My school.

Today, I went to my school (Nihongo Center, in Kyoto) to talk to the principal (Hideo Kurita) regarding “my future”. The deal is, for the last 6 months, I’ve been studying together with a group consisting almost exclusively of Chinese. The Chinese students tend to all have the goal of wanting to take the “Ryuugaku shiken”, a Japanese proficiency test aimed for foreign students wishing to enter university in Japan. It so happens that every single student in my class wants to continue to university after they’ve completed their Japanese studies — everyone except me.

Yes, I did at some point consider the idea of entering a university in Japan, weighing the good against the bad and so on, and came to the conclusion that what I can get here, is more or less the same — or not as good — as what I can get for free in Sweden. If I wish to work in Japan after graduating from the university, I will not be able to present a shiny graduation certificate from a shiny Japanese university, but at the same time, I somehow doubt I can get into a shiny university here anyway (unless I work my ass off studying for the entrance exam, which would detract from my studies of the language itself).

In any case, I am here exclusively to learn Japanese now, with the additional desire to learn the Japanese people, from a cultural, sociological, economical, etc. point of view. I am still sort of haunted by the clock in my head ticking and going “hey, happy birthday buddy, you’ll be 36 by the time you graduate from uni” but I’ll cope with that when that day comes. I also believe that having spent 2 years in a country so utterly different from my own will be a valuable merit on my curriculum vitae.

So back to today — I, being the sole student wishing to learn Japanese and ultimately take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (the level 1 one), among a group of around 20 people, am now without a class. The school originally informed me that there would be a separation of the class into two groups — those who want to go to university and those who do not — but as things stand, both groups will be “those who do”. Conclusively, the principal of my school offered to find me another school.

What a guy. He’s not only willing to let me go to another school (thus my school tuitions to his school end), but he’s also willing to find a school for me, and to introduce me to the school. This means a huge deal in the Japanese society — it’s a world of difference whether the student contacts the school and goes “Hey folks, I’d like to switch to your school” and whether the principal contacts the school and goes “Hey there, I have a student whose needs I am not able to accomodate, so I wanted to see if you were up for taking him in”. In retrospect, maybe he thinks I’m a pain in the ass, and can’t wait to get rid of me.

Here’s the funny deal though. When he first said he would look into other schools for me, I decided to do some searching on my own. Me and my girlfriend looked around long and hard and found the one school that we both thought would suit me the best. After I’d talked to the principal about whether or not I should actually switch schools (I was wavering on that one — still am, actually — because I only want to switch if it makes a big difference in the quality of my studies), he said that he had this one school in mind for me. I noted that I had looked around and found a school as well, and he asked me what its name was. I said I didn’t remember, but that it was located by the Imadegawa station. He grinned and said “Well, that’s the school I wanted to introduce you to.” That’s quite promising, I’d say.

So after he’d called the school (for the record, the school’s name is Kyoto Japanese Language School) and asked if the idea of me switching there was possible, he suggested I go there and take a look at the school for myself. I went to the new school, and spoke to one secretary-like woman about the school in general and various procedures required of me were I to accept, and then I spoke to one of the teachers about the possible classes I might end up in, and she even brought with her some school books that they were using in class right now. There would be an examination “placement test” deal which ultimately would determine which class I ended up going to. They had a lot of classes on various levels fairly close to where I feel that I am now, so that seemed quite promising.

The new school is actually a little more expensive than the one I’m in now (but only a few hundred $US per year), and I have to pay the examination fee (about $500US), which I have already paid for for my current school, but ultimately I have to look at it from a “where will I learn the most efficiently” point of view, so it’s highly likely that I will accept the offer and switch schools.

The new term begins October 16th, and I’ve asked for this weekend to think this through before I make a decision. I’ll tell both schools what I decide on Sunday evening, I’ve decided, so I don’t do anything hasty that I end up regretting.