studying. I have totally no previous experience in doing this kind of research nor do my friends, but it offers us an opportunity to experience doing an anthropological /sociological research, in stead of just reading about it. We are expected to write a paper of 30 pages concerning this subject.
Apart from that paper we also have to write an individual paper of 25 pages in Japanese. My subject for this research is Kato Hiroyuki, who as first Japanese introduced German culture in Japan. My major interest in him stems from the fact that in his personal beliefs he made a big turnabout from being a promoter of Human Rights to dismissing the existence of Human Rights. This change was most likely heavily influenced by German works he was reading. In my paper I am researching what kind of idea’s especially with regards to the relation between state and individual were espoused during the 1890`s and influenced Kato in changing his opinions. As well as and what kind of influence Kato`s writing had on the government stance regarding those issues.
And as a preparation for this big paper, we also have to write a smaller one, which I do about the proposal of incorporating `patriotism` in the school curriculum.
All and all, I spend quite some time, reading books, or behind a computer screen, so I call it a day for this post. And I will abandon this screen in favor of a T.V. screen to watch the World Cup.

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