It has been about two months since I started my internship at The International Center. I have experienced far more things than I expected. In this internship, I am responsible for two projects. The first one is research on the business relationship between Indiana and Japan. I am collecting data and interviewing people who are involved in business with Japan. I guess many people would not know that Indiana has a strong relationship with Japan. The state government has actively invited Japanese firms to invest here since the 1980s when the US was in a deep recession. The government’s relationship with Japan ended up locating more than 200 Japanese companies in Indiana with 40,000 Hoosiers employed by those Japanese companies. By the way, Indiana is the only state that has three Japanese automobile factories.
Another project I am working on is the study of Japan and the Japanese language in Indiana. I have interviewed teachers and students in universities and high school who are teaching and learning Japanese. It was so interesting to me as a Japanese to interview them about why they started learning Japanese and what they want to do with the language and knowledge.
In addition to my main projects, I have had opportunities to further appreciate different cultures. Last Friday, I had dinner with Austrian delegates who visited the US to observe the US election processes, hosted by the volunteers of the International Center, Mr. and Mrs. Hovee’s family. We talked about cultural differences between the US, Austria, and Japan. I was just impressed that the Austrian delegates felt the same way about the US that I did. We both feel that American people are so interested and actively involved in politics and that we thought we should model our own countries as democratic.
It is hard to believe that there are only less than two months left for our internship. Before this internship ends, I hope to participate in as many new activities as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment