By Wednesday evening of next week, my tenure as a Monbukagakusho research scholar will officially be over, and I’ll be back in the United States for the first time in two years.

It hasn’t even begun to sink in, but that’s par for the course for me. In addition to Japan I’ve previously lived Thailand and Norway for extended stays, and in every case the imminence of my return to the States doesn’t really hit me until I board the plane. Or until the first time I handle dimes, nickels and quarters again. Or until I step out into Minnesota air that’s thirty degrees colder than the air I had breathed half a day before.

I came to Japan to study East Asian calligraphy in the hopes that it would improve my comics, and it has, profoundly. But after two years I think the law of diminishing returns has started to kick in, so the timing to pack it in and move on is probably about right. Also, this had been the longest continuous stretch that I’ve ever been abroad, so I’m really excited to see family and friends again.

On the other hand, I’ve had such a great experience here that I’m sad that it’s come to an end. My Japanese has finally reached the point where I can actually communicate with people in a semi-normal manner, and as such I’ve made much closer Japanese friends than the last time I stayed here. So it’s harder to say goodbye to them than the last time I lived in Japan. Oh well, all good things must come to an end.

By no means am I done with traditional East Asian art. I plan to continue to study calligraphy on the side, and hope to study sumi-e ink painting as well. Regular readers may recall that I’m working on a comic book about East Asian calligraphy, and I intend to eventually finish that as well (don’t hold your breath, though).

Well, I’ve got a lot of packing and last minute preparations to do, so I’ll leave it at this. I’ve prepared a couple entries to go up the next two Fridays so I don’t have to worry about them while I’m settling back in to life in the States. After that I’ll write about what’s in store for me next. So stay tuned, dudes!

Starting today (Tuesday, February 23), some of my work will be on display here in Tokushima, Japan. It’s a very small, informal group show for Shikoku University’s Calligraphy Department research students (all three of us).

My contributions amount to two pieces of mediocre calligraphy, and about ninety pieces of original art from Tonoharu: Part Two. Here are the deets:

Dates: Tuesday, February 23, 2010—-Friday, February 26, 2010
Time: 9am to 5pm
Location: The second floor of Shikoku University Kouryuu Plaza, Tokushima, Japan

See you all there!

What’s that you say? You live on the wrong side of the planet and I haven’t given you enough notice to book a ticket to Japan? In that case, here’s a few images of what you’re “missing”…

(Note: this blog entry is in lieu of the entry I usually put up on Friday. So the next blog entry will go up on March 5th.)

Above is the cover of this year’s student handbook for Shikoku University. Looks fine at first glance, but take a look at the sweatshirt of the guy on the right:

Whoopsie. Not a big deal, but I just find it funny that they’re advertising another school on the cover of the book they give to new students.

Doesn’t it eventually reach a point where it becomes easier to just flag the pages you aren’t interested in?

Pssssssst… (I like you.)

In last week’s blog entry, I wrote about the first of two cultural surprises I encountered during my current stay in Japan to study calligraphy at Shikoku University. The subject of this entry is the second surprise, which involved…

Attitudes towards Dating
A while back I was talking with a friend/classmate, and during the course of our conversation he offhandedly mentioned that two people in our class that were dating. He saw I was surprised to hear this, and inquired “Well at least you know that So-and-so & So-and-so have hooked up, right?” This piece of what was apparently common knowledge was also news to me.

I wasn’t so much surprised that I was out of the loop; my Japanese comprehension isn’t exactly perfect so I miss a lot, and my classmates have several other classes together that I’m not in. What really surprised me is that I can’t remember ever seeing the respective boyfriends & girlfriends so much as even talk to each other. Like, ever.

In the days that followed, I creepily watched the members of the two couples out of the corner of my eye (just out of curiosity, honest), and indeed; they treated each other like complete strangers. Other than an occasional “Good Morning” at the beginning of the day, not a word between them. I don’t expect them to be french kissing in the back of class, but not even a quick chat during the day? When and where did they ever get to know each other well enough to start dating?

