Tuesday, 27 August 2013

[Random] Rant of a Kikokushijou; returnee, of Japan

*bows* let me apologize once again for the very inconsistent updates, but, as usual, I will be putting all the blame on the studies and the tedious schedules of the school life.



Firstly, let me describe a typical school day in Dubai. Since I live in Sharjah, I wake up at 5 am to catch the bus at 6.10am so that I can reach the school by 7.10am. IT TAKES AN HOUR, YESSIR. Anyways, the school bell rings at 7.30 and home room begins.

At 10am there is a 20 min long break, and then studies re-commence. At 1pm there is a 10 min long break again, and finalllllllly at 2pm the school ends. I reach home by 3.15, being the last one to get dropped off.
So you can tell me, does this leave me any time to do anything? I'm as tired as a cat without enough sleep, and can more or less just dramatically fall on the floor and snooze. Hence, at the end of the day it's either studying or watching animes, and you can obviously tell, it's the latter I choose.

My AS level results? Two D's and Two C's, Ds' in chem and phy; Cs' in ENGRISH and maths.
It's extremely shocking, yes; but unexpected? Kind of no. I was always considered the 'smart' kind, never studying yet in the top some. Brought down to earth with this heavy result.

Coming to the heading, what is annoying me beyond belief at the moment is not my disappointing marks sheet; it's the Japanese University requirements. Can you guess the top most? Good grades, yes, but not the answer. High English req? Not exactly either.

It's being not Japanese- wholly nor partially.




Having lived in U.A.E my entire life, and my father being Bengali, my sister and I- although eligible for a Bengali passport- opted to a Japanese one since you have to choose between them when you hit 21 and never once thought about making the former. I speak fluent Japanese thanks to anime and J-Pop, and since mom helped me, can read and write...err, middle school level Japanese. So naturally, I need to go for the English-based courses, famously known as G30 (Global 30 bc they wanted 30 unis to participate but only 13 are currently innit. wut xD)
The first req is that I hold nationality, and then grades (of MIN B) and eng req follow.

There was only one out of the 13...mind you, ONLY ONE uni (Nagoya) that adressed returnees and gratefully mentioned that they fall into the International category if they have studied 12 years abroad. The rest, when I clicked the link that said 'returnees', took me to a Japanese website that my mother translated as stating the exam date. In Japanese. Exam in Japanese. I emailed almost all of them citing that I would be finishing 12 years abroad blah blah...Some unis were kind enough to link me back to the site without letting me know what I actually need to know.

Sigh, I actually expected Japanese unis to be a bit more flexible in communicating.

I was extremely surprised that Tokyo University, or the anime famous Todai, didn't have a proper section for Kikokushijou in the English site...it was in Japanese, yep. Only Nagoya and Waseda Dai had the proper categorization, and I was relieved that people are indeed aware that there are returnees who know zero Japanese.
Love Hina- protagonist studying to get in Todai

Tough luck I have, since the English courses are offered by these and similar unis- the 'elite 13' unis of Japan. Waseda Uni was also nice enough to properly explain things like since I'm eligible for a Bengali passport it would be better if I applied for it before trying to get admitted.

So now, even though financially our family is in a pinch, I have to force father to take me to Bangladesh for a passport so that I can apply as an international student who won't be expected to write the exam in Japanese.

Just imagine how it is for a person who is 100% Japanese and abroad, without the knowledge of Japanese language. I can almost see their teary eyes. If you can, fellow returnees, choose UK or other famous countries (educationally) if you can afford to.

Japan why you like this?!

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