Amazing Part of Exchange Journey
Azka — INA Asia Kakehashi Project YP 20/21
Hi Everyone!! I’m Azka, an Exchange Student in Japan 2020/2021, placement in Okayama. Since I started my exchange student journey all things were my first time. It informed me of so many new experiences; one of them is respect. In Indonesia, I studied at an Islamic boarding school for approximately 5 years. And then during an exchange, I studied at Catholic School, which is all the students are female. The name is Seishin Girl’s High School. This is my first time studying and school at different religions and lives among them.
I was really surprised by all the teachers and friends, it’s so cozy while first time been to school. In Japan, I live in a dormitory even though in the dormitory at weekend and I had been to Host Family for 3 days. I started school on 31 November 2020 after quarantine for 2 weeks in Narita. In my new school I got a lot of new experiences like every morning said “Ohayou Gozaimasu” it means “Good Morning” every time I meet with teachers or friends. And I was surprised that Japanese people walked so fast and Japan has a lot of stairs at school. This is just about habits, and 2 or 3 months after I was not surprised about this.
One amazing part of my part exchange journey is my friends and my teachers all so really respect me who is the only one wearing a scarf at school.
My other experience is Christmas week in my school. Every Wednesday we had prayed together with pray from the speaker in class. Although I’m Muslim, in this part I felt the blessed came to everyone who closed eyes to prayed, and once again I believe it no matters our background of religion. In other parts is when the Christmas sky event, they showed the drama about the legend of Christmas. This is my first time seeing the Christmas drama. My tears suddenly fell to my cheek, and this touched my heart once.
The Christmas sky was wonderful for me. Even though, My Christmas day just only stayed at my first host family home with ate the Christmas cake that was enough for me. I was pretty grateful to have this opportunity, which means in Indonesia I haven’t had any experiences with Christmas and Shinto Religion. Living here changed my mind if whatever your religious background did not matter to be the reason for strife. I believe God is just one but we cannot blame or Justify the religion, what we should do is respect each other.
That’s all of my story about my exchange student journey, I hope you enjoy reading it and Thank you.
