East With the Eagles

A study trip to Japan yields a wealth of transformative insights.

Earlier this spring a group of more than a dozen EWU students participated in a first-of-its-kind, 10-day study abroad program in Japan. Accompanied by trip organizer Erina Romanowich, a senior lecturer in Japanese studies at EWU, the students used skills acquired in their winter-term coursework to more fully experience the language and culture of Tokyo and Kyoto.

The trip had something for everyone. Design program students examined how aesthetics, functionality and cultural values shaped everyday spaces; Japanese language students strengthened their skills and cultural depth by practicing Japanese in their daily interactions; and urban and regional planning students were challenged by fundamentally different approaches to urban organization.

“Students were able to see the contrast between traditional Japanese culture and its modern culture,” Romanowich says. By experiencing, for example, Kyoto, Japan’s ancient center of governance, then contrasting it with today’s capital city of Tokyo, the traveling Eagles got a heady mix of timeless history and hyper-modernity, she adds.

Yoko Parks, an EWU senior who recently completed her minor in Japanese, said she was awe-struck by her newfound — and hard-earned — ability to interact in a language her audience could understand. “My grandma told me that if you speak a language someone knows, you speak to their head,” Parks says. “If you speak their native language, you speak to their heart.”

Parks, who is now fluent in Japanese, makes a point of giving credit to her instructor. “Erina-sensei is second to none in Japanese linguistics,” she says of Romanowich. “I think her dedication to teaching her home language is admirable and something to emulate.” Parks adds that she hopes to one day move to Japan to work in its booming tech sector.

For many of the students on the trip, it was their first experience traveling outside of the country, making the journey both academically and personally transformative. The program culminated in student presentations that connected observations from the trip with concepts learned in class, an exercise that highlighted the value of experiential learning.

“A lot of students said they wanted to come back to Japan on their own,” Romanowich says, “which as a native Japanese citizen, is a really cool thing to hear.”