My biggest dream so far, going to Japan, is about to come true and I almost cannot believe it…
You could wonder “Why Japan?” Well, under the influence of my father, I’ve had an interest in Asian countries since childhood but I had the first contact with Japanese language and culture during middle school. For the Universal History class, we had to write a paper about the culture of a chosen country and I chose Japan and wrote about tea ceremony. That was when I discovered the beauty of Japanese culture. As with the Japanese language, during about the same period, there was a tv program broadcasting Japanese anime in original language with subtitles, and I used to watch those series because I loved how the language sounded. From that time on, I became more and more interested in Japanese language and culture, I started reading books about Japan, Japanese literature, watched more anime and Japanese movies and even tried to learn Japanese by myself using books and attending online classes.
But learning the language without a teacher was difficult for me so after High School I went to the Japanese Section of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest. In two years’ time, thanks to amazing teachers, both Romanian and native Japanese, I learned a lot of things about Japanese language and culture. And besides the classes, I had the chance to attend various events which helped me to get a better insight into Japanese culture, interract with natives and even teach others a little bit of what I know.
This year, the second year of university, in January, I applied for a scholarship in Japan and after passing several stages, I was accepted to study at Waseda University in Tokyo, as an international student. For a year I will study Japanese language and culture under Center for Japanese Language Department and can also choose two university wide open classes.
I added a new category to the blog named “A year in Japan”, under Diary, and I will write there about my experiences throughout this year so make sure to follow me. Soon I will have my flight to Japan so, until next post, you can also follow my adventure on Instagram!