The answer to that question is still a mystery, but I’ve come to realize that having a significant other is treated as an unofficial secret. If someone directly asks you if you’re attached, you’d probably answer honestly, but otherwise, the subject of who you spent the weekend with magically never comes up, and if your partner is a classmate, you coincidentally never have cause to talk to them in public.

So why all the secrecy? I asked a smart-alexy Japanese friend of mine.

“It’s because Japanese people like to have affairs!” He offered. Hardy-har.

Taking a more serious stab at the question, he speculated that attached classmates conveniently avoid mention of their relationships because if they made a big to-do about it, they’d be less likely to get invited to social gatherings. Like platonic male friends would stop inviting romantically-attached girls out (even in groups) in deference to the boyfriend, or something. Seems a little old fashioned to me, but whatever, every culture has its own set of rules.

My newfound awareness of the Japanese “cloak-and-dagger” appraoch to dating notwithstanding, the following still caught me off guard a bit:

A couple weeks ago, a cute friend of mine sent an e-mail to my cell-phone, wondering if I’d still be at school later that afternoon. She had something she wanted to tell me, she wrote.

“Hell yeah I’ll be around!” I thought, and then jotted off some causal reply about maybe being around, or whatev.

While waiting around for the appointed time, I mulled her e-mail over. “Something to tell you…” why so vague? Or for that matter, why even send an e-mail at all, why not just wait until we ran into each other randomly? Unless it was something important… I entertained a myriad of unlikely possibilities.

When I ever so causally bumped into her later that day, all my beautiful theories were put to rest by the ugly truth: she wanted me to help her write an e-mail to her boyfriend, whose birthday was that weekend. She thought he’d get a kick out of getting an e-mail in English. An e-mail to the boyfriend I didn’t know you had after knowing you for four months? Sure, pass over the pencil & paper, let’s compose a birthday greeting to that asshole!

Rereading her e-mail to me again later, I saw that she hadn’t written that she had something to tell me, but rather that she had something she wanted me to tell her. Japanese can be tricky, I tell ya…

Prior to coming to Tokushima to study calligraphy earlier this year, I had lived in Japan on four separate occasions. With more than three years of experience under my belt, I figured my grasp of Japanese culture was pretty solid, and didn’t expect any real surprises this time around. Having been here for just four months now, I’ve already seen this assumption get proven wrong twice (and counting).

It was pure arrogance to assume that my knowledge of Japanese culture was somehow comprehensive (or even could be), but especially considering the narrow scope of my previous experience. I was unable to communicate beyond caveman grunts for most of it, and my contact with Japanese people my own age was all but nonexistent. Working as an assistant English teacher, most of the people I met were either students or teachers, so everyone was either ten years old, or in their fifties.

This time around I’m in a university setting, so I’m surrounded by people my own age (actually most of them are five or ten years younger than me, but as I’m a cartoonist & blogger, it’s probably safe to assume we’re at about the same maturity level). And my Japanese is just starting to approach the level where I can actually make friends with people who don’t know any English. So I’m getting a glimpse of Japan I didn’t have access to before, leading to the two before-mentioned instances of mini-culture shock.

The first one being…

The Militaristic Seniority System
Long before experiencing the real thing, my introduction to Japanese university life came in the form of anime & manga. The neon-haired, saucer-eyed character designs did little to assure me that these stories were in any way accurate portrayals of Japanese college life, and I took everything in them with a grain of salt.

So whenever a character would refer to an upperclassman as “Yamada-san” or whatever, I always assumed that this, like the character designs, was an exaggeration; a blunt attempt to paint the speaker as shy and overly polite. Never did I actually imagine that people in their teens and twenties would unironically refer to each other as “Mr./Mrs. So-and-so”, especially in this day and age.

Upon arriving at Shikoku University, however, I learned my assumption was wrong. Underclassmen duly refer to upperclassmen in polite forms that I would hesitate to use in the States unless I was meeting the president or something. I’m starting to get used to it now, but it’s still sort of weird to see a freshmen refer to a sophomore as Mr. Lastname, or hearing Mr. Lastname giving the freshmen a dressing down for some infraction. I mean, I could understand it if Mr. Lastname was middle-aged or something, but the age/life experience difference between a freshman and a sophomore is just a matter of a few months. Seeing that level of deference among peers is like watching a fraternity hazing ritual or something.

