By Pippa Byron

On July 22, we actually went to Japan…. Technically! Well, we visited the Japanese Embassy.

After entering the front gate, we were taken to an old, European style building. I thought it was really pretty. We watched a few presentations from different kinds of staff there. In summary:

In the first presentation, a Japanese diplomat, Minister of Public Affairs Masatsugu Odaira, talked about his long experience of being a diplomat in the U.S. and China over the years and the things he learned. The main thing he wanted to convey to us was the importance of meeting and making connections with people from other countries. He explained that through his experiences, he learned that it’s easy to generalize countries and their people, and maybe develop negative images towards certain people, but if you actually meet people, that human connection prevents that. As someone who has met a lot of people from outside the country, I really agreed with his message. I think I have learned a lot from those connections as well, and it has changed my worldview positively.

We also saw a presentation about the JET program, a program which sends Americans to teach in Japan, as well as two presentations about studying abroad in university in Japan – thanks to Education Counsellor Hiroshi Ando and JET program coordinators Grace Roberts and Sabrina Greene. I was surprised to find out that there are many ways to study abroad there, all with varying lengths. The other interesting thing was that it can actually be a lot cheaper than going to university in the U.S., even though studying abroad usually sounds like something that would be expensive.

We then had a quick lunch where we could also ask questions to the presenters, and then we went to the Tea House. It was a really beautiful structure surrounded by a zen garden. Being there sort of felt like I was transported to Japan. Speaking of that, I learned that, when you are inside an embassy, you are technically in that country’s territory, and their laws apply there. So technically, we really were in Japan!

I really enjoyed this experience and I learned a lot of useful and interesting things. It also just was nice to be able to go into an embassy in the first place, because I tried doing that on free embassy day but I barely got to go in any because the lines were too long, so this kind of made up for that.

I will finally say this visit made me more interested in both diplomacy and studying abroad in Japan, and I hope I can become involved in those things in the future.