A New Life in JAPAN

My name is Hou Chenwei, and I’m a master’s student at Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Department of Civil Engineering. The editor of the JSCE Concrete Committee newsletter has kindly given me this opportunity to express my feeling and thoughts about being in Japan. It is my pleasure to respond here.

Being attracted by Japanese culture and the beautiful scenery of the country, I first came here as an exchange student. During the first several months of my exchange, I experienced a lot of things, in particular the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. I fell in love with this beautiful country. By applying for the international graduate program at Tokyo Institute of Technology, I was able to come to Japan again as a master’s student and begin a new life here. At this moment, I am really enjoying my master’s studies as well as being in Tokyo. It’s such a convenient city; I can easily visit many places with my friends on weekends. The people here are friendly, and that helps relax me, although study and research are intense. Unlike my lifestyle back in my home country, I live alone here in Japan and have become more independent now. Apart from Japanese culture, the great atmosphere at my laboratory is also an important reason for wanting to study in Japan.

There are many international students at the laboratory, making conversations about daily life more interesting and global. Normally, each student has his or her own research topic, and mine relates to RC haunched beams. We have a weekly seminar on Mondays where we introduce and discuss our new research topics. We also do presentations at monthly seminars with another two cooperating laboratories. The comments and questions raised during these seminars help us improve our future work. Besides the research work, we have many parties, canoe competitions and volleyball games as well as a seminar trip once per year. I was especially moved by a surprising birthday party organized for me a first in my life. Alternating research work with relaxing parties, we work hard and play hard like a big family. We always welcome newcomers and there are farewells for student’s graduate. We all pitch in to help with concrete casting when necessary. We all celebrate a fellow student’s successful job hunt. And we go traveling together during vacations. I love this kind of life and it encourages me to do better in my future studies. To finish, I would like to introduce a part of my research work with the following extended abstract.