APU provides various opportunities to interact with the Local Japanese community to better enhance students’ understanding of Japanese language and culture. Almost every week local events are held in which willing students are warmly welcomed to participate in. Students can find information for these programs at the Student Support Center and on their website. Also, a member of the Student Activity Station (SAS), a group of staff and students who help organize activities, will help you to find an event to join, or to create your own.
Some local activities that APU Students have participated in
During the break season, students will stay at the local resident house to experience Japanese life. This is very good way to know Japanese people and culture, and we see many warm exchanges between local family and international students.
Participating in a home stay program is always a wonderful experience. Since I like this program so much, I participated in it twice during my previous holidays. My host families are very nice and kind. We did many enjoyable activities together; from cooking meals, attending a workshop about Nohgaku theatre, to going to shiitake (Japanese mushroom) field and having a picnic under the cherry blossoms.
By living and doing various activities together, we are able to not only learn and understand Japanese culture and custom better but also improve our Japanese ability. We also can introduce our country and its culture to our host families. During my home stays, I cooked the Indonesian traditional dish and fortunately, my host families loved it!
Up to now, I still continue my relationship with my host families since I believe that we should not simply forget the experience and end the relationship when we end our program.
My family and I hosted Eck at our house through APU’s home-stay program. She was really cheerful and fun to talk to. On the second day of her stay, I unfortunately caught a cold and wasn’t able to spend much time together with her but it was nice to see that the rest of my family communicating with her. She even answered our request to cook Vietnamese fried rice and in return we made Japanese chahanmushi together with her. In the end I feel that being able to become good friends was the most important part of our time together.
Thanks to Eck I really feel like I found what it is that I want to do. Now I am concentrating really hard on studying about Vietnam at my university. Next summer I plan on visiting Vietnam and doing a home-stay at Eck’s house. I am happy that having a little courage to welcome students will open new doors for me and allow me to meet lots more interesting people.
