Haydn ZIMMER

Student of Curtin University, Australia
Exchange to Wakayama University, Japan

I originally decided to go on exchange to Japan to learn about Japanese culture and help me improve my Japanese for my degree. However my experiences in Japan well exceeded any expectations I originally had.

During my time in Japan I met many people not only from Japan but from all corners of the globe. From this I gained a much larger insight into other cultures. I managed to learn about cultures from European countries such as France, Austria and Switzerland. Asian countries such as China, Malaysia and Vietnam. And even some other countries such as Uzbekistan.

But of course my experiences learning about the Japanese language and culture are unforgettable and will stay with me till the end of my days. Learning to speak in another language especially one as different to English as Japanese is not easy. But learning another language is not just only about learning grammar, words and characters but also changing your way of thinking in order to communicate in that language. This completely changes your view of the world and allows you to understand things from different culture's perspectives, which allows you to see the world in a new light.

The culture of Japan was something that both surprised me and yet somehow familiar to me. Japan has a mix of western and Japanese culture with an influence from many other countries. This coexistence of cultures creates the feel of Japan to be both a country that feels familiar with an amazingly different, deep and interesting culture that allows for a never-ending flow of surprises.

Japan has given me a great insight into the world and has shown me cultures and ways of thinking from all around the globe. I will take the experiences I learnt from Japan into the future to my career and into the rest of my life.

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