The Day I Encountered Meiji University

t the end of the summer that I turned 18 after graduating from high school, I had the opportunity to go to a Japanese high school for a year as an exchange student. About six months into my stay, because my Japanese classmates were studying to enter university, there were many university presentations and explanatory meetings. Since I had already secured a place at a Japanese language faculty of a Taiwanese university, there was no need for me to attend these meetings for Japanese universities, but I went out of curiosity with the other students.

So I attended a presentation meeting for Meiji University. The presentation mainly consisted of an explanation of what kind of schools Meiji University had and what kinds of studies were offered at each school. I had no interest in arts and letters, commerce, political science, or economics, but I was drawn to the explanation of the last school. That was the School of Global Japanese Studies.

It was explained that the School of Global Japanese Studies was a school only recently established, and because of its emphasis on an international outlook it accepted many international students and focused more on English education than the other schools. It implemented intensive learning in the four areas of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Finally, it was explained that there were also classes on subcultures such as anime and manga.

After listening to the presentation, I was convinced that if I was going to learn Japanese it would be quicker to learn it in Japan and decided to quit the Taiwanese university and start studying for university entrance exams with my Japanese classmates. I thought that I would like to be able to speak English as well, because I was not particularly proficient at that time. I also realized during my studies in Japan that my home country Taiwan was surprisingly not well known to the world. My conviction that I wanted to have more Japanese people interact with international students and that I wanted to teach things about Taiwan to many people strengthened, and I decided to stay and study in Japan, a country which I loved. Moreover, I loved Japanese subcultures so much that I started to study Japanese on my own so that I could understand Japanese anime and manga. I believed that by studying at Meiji University, which had been in the news for establishing the Tokyo International Manga Library, I would be able to learn at the front line of subculture-related studies. That was why I chose Meiji University.