Nicholas Helentjaris, Reflections

From the time that I traveled to Awaji Shima through a sister city exchange program in high school, I fell in love with Japan - the beauty of the country and the warmth of the Japanese people left a deep impression that I would carry into college and beyond. During my freshman year in 2001, I enrolled in my initial Japanese language class at Chubb Hall with Krzic Sensei (Joung Hee), and this became one of my favorite academic experiences. I remember the excitement of learning something completely new, each day bringing the language and culture into clearer focus. Learning Japanese was therapeutic as well, it was refreshing to make so much progress during my first year when my other courses seemed to progress slowly and accomplishments difficult to measure. I enjoyed tracing Kanji, repeating the Onyomi and Kunyomi pronunciations, and learning new vocabulary words, along with the semantic nuances of those words. I continued into advanced Japanese language classes with Dr. Hiroyuki Oshita, Business Japanese with Dr. Christopher Thompson, Japanese History with Dr. Donald Jordan and Japanese Government and Politics with Dr. Takaaki Suzuki. All of these studies culminated in my study abroad at Chubu University. Ohio University and Chubu University have a very special relationship and the exchange program is more warm and personal than similar foreign exchange programs between other schools. Chubu University faculty were very welcoming and many of them were students or faculty at Ohio University at one point, which made the school feel much more familiar. After a year abroad, I became more able to adapt to a culture very different from my own and was able to assimilate behaviors and mindsets from Japanese culture more readily, which helped me become both more resilient and more grounded. Living in a different country and understanding different perspectives also greatly improved my critical thinking skills by forcing me to question the assumptions and biases inherent in my own culture. My experiences learning Japanese at OU and Chubu led to continued Japanese language study in graduate school and then to a career in national security where a solid foundation in area studies and foreign languages was highly valued. Although I never attained true fluency in Japanese, I was able to draw on my experiences living in Japan and provide critical insight during certain moments in my career where such insights were in high demand and in short supply. In truth, it was difficult to say goodbye to Japan after a year and when I came back to Ohio, I just wanted to be back in Japan. That is a sentiment widely shared by others who have participated in the exchange and it speaks volumes to the enduring relationship between the two schools and the amazing atmosphere that the professors, instructors, and program managers have fostered over the years. I look forward to the time when I can bring my children to Japan and introduce them to a culture that I love so much and hopefully spark an interest in travel and culture that has enriched my life beyond description and measure.