{"id":2376,"date":"2013-04-02T00:40:48","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T15:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2013-04-02T00:40:48","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T15:40:48","slug":"aarron-lee-participating-in-desa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/2013\/04\/02\/aarron-lee-participating-in-desa","title":{"rendered":"Aarron Lee: Participating in DESA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I took this picture. Roppongi Hills skyview, you should totally go check it out sometime.<\/p><\/div>\n

Coming to Japan in August last year (Fall semester), I had initially participated in Kyuudou as my CIP activity outside of classes. In the latter Spring semester, I participated in DESA, which is a student organization that introduces you to Japanese students via activities, events, etc. In retrospect, I regret not doing it vice versa, where I should\u2019ve joined DESA in Fall, and Kyuudou in Spring. Why, you may ask?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Well, it all boils down to the semester system in Japan being on a different schedule than in the United States. In Japan, the first semester starts in early-mid April, and the second semester starts around mid-late September. The second semester ends around late January to early February.<\/p>\n

So to put this into perspective, KCJS runs on the US system where first semester starts in late August till mid December, and second semester starts from early January till late April. In other words, the only long period of overlap between the Japanese semester system, and our US semester system, is Fall semester (USA)! If you want to meet a lot of Japanese students and have more chances at speaking Japanese, Fall semester would\u2019ve been the better time for me to participate in DESA.<\/p>\n

For those that arrive Spring semester, you only have a paltry month or so before Japanese students go on their Spring break, and you won\u2019t be seeing them back on campus until you\u2019re second semester is practically over and you\u2019re heading back to the states!<\/p>\n

Aside from this rather disappointing realization, my activities in DESA have been a blast. I\u2019ve already mentioned in my previous blog posting about climbing Mt. Daimonji at night, which was a wonderful experience in its own right. There are, of course, a lot of other events I\u2019ve participated in (such as going to see a sumo match in Osaka, onsen-ing it up at bathhouses, etc), but I think this time around I should mention the actual organization members.<\/p>\n

DESA is organized by Japanese students from the likes of Doshisha University, Kyodai, and a few other local universities; thus, its membership isn\u2019t exclusively from one school. You\u2019ll notice how Doshisha students tend to be more trendy and fashionable, Kyodai more stoic or simple, and so forth. Membership mostly consists of those that want to practice their English language abilities, many which would soon be either studying abroad, or just want to brush up on their skills. Unlike you\u2019re standard everyday Japanese citizen, they tend to be quite fluent too.<\/p>\n

The fact that DESA organizes events and such with these particular types of Japanese students is great, especially if you want to practice your Japanese. You can speak Japanese as practice, and generally swap to English if you\u2019re having some trouble. The vice versa also applies to Japanese students, so it\u2019s a mutual relationship in the long term. Of course, DESA also tends to subsidize some activities here and there, which makes things even better.<\/p>\n

Long story short, my experience with DESA has been fantastic; I\u2019ve met some great Japanese students, gotten plenty of chances to practice Japanese, and experienced stuff that I otherwise would\u2019ve never even imagined. My only regret is not joining in sooner, but better late than never right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming to Japan in August last year (Fall semester), I had initially participated in Kyuudou as my CIP activit … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080 →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_locale":"ja","_original_post":"2376"},"categories":[4,46,51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}