A Half Day with Nagasaki High School Students

A Half Day with Nagasaki High School Students | 23rd of November 2018 is another special day in my life. 190 students from Nagasaki High School, Japan, came to our campus for a half day exchange program. Different from the previous program with Kawasaki High School students which took a whole day from morning to evening, this time, the program just took half day from morning to noon.

Still held in the same venue at the Faculty of Built Environment, UTM, Johor Bahru, but we did not have to move location from the main hall to any of the classrooms. All activities were done in the main hall starting from the Japanese students' arrival until their departure, except for the campus tour. We were divided into small groups with one or two UTM students assisting each group discussion.

As for my group, I was alone with three Japanese students, named Sanii, Ryosei, and Sakura. Yes, Sakura! The moment I saw her name on the name list sheet, I was so excited because, well, you know, right? If you don't, please have a look at my blog URL. :p

From the right - Sanii, Sakura and Ryosei

After the welcoming ceremony, we started the group discussion. Our topic was the advantages and problems of a small-class education in classes on a remote island. I forced myself to make some research on this topic a few days before the program so it would be easier to share some ideas with the students. As we know, Japan is a country built from thousands of islands.

It comprises a stratovolcanic archipelago over 3,000 km (1,900 mi) along East Asia's Pacific coast. It consists of 6,852 islands. The main islands are Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido. The Ryukyu Islands and Nanpō Islands are south of the main islands. The territory extends 377,973.89 km squared (145,936.53 sq mi). It is the largest island country in East Asia and the fourth largest island country in the world. Japan has the sixth longest coastline 29,751 km (18,486 mi) and the eight largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 4,470,000 km squared (1,730,000 sq mi) in the world. [Wikipedia]

So, my Japanese sisters and brother shared their opinion about the topic for about twenty minutes. We agreed that the students have the advantage in the way the teacher can pay more attention to them in a small class, but at the same time, the students may face lack of infrastructures and technologies in the learning process as the school distance is far from the city or rural areas. But the Japan government is already in the act to improve and solve this problem by the enactment of Promotion Law in 1954. Since that, the problems of schools in isolated areas have almost dissolved.

After the serious discussion, we had ten minutes break before continued with culture talks between Malaysia and Japan. Ryosei introduced some Japanese food with beautiful pictures, Sakura shared about Japanese old-fashioned games which included card game and ayatori (string tricks), while Sanii shared about Japanese high school students uniforms which differ according to their four seasons.

The school folder, Japanese food pictures, and ayatori string

We also had a gift exchange between us. Sakura gave me a binocular and compressed towel. I was surprised, I did not have time to prepare any gifts for them but luckily the program organizer standby with some cute keychains of Malaysia's significant buildings. The students also gave me their beautiful school folder with sakura's picture, I love it so much. Thanks, guys!

The binocular and compressed towel

We went outside for a campus tour, but it was not really a tour. We just took some pictures at UTM mosque, then went back to the main hall before saying goodbye to each other. Hey, I thought this would be a short entry,  but it became this long already. Hahaha.

One with UTM mosque as the background

Nagasaki High School students and UTM students took pictures together

It was a very simple program, but we had a very good time together. We also exchanged our Instagram IDs to keep in touch. Till today, we are still communicating with each other and I hope this friendship will last forever.

Please wait for me to visit Japan, ok!

P/S: I tried my best to write this in English so they can read it. Pardon my grammar.