1st week’s DECAMERON

1. 1 Housing is amazing. SANC academy provided us with incredible studios in Shinjuku and Shibuya. The area is extremely convenient. There is a convenience store on every corner, bus and subway are 30seconds away from apartments. Cheap eateries come in dozens (Yoshinoya!). The area is very safe.

2. 2 The school itself is located in the busiest part of Tokyo – Shibuya, five minutes from Tokyo’s busiest intersection. Walking to and from the bus station is an exciting experience on its own. Each morning, I join the crowd of Japanese school kids (in their emblematic uniforms), strict looking businesspeople and idle wanderers.

Tokyo at its best.

3. 3 SANC Academy has a great location and some very intelligent and perceptive teachers, who can actually speak English (a surprising phenomenon at least in Tokyo). The teachers are extremely polite, kind and caring. They’re all female. They are very skilled in letting us know about our social faux pas (such as when Troy was putting hands into his pockets while roleplaying an encounter with his Japanese host family). Nevertheless, some things have been little disappointing. First, the class sizes are not at all as advertised (at least as advertised by Yale). Judging from last year’s blog reviews, I was expecting a class of three to four people. No more than five. Well, in the second year class, there are eight of us at all times. Please, don’t get me wrong, I understand that some might view a larger class size as an advantage – after all one can focus on his/her own work (looking up words in electronic dictionary, etc). I, however, find myself being much more efficient in small classes. Sometimes, when there are so many of us, I don’t’ even get to speak for an entire hour long session. And then when I do manage to blurb something , it usually doesn’t really matter – since someone else is already waiting to speak up. Second, besides the number of students, the SANC Academy seems to be overwhelmed by the amount of administrative work involved in having so many Yallies coming in this summer. Random pieces of paper are flying all over the classroom. No one has any idea what the hw assignments are, and the tests are sometimes covering different grammar and vocabulary than they’re supposed to. I really love the teachers and I

appreciate a great deal their teaching abilities; it just seems that sometimes they can get little overwhelmed by their administrative roles...

4. 4 Japanese food is different. Everybody coming from either the US or Europe should be careful with dramatic dietary changes. I personally think that it is awesome to eat like the Japanese – sushi, miso, sashimi, … But my body has been not so sure of my impressive dietary shifts. Everybody coming to Japan for a short period of time should be aware that the diet can be very starch-filled and protein-less. I can see myself getting used to a different set of minerals and vitamins; nevertheless, there’s no way I could do so in such a short period of time. And so the nutrionist’s advice of the day should be: don’t be stingy on your food. Buy lots of fruits and vegetables (even though they’re mad expensive in Japan) and take it easy on eating rice (unless you’re used to it from home). This might sound as a silly culinary generalization. But that’s at least, how I and some of my buddies have felt.

5. 5 Study in coffeshops. SANC academy organizes only a few opportunities to spend time with real Japanese people. So you’re kind of on your own in terms of meeting the real Nihon

zin. But no worries. Just grab a coffee and sit down in one of the little cafes in your favorite hood and you’ll see how friendly everybody is. People get extremely interested in why you study Japanese (especially when they see you intensely working on your homework trying to figure out the damn Kanji…). One of my most language enriching experiences have been short conversations with random Japanese people in local Starbucks. In fact so much so that I sometimes think I would learn more just hanging around Tokyo than going to classes….oh, well, the innate wanderer in me… Beware though! Coffee can be really expensive – especially Starbucks. Some other coffee chains with a similar quality but cheaper prices are “Coffee Excelsior, Café Veloce and World Café.” I wouldn’t really recommend small family run kisaten, since they usually serve only as meeting points not as

study places as far as I’ve noticed. They would never kick you out if you claim the space as work environment for the entire afternoon. Instead, they would make you not want to claim the space as work environment for the entire afternoon. Subtle but efficient.

6. 6 Dress up. This is not a superficial fashionista comment. Tokyo is an urban environment and people seem to care much about how they look. I have not seen a single Japanese guy in shorts or a girl in a miniskirt. Body exposure is a big NO – despite infernal temperatures. The best way to fit in – as far as I’ve noticed – is to dress as the Tokyoites – i.e. nice, clean, classy, slim, and most of all, no nakedness. Obviously, everybody has his/her limits. I am not willing to sacrifice my flip-flops, other guys in SANC seem to cling to shorts. But there are always ways to appease the natives: wear khakis with flipflops, a nice shirt with shorts. One of our teachers put it elegantly; you don’t wanna look like you have “watasi wa Amerrrrrrika kara desu” written on your forehead.

7. 7 Japanese public baths – the so-called onsen - are amazing. You pay four hundred yen to get naked and lie in a scaldingly hot tub. It feels strange at the beginning but gr

eat afterwards. Visiting a Roppongi onsen with my SANC buddies had been one of my favorite experiences so far.

8. 8 Don’t be afraid to go chez Dior. Honestly, Japan is such a shopaholic culture that visiting the temples of de luxe is an experience of its own. On the weekend, we visited Ginza, the most upscale neighborhood of Tokyo and we had a lot of fun watching rich Kimono dressed ladies in their natural habitat – that is Hermes, Dior, Channel, Gucci stores. Besides, the buildings are so incredibly well-designed that many of us were more impressed by the exteriors of the Hermes store than by the Imperial gardens. This is obviously a piece of low-brow culture. It can in no way replace for the instance the amazing journey into the National Kabuki Theatre that we’ve undertaken today. Nevertheless, it is interesting to observe the comings and goings of the voracious Japanese consumer.

9. 9 Buy flashcards. Everybody has a different memory, obvi. But if you find yourself struggling with Kanji, I would suggest try using flashcards. They sell them at Office Depot, right next to the school, for 70 en.

10. 10 No fear Shakespeare. Don’t get overwhelmed by too much work. It’s clearly a trade-off between doing work and exploring Tokyo. I am trying to keep balance between the busy school routine and discovering this amazing city. I’m not really that worried about the tests. Last Wednesday, I studied for the Kanji quizz for more than five hours. I got 16/21. Yesterday, I spent time with my friends exploring our hood, studying for less than an hour. I got 15/21. Maybe, the one point is for many worth the additional four hours of busy work. Well….not for me.