As a high school student, I was fortunate enough to attend a school that hosted a dedicated world languages department. Its course offerings including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese. I chose to take Japanese on a whim, spurred by a general interest in Japanese media, a vague understanding of the disparate island nation across the sea, and a competitive streak that sought the challenge of a language whose writing system and grammar eluded most English speakers. Unbeknownst to me, this seemingly innocuous choice would alter the course of my education.

   I continued to study Japanese throughout my high school career, my interest in the language and its namesake nation growing more pronounced each year. A determination to continue with Japanese contributed to my decision to pursue my undergraduate at St. Olaf, whose foreign languages department was – and is – extensive and highly respected. As a result of my prior experience, I participated in Japanese 231 my freshman year. To be clear, while I wished to continue studying Japanese in college, I never intended to major in it. The aim was to maintain intermediate comprehension in Japanese and complete my foreign languages requirement.

   Then, in the summer leading up to my freshman year, I was introduced to the Asian Conversations program by Professor Ito and Professor Kucera. Due to my technical status as a second-year language student, I could participate in the integrative program as a freshman. I was immediately interested, particularly in the prospect of an interim abroad in Japan and China, as well as entering a community committed to fostering global understanding.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Asian Con changed my life. The program encompassed everything I enjoyed academically: foreign language learning, history, cultural studies, and beyond. The course material displayed, for the first time in my education, the incredible diversity of the Asian continent. Not only was I introduced to fascinating new material, information I would now consider vital for any well-rounded education, but I developed a far more comprehensive understanding of Japan, the interactions of its culture and language. During our interim abroad, I was able to apply my Japanese study not only in navigating Tokyo and Hiroshima, but by conducting an interview in Japanese with two native speakers attending International Christian University, exploring the topics of education, Japanese perspectives of stereotypes, and sports in Japan. Additionally, I and a group of my classmates had the opportunity to visit Nagoya University, touring the campus with a NUPACE student and attending a personal Q&A session with the program coordinator. Two years later, I would find myself spending a semester abroad at the University.

   My edifying encounters with Shanghai and Hong Kong motivated me to further my Asian studies by enrolling in St. Olaf’s Chinese language courses as a sophomore. Studying two relatively complicated Asian languages simultaneously proved both a challenge and a joy. I went on to attend an intensive Chinese language program at Peking University in July 2019 with students from around the world, including South Korea, Japan, Italy, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. The program entailed four hours of immersive Chinese language studies each day, encompassing reading, writing, speaking, and presentational skills. Yes, the classes were rigorous, but I would argue my real learning happened outside the classroom. I fumbled to rent stray bicycles through WeChat so I could get to class on time, to procure lunch while having not even the faintest idea what the food I was trying to order was, to signal to a nurse on her lunch break that I was bleeding into my IV tubing while being treated for pneumonia.

   Through my experiences abroad, I realized it was the application of language study - that intricate interplay between language and society - that intrigued me, more so than structure, semantics, and mechanics. I made the switch from a concentration in linguistics to international relations. With a newfound resolve to learn language in context, I made the leap to study abroad, landing in Nagoya University the fall of my junior year.

   I took a variety of classes related to my areas of emphasis including several Intermediate Japanese language classes focused individually on reading and writing comprehension, listening and presentation comprehension, and grammar, as well as Business Japanese I, Kanji III, Go in Japanese Culture, and Multicultural Approach to Contemporary Issues. I was also able to sample several law courses such Contemporary Japanese Law, Introduction to Law, and Comparative Law: Common Law—courses that were unavailable at St. Olaf. Living in a dorm reserved for international students, I formed close friendships with undergraduates from England, Germany, Australia, Denmark, and Croatia.

With these friends I would travel far beyond the boundaries of Nagoya -  a haphazard group of young people brought together by a distinct longing to understand a nation so different from our own. Before the semester’s end, we would visit three of Japan’s four main islands – apologies to Shikoku. In the fall, we visited Kyoto, wondering at the vibrant changing of the leaves, momijigari as it's termed in Japanese. We celebrated New Year’s in Osaka – nearly crushed by a crowd on a Dotonbori bridge. We walked through Noboribetsu’s Hell Valley, stood under the snowfall in Sapporo. We rode the coastline of Fukuoka. We swam in the ocean, hiked mountains, and soaked in hot springs. We watched Nagoya’s sky fracture with a stunning Christmas firework display and cheered for the Nagoya Grampus in Toyota Stadium. We were pelted with and scrambled for colorful rice cakes at the neighborhood mochinage. We were even roped into marching a mikoshi through the streets of Nagoya, outfitted in a ceremonial ensemble that did nothing to protect our stooped shoulders from the shrine’s massive wooden beams.

   Many of my most memorable experiences were entirely unexpected. In December, I and two friends found ourselves as the only students to accompany our Japanese cultural studies professor on an optional outing to the local elementary school’s annual mochitsuki. After mochi sampling and a long conversation in the gymnasium, our professor invited us to her house for dinner. We accepted and, that night celebrated her friend’s son’s birthday in combination with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Crowded around a laden table in her living room, we chatted into the night, dining on baked turkey, gingerbread cookies, birthday cake, and sake.

   Yet, among the academics and adventure, insight gained and immersion attempted, there was homesickness. I learned firsthand it is when living within another culture that you realize just how different it is from your own. In those times when I struggled with feelings of immense loneliness, all while gazing at the skyline of a city with a population nearly ten times that of my own, I held fast to the knowledge that it is from discomfort that meaningful growth emerges.

   And so growth did emerge, both incrementally and dynamically. However, I have concluded that despite my deep interest in the diverse countries, cultures, and communities of Asia and staunch commitment to language learning, I do not wish to live in Asia. I hope to use my knowledge and experience in Asian studies to inhabit the space between the “East” and “West”, in its constant evolution. I want to wield my background in Asian studies as a tool to promote cross-cultural understanding and cooperation, to unite the leaders of yesterday and tomorrow on causes critical to human progress and survival. Engaging with the massive, diverse entity we call “Asia” is essential to effectively confronting issues plaguing the global community, from governance, to conflict, resources, and climate change.

My personal journey with Asian studies can most succinctly be described as this. When I was abroad in China and Japan, resident classmates and professors would ask what I was majoring in at university. I would answer them in the typical fashion: Japanese and Asian Studies. At the latter part of my answer, they would look at me in confusion. What part of Asia? The Far East, Southern, or Central? What aspect of Asia? The varied geography, variable governmental systems, complex cultures, or millennia of history?

   Exploiting its position as a global hegemon, the United States, explicitly and implicitly, through political propaganda and circulated stereotypes, misrepresents Asia as a crude homogeneity that is either a threat to or a theatre for Western superiority. This characterization could not be further from the truth. Asia is a title inappropriately assigned to areas and peoples so vast and distinctive they should not and cannot be defined by a single term. To imply in any way that in four short years of study one could achieve even a moderate grasp on such entirety is hubris of the highest degree.

   In conclusion, over the course of my undergraduate career in Asian studies, I have come to understand this basic truth: I can never hope to fully appreciate, apprehend, or represent Asia. However, it is my place and privilege as a life-long student to consistently expand the boundaries of my expertise and endeavor to comprehend the phenomenon that is Asia.