Looking back my Becca course...
Now my Becca course is over, and today I handed in my final paper. Becca course is one of my uni's courses that Japanese students can be in the same classes with other international students. This was a great opportunity for me to be with many people from so different countries all around the world, and I think that I will never be in such a super international situation again! I had an American teacher, and studied Peace, Development and Democratization. In class, we had guest speakers for special topics like Japan's homeless issue and Bulaku discrimination, and we also had field trips for Hiroshima to listen to Atomic bomb survivor. I could always listen to new ideas from the professor about many interesting topics about human rights going around the world, and it was just really amazing to see that international students really spoke up so freely anytime when they just came up with ideas and comments.
Sometimes, I was disappointed because taking the Becca course made me realize that my English level is not enough to follow. The problem is that I always have to make eveything I have already known in English to follow, and proper nouns are especially tough. For example, when they said 'Manchuria', I couldnt't know what they were talking about though I know the name of the place, 'Manshu' in Japanese.
Also I was depressed quite seriously when a class watched videos about the slaughter in Rwanda, chaos in Myanmar, war stories about Japan, etc. There seemed to be nothing that I can do to make the situations better, and I just felt myself so small and hopeless. Many of what I watched were too cruel and injust, and I wondered how much human beings can be insane and inhumane to others. I sometimes couldnt stand any more, and wanted to look away.
Living in Japan speaking only in Japanese only with Japanese people in Japan makes me feel those issues so far from me, but they are not, and I should keep thinking about them and talking about them with people here and there. I could hear very interesting ideas that I have never realized before in this Becca course in this semester, and I hope that I will be able to have such super international circumstances like this again in my future.
Now my Becca course is over, and today I handed in my final paper. Becca course is one of my uni's courses that Japanese students can be in the same classes with other international students. This was a great opportunity for me to be with many people from so different countries all around the world, and I think that I will never be in such a super international situation again! I had an American teacher, and studied Peace, Development and Democratization. In class, we had guest speakers for special topics like Japan's homeless issue and Bulaku discrimination, and we also had field trips for Hiroshima to listen to Atomic bomb survivor. I could always listen to new ideas from the professor about many interesting topics about human rights going around the world, and it was just really amazing to see that international students really spoke up so freely anytime when they just came up with ideas and comments.
Sometimes, I was disappointed because taking the Becca course made me realize that my English level is not enough to follow. The problem is that I always have to make eveything I have already known in English to follow, and proper nouns are especially tough. For example, when they said 'Manchuria', I couldnt't know what they were talking about though I know the name of the place, 'Manshu' in Japanese.
Also I was depressed quite seriously when a class watched videos about the slaughter in Rwanda, chaos in Myanmar, war stories about Japan, etc. There seemed to be nothing that I can do to make the situations better, and I just felt myself so small and hopeless. Many of what I watched were too cruel and injust, and I wondered how much human beings can be insane and inhumane to others. I sometimes couldnt stand any more, and wanted to look away.
Living in Japan speaking only in Japanese only with Japanese people in Japan makes me feel those issues so far from me, but they are not, and I should keep thinking about them and talking about them with people here and there. I could hear very interesting ideas that I have never realized before in this Becca course in this semester, and I hope that I will be able to have such super international circumstances like this again in my future.
