My Chemistry Research Internship at Hiroshima University
Monthly Archives: June 2013
Tokyo
Although it was breathtaking seeing half of the country fly by outside of the Shinkansen window – mountains, rice fields, traditional Japanese houses, colorful cities, the ocean – I was most affected by my first solo ride on the normal-speed train from Saijo to Hiroshima. Although I had ridden on this very same train many times before with friends to and from Hiroshima City, it had always been on the weekends in the late morning or early evening. This, however, was my first experience riding the train in the early morning, the time when boys and girls in uniform make their way to school, giggling over the events of the weekend, and business men with suits and ties read paperback books as they ride to work. Gazing around me, I remember the wondrous realization of the fact that I, the only foreigner on the train, by some miraculous chain of events had been given forty minutes to soak in this almost picturesque scene of everyday Japanese life. It almost felt like a fairy tale, the moment was so perfect.
Tokyo, however, was perfect in a different way altogether. After arriving in Tokyo Station and having a wonderful soba lunch in the Marunouchi Building, we stopped in Akihabara, a section of Tokyo filled with electronic stores, anime stores, and cosplayers.
Even though I was, predictably, drawn to the flashy anime stores, Dr. Uchiyama assured me that this was not the “real” Tokyo and took me to the back alleys to see some of the small shops that sold itsy-bitsy parts for building personalized electronics.
Because it was raining, we decided to go to Omotesando Hills in Harajuku, a beautiful piece of architecture that contained an upscale clothing mall.
Though the scenes in Akihabara and Harajuku were quite different, they were both incredibly stylized and I thoroughly enjoyed them both.
Luckily on Friday the sun made an appearance once again and Dr. Uchiyama, accompanied by his graduate students, gave me a tour of Kitasato University!
Our entire lives are driven by the desire to form relationships. Think about it. The second that you were a born and the umbilical cord connecting you and your mother was severed, you witnessed the detachment of yourself from the only other being you will ever truly be a part of. From that moment you began the quest around which the rest of life is centered: to perfectly connect with something to make you feel whole. For most of us, I think, that something ends up taking on multiple forms simultaneously. We try to perfectly connect with people, forming romances and building families. We try to perfectly connect with the forces of nature, either mentally trying to understand them through academics or physically embodying them by becoming exceedingly good at a hobby or activity. We try to perfectly connect with God. In the end, this desire to connect leads us to form cultures with the people around us that are trying to connect in the same way that we are. We then define our new culture by whatever chosen way that is. Ironically, though, by strictly defining ourselves and our cultures, we end up creating an almost insurmountable gorge between ourselves and those who have aligned themselves too strictly with other things, those who are a part of different cultures. So although life itself calls us to arrange our lives in a certain way so that we may more perfectly connect with one another, nature, and God, and although most of our sense of purpose in life is felt through this act of arranging, by flying the banner of what we have chosen to live by without showing even the most fleeting desire to change, we end up separating ourselves from those of other cultures. “I am already aware of the pros and cons of my own culture,” we say, “and it’s simply too exhausting looking at the pros and cons of another culture and trading out my own cons for their pros”. In the end, this little facet of human nature keeps us from truly connecting to anything.
How counterproductive!
I now realize that, by coming to Japan, I didn’t just want to come to the place where my favorite show was created: I wanted to be one of the two protagonists in my favorite show. I wanted to go to Japan with the purpose of connecting, yet all the while flying the flag of my probably-not-very-Japanese ideals in order that they might be bent and battered and rid of imperfections as through fire. Will the culture shock lead me to close myself off within an Americanized bubble, or will the desire to open myself up to truth and change prevail? That is what we shall see! And Hiroshima, a city set upon world peace, seems to be the perfect backdrop for my experiment!
And now, back to the week’s adventures...
Although I had many interesting conversations with Japanese and international students alike over the course of my week and (inevitably) experienced some rather crazy twists and turns in my research, my four-day trip to Tokyo still surpassed them all in terms of excitement. To give some background, my internship was originally set for Kitasato University in Sagamihara outside of Tokyo working with Dr. Yosuke Uchiyama. However when some complications arose and my internship was switched to Hiroshima University to work with Dr. Yohsuke Yamamoto, Dr. Uchiyama told me that he and his wife would be more than happy to have me visit Kitasato University and Tokyo during my stay in Japan. I, of course, gladly accepted his offer, and, with such an accommodating guide native to the city, I ended up having what I consider to be one of the best Tokyo experiences possible.
My trip started by traveling from Saijo to Hiroshima on a normal train and then from Hiroshima to Tokyo on the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train.