The big question for me was where I fit in the food chain. I’m older than most of the students, but have much less experience in calligraphy. A classmate helpfully summed it up by saying “Age trumps all”. So most of my fellow students (even friends) call me “Lars-san”, and I can call them by just their name, or by attaching a friendly suffix to their name like “chan” or “kun”. Which situations I can/should use those opens up a whole other can of worms altogether. I’m still trying to figure that one out…

The other cultural thing that surprised me, involving attitudes towards dating, will the subject of next weeks entry.

Last week’s entry was about what a typical week is like for me as a Monbusho Research Scholar in the Calligraphy Department of Shikoku University in Tokushima, Japan. This week I want to write about the people I’ve meet here, and about my surroundings.

The People
The person I was most nervous to meet was my advisor, Professor Morikami. This is the person I’d be working with for the next two years, so my whole experience would be greatly influenced by how well I got along with him. Before arriving to Japan, I had never talked to him, and didn’t even know what he looked like. My contact with him had been limited to a few e-mail exchanges conducted in Japanese. He used extremely formal Japanese, and his e-mails were always short and businesslike, which lead me to wonder if he wouldn’t be a distant, strict teacher. I envisioned him scowling in disgust at my poor speaking and listening comprehension during our first actual conversation.

All of those worries dissolved immediately when I met him for the first time. He’s extremely friendly and patient, and goes out of his way to use simple, clearly spoken Japanese when he talks to me. I couldn’t ask for a better advisor.

Pictured: The venerable Professor Morikami, in his office

My fellow students are also great. I have a desk with the other calligraphy grad students, and they’ve taken me under their wing, helping me get settled in when I first got here, inviting me out on various outings… a bunch of class acts, all the way.

Pictured: Some friends at my birthday party. No one parties like calligraphy grad students… NO ONE!

The Places
While I couldn’t be happier about the school, faculty, and students, it’s a bit harder to get enthusiastic about the area I live in. I mean, it’s adequate; there’s a place to do grocery shopping within walking distance of my apartment, a couple restaurants… it’s just kind of boring. I’m living in a suburb of Tokushima called Kitajima, about a half hour away by bus from the city center, where all the action is. That wouldn’t be too bad, except that the buses only come once every ninety minutes or so, with the last one leaving at like 7pm. So you can’t just show up at the bus stop, you really need to plan ahead, and make sure you wrap things up really early, or you’re stuck with an expensive cab ride. I’ve always been impressed by Japan’s public transportation system, but when you get out in the sticks it’s less inspiring. A bicycle is high on my list of things to acquire.

Pictured: A couple shots of the area I live in. Like I say, it’s alright…

My apartment is fine too, though it sort of feels like it was put together from a plastic model kit. And I swear the walls are made out of textured poster board.

It’s actually bigger than I was expecting, but then that’s not saying much because I was expecting it to be the equivalent of a short hallway. It is, but it’s the equivalent of a short hallway that’s really wide, like they have in hospitals. Awesome! As you can see from the photo below, I sleep in a weird bunk bed type thing, with the area below the bed, and the trianglar stairs leading up to it, serving as storage.

So all-in-all my apartment’s okay, except for the ridiculously small “kitchen”, shown here:

Pictured: My kitchen… shown at ACTUAL SIZE

So to sum up my impression of my first two months here:
Shikoku University’s calligraphy program, students, and teachers: Great!
The area that I live in: Meh. But my opinion may approve once I get a bike and can explore a bit further out.

I’ll write more about my experiences as a Monbusho Scholar at some point in the future, but that’ll do it for the time being. The next two entries will be devoted to finishing up a long delayed series of posts about my process for creating my graphic novel Tonoharu. So check back the next two Fridays for that.

At the beginning of April, I came to Japan on a Monbusho Scholarship to study Japanese Calligraphy at Shikoku University. Previous blog entries about exactly what the Monbusho Scholarship is and how I got involved in it can be found here.

Now that I’ve been here in Japan for almost two months now, I think I have enough of a sense of what the experience is shaping up to be to write an overview of what a typical week is like.

