Study Abroad in Japan

Students in the Japanese Studies Program at MU are fortunate to have a wide range of opportunities to study in Japan for a summer, a semester, an academic year, or longer. MU students may study in semester and academic-year programs at several institutions in Japan through special exchange relationships with MU, including Kansei Gakuin University in the city of Nishinomiya, near Osaka and Kyoto in central western Japan; Nanzan University, located city of Nagoya in central Japan; Sophia University in Tokyo; and Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies in the western Japanese city of Nagasaki on the southwestern island of Kyushu. Other semester and academic-year programs are also open to MU students, including the Japan Center for Michigan Universities near Kyoto.

Students may also choose from a range of summer study programs and internship opportunities in Japan, either alone or in addition to a semester or academic-year program. MU students have spent summers studying at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities near Kyoto, Sophia University in Tokyo, Hokkaido International Foundation in northern Japan, and in summer programs in Japan led by MU Japanese Studies faculty.

In summer 2006, 31 MU students traveled to Japan for a nine-week program, which began with a week in the old cultural capitals of Nara and Kyoto before the students moved to their summer base in the city of Iida in Nagano Prefecture (home of the 1998 Winter Olympics) in central Japan. Students a took classes in Japanese language offered at multiple levels, including zero-beginner, and in Japanese culture. The program included field trips to sites of cultural significance and participation in community activities. The focus of the program was the training that students received in the traditional Japanese puppetry commonly known as Bunraku. Students were taught by members of two traditional puppet troupes that both traced their history back more than 300 years. Students trained through the summer and demonstrated their newly-acquired skills by performing during the last week of the program at the Iida International Puppetry Festival, which welcomes more than 200 puppet troupes from around the world and attracts more than 40,000 spectators over a four-day period, the largest such event in Japan.

During summers when the full MU academic program in Iida is not offered, students may choose to work with one of the traditional puppet troupes on an internship program offered through the MU Japanese Studies Program which allows students to spend the summer training in the traditional puppet theater.

MU's Study Abroad Program >>