【留学レポート】UY1受入 Verdianeさん

ヤウンデ第一大学より2024年4月から2025年2月まで本学に留学していたVerdiane Yemata K.さんが、留学していた1年間についてのエッセイを書いてくれました。ぜひ一読ください！

Hello, I am Verdiane Yemata K. I come from the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon, anthropology major, medical option. I was under the university exchange program with Tokyo University of Foreign Studies . I arrived here in Japan in April 2024 and my program extended over two semesters (10 months), namely from April 2 to February 28, 2025. I was receiving JASSO Scholarship.

I was really excited to come in Japan because I heard about the Japanese culture especially food (ramen) and clothes (kimono), Japan was the right destination for me as a student in anthropology which is based on culture. My dream come true when I got this opportunity.? I have had lots of memories of my life here and I will talk about some of them in this report because they are so bombastic that I cannot mention them all. I’ll go into greater details about my experiences in my social and academic lives while I was living in Japan.

But before anything else, I would like to express my gratitude to JASSO for giving me a scholarship that permitted me to cover all my different expenses at TUFS. Also, I would like to thank the African Study Center, the Student Exchange Division, and International Student Support Association (ISSA) for the great support they provided to me thereby facilitating my life and my insertion as a student. Finally, I wouldn’t finish without saying thank you to my home university of Yaounde I , to my supervisors Prof Antoine Socpa and Oishi Takanori Sensei and to the students who were very caring towards me escorting us to every unknown place and making sure that I will not lack anything.

1. My academic life

As a student, I started classes during the spring quarter in early April, I then discovered a new way of teaching and learning with a lot of interactions between students and professors. We were very busy by making presentations, doing ?homeworks, documentary research and discussions but it was interesting and amazing. This allowed me to have more experiences, get more knowledge. In the end, it was such a beautiful experience that every student should live. The second largest challenge for me was to succeed my Japanese classes because I was discovering Hiragana and Katakana characters. It was not easy at all, but I did it the end and I am now able to carry on a basic conversation in Japanese.

2. My social life

Living in Japan was such an amazing thing because I have also participated to many events and outings such as zoo visits where I saw some animals for the first time, music concerts, cultural events in traditional Japanese homes and so on … these are moments that allowed me to have pleasant and joyful experiences. The most striking thing was especially the exchanges that took place about Cameroonian and Japanese habits. I was curious to know more about Japanese customs and I also received lots of curious questions about our customs.

3. Challenges

Living in Japan was not easy every day, sometimes I faced difficulties due to language, culture, education system and daily facilities. I realized so soon that someone couldn‘t be able to easily live here alone without being able to ask something on the street in Japanese, to understand the railway system which is not easy for a person who used to take car and bikes, I can forget how I struggled at the beginning and I lost myself many times while going somewhere, finally by practicing, it become easier and funny that I got confidence and I started moving everywhere.

I also faced the climate change with the weather in Japan which was very rude and cold for me especially during winter. I noticed that all the seasons are actually extreme in Japan, the summer is really hot, much hotter than in Cameroon where I come from and the wind is also so cold that you have the feeling that your bones are taking a hit so you have to take precautions at the risk of catching a fever.

4. Outside tours

Time flies very fast that we finally came to the end of this exchange program but I still want to live in Japan. I hope I could come back again and get more experiences. From my time in Japan, I keep interesting memories that I cannot count on paper. I think about it with peace of mind and joyful heart. I sincerely think that every student should be able to have such an experience and I wish it to all my classmates here and elsewhere.

Long life the exchange program!
Long life TUFS!
Thanks!