*****
Although I’m officially designated as an independent research student, the calligraphy department faculty has been kind enough to allow me to sit in on regular classes for the first semester, to serve as a crash course to the various styles of Japanese Calligraphy. Every weekday I have one class, except for Thursdays when I have three. Below is a list of the subjects I’m studying:

Regular Script (twice a week)
Seal Script
Semi-cursive Script
Cursive Script
Penmanship
History of Chinese Calligraphy

This goes without saying probably, but all of the classes are conducted in Japanese. In fact I wasn’t even sure what the calligraphic styles were called in English when I started writing this blog entry, and had to look them up on Wikipedia.

For all but the history class, the classes are pretty hands on. They usually begin with the professor providing a short explanation about what we’ll be practicing that day, possibly in the form of a mini-history lecture.

That’s followed maybe by a demonstration, and then the rest of the class is devoted to practicing writing something from a handout or our textbook.

The History of Chinese Calligraphy class, on the other hand, is a standard lecture class. This was the class I was most worried about when I first started. Much to my surprise, however, I’m actually able to understand most of it (with the help of my Japanese electronic dictionary) and it’s pretty interesting.

I will say this though; my Japanese level is such that I need to pay really careful attention to understand what is being said. I can sustain that level of concentration for about an hour or so. After that, my comprehension takes a nosedive, and by the end of a ninety minute class, I just can’t keep focused, and understand almost nothing. So by the end of the day on Thursday, having attended three classes totaling four and a half hours, I’m physically exhausted down to my bones. On Thursdays I drag my carcass home the minute classes are over, and veg out.

On every other weekday, I usually stay at school after class and practice what I’ve learned. There’s a huge room for this purpose, carpeted in felt. Oftentimes other students will be in there, practicing calligraphy on long sheets of paper laid out on the floor.

So far I’ve been very happy with my studies here at Shikoku University. I haven’t been here long yet, but feel like I’ve already learned a lot. I’ll write about some of the harebrained conclusions I’ve drawn, as well as show some of my calligraphy, at some point in the coming months.

But for now, I’ll leave it at this. Next week’s entry will be devoted to my new surroundings, and the people I’ve met here.

This blog entry is about my trip to Japan at the beginning of April, to study calligraphy at Shikoku University as a Monbusho scholar. At that point my ankle was on the mend from an injury sustained in January, and I could put weight on it and get around with a cane. But it was still quite tender.

It was a long trip; I flew from Minneapolis to Chicago via American Airlines, then Chicago to Tokyo via Japan Airlines, and finally flew from Tokyo to Osaka. I spent the night in Osaka, and then took a bus to Tokushima, where my school is located.

***
At the airport in Minneapolis, I rejected an offer for a wheelchair at the ticket counter. As we walked towards the security line, my dear old dad recommended that I take any assistance that I get from then on.

At that point I bid my dad adieu, and went through security. I was wearing a walking cast with metal buckles on it, so to clear security I had remove it so it could be sent through the x-ray machine. I was then patted down and checked with the wand metal detector before I could put the cast back on and be on my way. It took a while, needless to say.

When I got to Chicago, I ignored my dad’s advice and opted to find my own way to my connecting gate, which I mistakenly thought was just a short walk away. As it turned out, my connecting flight took off from a completely different concourse. By the time I figured that out, I didn’t have much time left to catch it. Due to the design and apparent remodel-in-progress of the airport, I had to leave the secure area, hobble my way down winding hallways with poor signage, take a shuttle, and then find the new security line, all while carrying a ton of carry-on luggage on my back. Then I had to re-clear security, take the cast off, get patted down again, etc., etc., all the while the clock ticking away…

I caught the connecting flight, but after that ordeal, I decided to take Dad’s advice, swallow my pride, and get wheeled around whenever I could. Luckily, the Japan Airlines staff took good care of me. First off the plane was half empty, so I was able to occupy two seats. And when I got to Tokyo they had a wheelchair and an escort waiting for me, allowing me to zip ahead of everyone at customs, and have one of my checked bags shipped directly to Tokushima. I was then delivered right to my connecting gate. In Osaka, the airport staff saw me as far as the hotel shuttle. Once I arrived to the hotel, I was on my own.

