Youli Cao, Waseda University

1. Why did you choose to attend the exchange program at Guanghua?

I have lived in Japan my whole life, however I am ethnically Chinese. Therefore, I was curious about learning Chinese culture and connecting to my heritage. I wanted to learn more about Chinese culture by experiencing it firsthand. I chose Peking university because it is one of the top universities in China, so I thought I could connect with high caliber students.

2. Which Guanghua course(s) do you like the most and why?

-Organizational behavior and leadership

One of the most interesting classes for me was “Organizational Behavior and Leadership” class. We learned concepts for understanding people and their organizations as well as methods of accomplishing their goals. Each class, we worked on simulations or cases to learn the class content, and other activities that enabled us to connect with other classmates.

-Chinese management

In addition to that, I participated in “Chinese management” class as an auditor. In the class, we learned about specific Chinese companies and their services. After class, I could try to use the actual services, which allowed me to better understand Chinese companies.

-Cross-Cultural Communication

One of Gunghua’s classes that helped me to understand my background was “Cross-Cultural Communication” class. With the recent necessity of cross-cultural interaction, we learned different aspects of cross-cultural communication and cultural differences. In this class, especially the “culture and identity” topic, we discovered the students had a wide variety of cross-cultural backgrounds. By learning this topic with the student who having cross-cultural backgrounds, I could better understand my background and experiences through scientific theories.

-Business Chinese

“Future Leaders” program is held in English, but there are also Chinese language classes for the program’s students and studying abroad students. Whilst I could improve my English in most of the classes, I could also practice Chinese in class and daily life, which was really helpful for speaking Chinese fluently.

3. What impressed you the most during the exchange at Guanghua?

In Japan, living in dormitories is not so common so it was a really new and inclusive experience. Because of COVID, I felt I missed out on many things at university in Japan, however the dorm enabled me to deeper connect with my friends by meeting my roommates, neighbors and also the friends who live on campus whenever we wanted to meet. Though the exchange student life was only one semester, I experienced a lot of things with my friends that I forgot we had only met a few months ago. In the canteen, the table outside of the canteen, restaurant, and dorm, we shared our experiences of our home countries and deeper understood each other by eating foods, playing cards, and playing board games. I noticed that in China, many people like Japanese culture and food. I was very happy that I could share my experience of Japan.