Alex Baker, Reflections

I won the lottery the day I started studying Japanese at Ohio University. 

My first class of the day was a 1pm Japanese course taught by the amazing Joung Hee Krzic. In our small class of 6 students was the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Leslie Flemming, who had recently visited Japan and was curious to learn Japanese, just like me. Over the course of my first year we learned how to read and write hiragana and practiced simple dialog exchanges. We both continued on with second- and third-year courses, often in the same classes, and through these interactions we developed a mutual friendship. I consider myself blessed to have been able to ask her for letters of recommendation, which she always happily provided. 

This was the first of countless amazing experiences I had with friends and faculty of Ohio University, and later with Chubu University. 

I can still recall meeting my first English conversation partner, a Chubu University exchange student, and how awkwardly difficult it was for us to communicate. She spoke very little English, I spoke very little Japanese, both of us as green as the spring trees. Yet despite that barrier was a mutual sense of bridging the communication gap, a strong determination to be able to carry on a natural conversation.  

I heard many great things about the study abroad program at Chubu University, and I joined the program in the fall of 2002 after studying Japanese for 3 years. I was the lone student from OU that made it to the higher rank Japanese classes, and I suddenly found myself in the deep end. It was quite challenging at times to keep up and required my full focus, but I was fully determined to comprehend everything that came my way. 

Fortunately I had some wonderful help from the staff and faculty. Ueda Sensei from Chubu University encouraged me all along the way, I still recall her letting me review the listening practice tapes during after-hours, the ka-chunk sound of the cassette tape player. Patrick Miller and Greg King from OU were also helpful with providing guidance. 

I also had a lot of amazing help from friends I met at Chubu University, both Japanese as well as fellow exchange students, many of whom I’ve kept in touch with all these years. These are some of the kindest and most sincere folks I’ve ever met, whom I’ve traveled with on adventures near and far. Looking back on it now, I can easily say how this taught me so many important values: hospitality, culture, communication, and lasting friendship, to name just a few. 

I started to get more involved. In addition to conversation partners, I drove Chubu students around Athens with Gerry Krzic, helped organize and host events with friends, and provided guidance where I could. 

In the spring of my last year in Athens, I started dating a Chubu alumni, who had come to OU as an exchange student and came back to OU for grad school. We eventually married and moved to Brooklyn, where we now reside with our 5 year old daughter, Sora, who speaks both English and Japanese. Sora and I visited Japan the past two summers, staying near Chubu University in Komaki, and it's a total trip going showing Sora around our old stomping grounds. Equally amazing is visiting with our friends in Japan—many of them Chubu alumni—and letting our kids play together. Our lasting friendship is now multi-generational. 

I look back fondly on my time at OU and Chubu for making this a reality. It’s been an amazing and beautiful journey, and I look forward to teaching these values to Sora.