At that point I only had one suitcase, my laptop, and a backpack. Even managing just that from the front desk to my hotel room was almost impossible; I would have been completely screwed if I had both checked bags with me. My hotel room was in an adjustment building from where I checked in, and to get there I had to cross an alley, and climb a very mild slope. Mild though it was, I could barely do it, with my laptop and backpack constantly falling off my shoulder, all while dragging a 70lbs suitcase behind me.

When I got to my room, I unzipped the suitcase to its largest size, and stuffed my laptop and the heavy stuff from my backpack into it. It was now the size of a college dorm refrigerator and must’ve weighed close to ninety pounds, but it simplified my life a little bit. With that I went to bed, my bad foot swollen and purple.

The next day, I opted to take a taxi from my hotel to the bus station; it cost about ten times as much as taking a train there, and took about the same amount of time because of morning traffic, but I was in no condition to lug my suitcase around a train station and then try to find the bus station after that. The taxi driver and I had a nice little discussion about American politics and Creedence Clearwater Revival along the way. The taxi dropped me off right in front of the ticket counter. Even then, it was a battle of navigating mild inclines and the like to get from the ticket counter to where I caught my bus. But I made it somehow. Once I arrived in Tokushima, I took another taxi to Shikoku University. With that, the worst of it was behind me.

And I’ll cut it off here. Check back next week for an introduction to my school.

Welcome to the fourth and final entry in a series about my successful application for a Monbusho Research Scholarship. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading parts one, two, and three first. This final entry deals with the interview process.

In June 2007 I received word that I had passed the initial application stage and had been selected to for an interview and a series of language proficiency exams.

The Tests
Proficiency in Japanese is not necessarily a prerequisite for receiving a Monbusho Research Scholarship, (in fact I’ve heard that some people have gotten the scholarship despite knowing no Japanese whatsoever) but nevertheless all applicants who make it to the interview stage are required to take a three-part Japanese test. In the U.S., applicants also have the option to take an English proficiency test if they choose (I believe in countries where English is not spoke as a native language, this additional test is required).

For the Japanese Tests: The Monbusho Japanese tests roughly equates to the JLPT, if the JLPT was reconfigured to only have three levels of difficulty instead of four. (If you don’t know what the JLPT is, here’s the wikipedia article about it.)

So the easiest Monbusho Japanese test is like a combination of JLPT levels 4 and 3, the middle Monbusho test is like a combination of JLPT levels 3 and 2, and the hardest Monbusho test is like a combination of JLPT levels 2 and 1.

Since my Japanese level was between JLPT levels 3 and 2 when I took it, I aced the easiest Monbusho test, did okay on the middle one, and bombed the hardest one (at least I think so; they never actually told me what my scores were). I’m in no position to offer study advice for the hardest one, so if you think your Japanese might be good enough to pass that, you’re on your own. But here are my thoughts for studying for the easier two:

The Monbusho Japanese tests from the past few years can be found here: http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj0307e.html#2
This goes without saying really, but take the aforementioned tests and get a sense of what they’re like. I recommend taking at least one set of tests the way you’ll take them on the actual day of the test; give yourself 60 minutes per test, and take them all in succession.

Bone up on the nitpicky differences between the particles, verb tenses, etc. You may think you have a good grasp on them, but I found I was often not 100% sure about whether I should use wo or ni or de, or whatever. Review the rules for which particle is used when, because that makes up a lot of easiest test. Also make sure you know your way around the politeness levels, the different ways to say give and receive, and stuff like that.

Here are some of the study aides that I find worked well for me in preparation for the Japanese tests:
For kanji: hands down the best flash cards I’ve ever found are the ones made by Rabbit Press. They’re well organized, durable, and set up specifically for studying for the JLPT, so if you want to study for that too, you’re set. [Amazon link for the cards: JLPT levels 3 and 4, and JLPT level 2]
For grammar, vocab, etc.: I’ve always been partial to the Minna no Nihongo series. Once you’ve outgrown that, I found An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese published by the Japan Times, to be good.

