Winter Has already finished!

Shabrina Putri Syahradini–INA AKP to JPN YP 22/23

Bina Antarbudaya
4 min readFeb 21, 2024

皆さん、こんにちは!インドネシアから来た留学生のビーナです!

Today, I can feel the warmth from the sunlight that is hiding behind the curtain. There is no more snow as far as the eye can see. There are only a lot of trees that prepare to grow their own leaves. I love the air, it’s not that cold, but I still get the warmth of my second family here, in Toumeikan.

Spending almost 9 months here is not an easy thing. But meeting them, having a lot of talks and fun, makes it easy to spend the rest of my exchange year without a serious problem. But, it makes it harder for me to leave Japan in this short time. No, it’s not a joke. It’s not even a year yet. But I feel like I don’t want to be separated from them, the world looks so scary without them, I don’t want to leave, not again… After all the tears that I have shed before I go to Japan.

As Ed Sheeran said, “Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes..” I realize that is true, I love them and I love my home country as well. And it hurt when I faced reality to leave one of them. I already think about it before, so I decided to make a lot of memories here, in Japan -a country that saved a lot of my 17th story-

The 2nd of November, Wednesday. There is an event that held in my school that called とちとこ際 (TochiTokoSai) or 文化祭(Bunkasai). It’s like an event that is held every year and we have a lot of performances on that day. Fortunately, I have a chance to show Indonesian culture. YEY! I feel excited and also nervous at the same time. Oh, no! There are a lot of people there, what should I do? I feel so grateful that I have my support system by my side. Even though there are a lot of worries, here we are! Standing in front of more than a hundred couples of eyes. Successfully bringing the Indonesian atmosphere to the air and showing that diversity is nothing in front of tolerance. Respect and curiosity about culture make our relationship more precious than gold. Proud of you guys 1–2💖

Next, I’ll introduce you to my favorite place for the entirety of my exchange program. 裏側 (Uragawa) -back side of my school- I spend a lot of time here. No, we didn’t do anything special here. Just look at the sky, have a talk, running from one side to the other. It sounds like a childish thing. But, it’s so precious to me. There is no one there, except us. No one has an interest in going there, because it’s just a field that is full of grass and actually there is nothing interesting there. But for me, it’s so calming. Sometimes I look for a flower that smells good. It’s kind of my way to relieve my mind. Especially going there with my friends, it’s so calming.

Still can’t believe that I’ll leave this precious place in the coming days. All the things that I have done here will be great memories that I can’t forget for the rest of my life. I still remember how our meeting was on the 27th of June. I still remember the anxiety that I got when my homeroom teacher asked me to introduce myself both in English and Japanese. Oh my god, I just felt that I wanted to go back to my home country directly. But here I am, a girl who successfully passed the 9 months with all the tears and smiles. A girl who successfully passed the Japanese High School life trial together with her friends and teacher.

Oh, the winter has already finished! It reminds me of the day that I’ll leave my Japanese High School life. Time flies so fast. It’s time to pack all my life from the last 9 months. Preparing to go back to reality. Preparing to be a normal girl in high school in Indonesia. But, I am not the same as before. I’ll face the future with the ‘New Bina’.

I will never be ready for farewell, so I’ll make this moment never gonna be the end. These memories are never getting old, because it’s gold.

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Bina Antarbudaya
Bina Antarbudaya

Written by Bina Antarbudaya

The Indonesian Foundation for Intercultural Learning Official Partner of AFS Programs

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