International Lab

As it happens, civil engineering is one of the few subjects taught at the University of Tokyo in English. This attracts many international students. I've experienced first hand just how they handle teaching in English and basically, the professors say everything twice. Once in English and once in Japanese. If it's very simple English, they don't bother translating.

So, being a foreigner myself, I've found it pretty easy to befriend the other foreigners, if only because they speak good English. I have found them all to be very friendly. My first week there, I was sort of looked after by Ivan and Wayway. Ivan sits next to me and is from Russia. Wayway is Chinese, but from England, so she speaks English perfectly well and of course has a British accent. Ivan is married to a Japanese-American woman from Guam and Wayway is engaged to Frenchman.

Our lab also has Carlos, who sits next to me in the lab and is from Colombia. Umar and Aziz from Pakistan. Amin from Iran. There is a Sri Lankan guy, there was a visiting professor from Egypt, and another guy, I think is from maybe Nepal or somewhere in that area by the look of him.

I should also add Matteo and Stefano, two grad students from Pisa in Italy. They only arrived last weekend and are only here for the summer as well.

The other geotech lab seems every bit as diverse as ours. There is Co-san, who is from Korea, Adrianna, who is also from Colombia, Gabriele, who is from Italy, Choco, from Indonesia, Jina, who is Korean but was born and raised in Paris.

In this photo: Choco, me, Co-san, Laura, Jina, Carlos, Adrianna, Gabriele

The conversations took place in multiple languages at times with everyone of them working on their Japanese. Gabriele's girlfriend is Japanese and apparently now only wants him to speak Japanese with her. Co and Jina would talk in Korean sometimes. Carlos, Adrianna and Gabriele would speak Spanish. When the other Italians were around Gabriele would speak Italian with them. At times I felt I needed to put my iPod on and listen to just English because I was getting language overload.