Finally, the English Test. For our group of applicants in the United States, it was optional. Most people in my group chose not to take it, and left for lunch as soon as the Japanese test was done. I took it, because I figured it couldn’t hurt, and since I’m a native English speaker, I figured it’d be pretty easy. It was. It only took me about twenty minutes. Again, past versions of this test can be found here: http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj0307e.html#2
As a native English speaker, I have no advice for non-native English speakers for that test. If any non-native English speakers have any thoughts about that, please leave a comment to this entry.

The Interview
After a lunch break, they started with the interviews. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t think I did so well on the interview. In fact, and maybe I’m wrong about this, I feel that I got the scholarship in spite of the interview, rather than because of it. So while I don’t feel like I’m the best person to give advice about that, here’s basically how it went down.
I interviewed with four people; two Japanese, and two American. One of the Americans, a college professor from a local university, dominated the conversation. I had prepared for a few questions (like “Why do you want to study in Japan?” or “Why do you want to study calligraphy since you’re a cartoonist?”) but she didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, she asked about a few random things, and then at one point seemed to question if my research proposal even counted as “research” in the first place!
Now, I certainly don’t think that what I was proposing was a significant as the search for a cure for cancer or anything, but I felt it was important in its own small way. And since I had reached the point in the application process where I had been invited in for an interview, I wasn’t expecting a line of questioning that seemed to imply that my research proposal might not even have any value in the first place. But then, I don’t have much experience with interviews of this sort, so maybe it’s par for the course; maybe they just want you to “defend your thesis” or something. In any event, I was totally caught off guard, but sputtered out some sort of response as best I could.

There was also a section of the interview where they asked me questions in Japanese; I read somewhere that this would take up half of the full twenty-minute interview, but in my case it was probably only two minutes (though it you were studying, say, Japanese linguistics or something, it might be a bigger part of your interview). The purpose of that is to determine what your level of listening comprehension and speaking ability in Japanese. The questions were of the conversational variety.

Once that was over, they asked if I had any questions for them. I can’t remember what, but I asked them a couple things. It’d probably be a good idea to have a couple questions for them prepared. And with that, the interview was thankfully over, and I got out of there as quickly as I could without running. The end of a very long day.

Again, since I don’t feel I did so well on the interview, I’m probably not the best person to give advice about it. I will say this: one thing I wished I had done, but never got around to doing, was doing a practice interview. Ask a friend or colleague to look over your application and make up a few questions about it, some friendly, some adversarial, and then try to answer them on the spot, without allowing yourself any time to think about it first. This would have been great practice for me, and I wished I had done it.

The Long Wait
After the interview, the wait to find out if I had passed the interview stage was pretty short; less than a week, if memory serves. Then it was a matter of waiting for the “letter of recommendation” form to arrive from the consulate, turning around and mailing that to the professors in Japan, waiting for them to mail it back to me, and then mailing it back to the consulate. Even though I had done all the legwork for getting a professor to agree to work with me, and all I was doing was mailing sheets of paper back and forth, it still felt like I was strapped for time to meet the deadline. So once again, I would recommend doing at least some (preferably most or all) of the legwork for contacting professors/securing a commitment from them to serve as your advisor ahead of time.

So I got my letters of acceptance to the consulate, there wasn’t anything to do except wait. It was an anxious time of course, but it also felt like there was a big weight off my shoulders, because I had finally reached the point, some ten months after I started, when I didn’t to devote any more time to Monbusho Scholarship-related stuff. I’ve heard that Monbusho Scholars often hear about their acceptance by late January, but the notification can come as late as the end of February. In my case, I finally found out I was in around mid-February. And so that was that.

*********
Since I spent hours writing this long-winded account, I hope you’ll forgive me if I put an unrelated plug in here: if you found this guide helpful, and/or if you’re interested in comics/Japan, please consider supporting this starving artist by purchasing my graphic novel Tonoharu: Part One from your local book store, or at amazon.com, or directly from me. Thanks.

