J-education fair

Went to Queen Sirikit National Convention Center and stayed at Chula booth for J-education fair yesterday. There were many booths from universities that have Japanese major, some Japanese schools and colleges for anyone who is interested in furthering their studies in Japan, and some Japanese companies. Also, there were Karaoke singing contest and some interviews from students who had been studying in Japan, and some other activities related to Japan on the stage.

What our booth did was putting up some information about Japanese history, having some activities (drawing lots to get a prize...I'm not sure how you call it), and selling brownies (don't ask me how brownies are related to Japanese). I went there around 3:30 and there were many people from my major staying there. Around 6 PM there were only 4 boxes of brownies left so we were trying to sell it to people in the fair and then we could close our booth and go home. We were waiting while trying to catch people's attention but there were only a few people left. Finally, Mitona, one of my friends, was sick of waiting so she got up, took off her light jacket so that left only her halter-top, took the brownies, and went with a big smile on her face to approach a guy coming our way.

Guess what? That guy bought all 4 boxes of brownies. It was really easy, within less than 5 mins! We all kept teasing Mi about her "charm" after that - ha ha.

While I was staying at our booth, there were 2 Japanese people coming to see the information and chatting up with us for a bit. Of course, the usual conversation usually is about how our Japanese studying going, and if we had been to Japan before (It seems like Japanese always ask this question). Then, it turned out that one of them were the vice-president of a Japanese factory in Patumthani and invited some of us to see his booth. We went there and he said his company just hired Chula students this year and that his factory is specialized in making cell-phone equipments and some others. He kind of invited us to apply to his company when we graduate and even mentioned that the salary is quite high. Then, the vice president asked all of us to take pictures together so we told him to wait for us in 2 years time and not throw the pics away just yet lol. There were a lot of bowings during the conversation. In fact, we were bowing so much that, Dao said, we were about to lose our body balance! Along with the bowing were words like "arigatougozaimasu" (thank you), and "onegaishimasu" (literally means "please". Often used this word with older people or when you're "new" to them, kind of like expecting them to take care of you) repeated from time to time.

I don't know how many bows I'll be making if I want to work with Japanese. *sigh*

So I guess from what I've heard that Japanese are in favor of Chula graduates must be true. Toyota company is one of the major supporters for our Japanese major anyway.

Japanese are like Thais in term of taking the university's reputation very seriously, but isn't it a bit funny to entirely depend on the "label" alone? What about experiences in the field? Wouldn't it be better to focus on each person individually, based on their experiences, personalities, and their abilities? Being Chula students doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be the best. Ok, I believe we're studying harder, in fact CRAZILY harder, but when it comes to working, it doesn't mean that if you are good at academics stuff, you'd be successful, does it? The ability of dealing and cooperating with people should be taken into account instead. Suppose if you gradute with the first class honor degree from Chula, but you can't communicate to others, how come would you succeed in your career then?

The reason that I chose Chula cuz I was qualified and that it would give me more opportunity in our society. Actually it wasn't "me" who want to study at Chula, mostly Thai value that has driven dominantly in my decision, for getting a good job in the future, for receiving good credits for myself, for getting some "connections" from friends, and even for the reputation for the whole family for that matter. And another fact is that the academic differences from universities to universities in our country is in an incredibly high degree. One of my aunt's friends who taught at a private university established a few years ago, said that the students there spelled "egg" as "agg". In contrast, English major students at my faculty study Greek mythology, analyze Shakespeare's Macbeth, do some BBC news transcription, and so on.

Though we are all college students, it's quite shocking that what we're studying is extremely varied, and that is, back to what I had previously mentioned, depended on the university's reputation.