And for more about my new life in Japan now that I’ve gotten the Monbusho scholarship, check back in this site again. I update every Friday, and my experiences as a Monbusho scholar are certain to be the subject of many of those entries.

So I guess with that, I’ll bring this account about the application process to a close. I hope this helped Monbusho applicants in some small way on their applications, and wish them best of luck. Ganbatte kudasai! And if anyone out there with prior Monbusho experience feels I missed the mark on my advice, or just has a different take on things, please leave a comment to this entry. Thanks!

Part 1 of 4–Introduction/Disclaimers
Part 2 of 4–Writing the Research Proposal
Part 3 of 4–Filling out the Application & Contacting Professors
Part 4 of 4–The Tests, the Interview, & the Long Wait

Welcome to the third in a four part series of entries about my successful application for a Monbusho Research Scholarship. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading parts one and two. This entry deals with my process for filling out the application and contacting professors.

Filling out the Application
The majority of the application is pretty straightforward; names, addresses, dates, that sort of thing. You can write it in English or Japanese; I went with English. Just go over the application guidelines and follow them to the letter.

Make your application look as pretty as possible. Since I have graphic design training, I was able to import the Monbusho PDF application into Adobe Illustrator and fill in the information there, so everything had a nice, typeset look to it. If that’s not possible for you, I recommend finding a typewriter and typing up your application. Failing that, write as neatly as possible with a black pen. Proofread everything carefully to make sure you don’t have any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Print out clean laser copies of the application on a good quality paper. Separate the different copies in clearly labeled, brand new folders. Again, every aspect of your application should exude earnestness and professionalism.

You’re required to attach a passport-sized photo of yourself to your application. For mine, I dressed up in a suit and tie, and had a solemn expression; you can decide for yourself if you want to take it this far, but sticking out your tongue while wearing a lime-green tanktop would probably be a bad idea.

The application also requires you to submit academic thesis, to give applicant reviewers a sense of your work. But in the case of people applying for arts-related scholarships, an artwork example is acceptable in lieu of a thesis. I included a twenty-page excerpt on my comic book Tonoharu: Part One. On the back of my excerpt, I included an artist’s statement that tied my comic book into what I hoped to achieve by studying in Japan.

Seven pages of the twenty page excerpt I submitted can be found here, if you want to get a sense of what my work looks like.

Contacing Professors
There isn’t much to say about the main application itself, but the so-called “Attachment” part of the application is a little more demanding. This is where you indicate what you’ve done in regards to contacting professors and securing their good graces. All said and done, this is probably where I spent the most time on my application; probably even longer than on my research proposal itself. It’s also the reason I got my application out just before the deadline, because I was waiting for professors to get back to me. (All the more reason to start contacting professors early.)

I should say first of all that the way the Monbusho Research Scholarship was set up the year I applied (in 2007), you weren’t able to receive an official letter of acceptance from a professor until after you’ve passed the interview stage through your embassy/consulate. But nonetheless I would very strongly recommend you start contacting professors just as soon as possible; long before your interview, maybe just as soon as you’ve come up with a near final version of your research proposal. You don’t have much time after you pass the interview stage to get letters of acceptance from professors, so it’s important to lay the groundwork beforehand. Plus, you’re more likely to get to and pass the interview stage if it looks like you’ve already got the professors pretty much all sorted out.

The first step is to make a list of schools you would like to go to. Probably your best option here is to solicit advice from people with Monbusho experience that you’ve networked with. Failing (or in addition to) that, your best resource is a search via the internet.

There may be better options out there, but I found this website to be useful:
http://nime-glad.nime.ac.jp/en/index.php

Type in a keyword at the top (art, painting, physics, whatever), select “Japanese Universities”, and click “search”. A list of universities and their websites will pop up. At this point, there’s nothing to do but slog through them. Many Japanese universities have English homepages, but they usually don’t have much information. Your best option, if your Japanese is up to the task, is to explore the Japanese version of the website to see which one is a good fit for you. If your Japanese isn’t good enough to navigate the Japanese pages, it might even be a good idea to enlist the help of a Japanese friend, to get there opinions about the schools you’ve tentatively selected.

For my own personal research topic, calligraphy, I found that there actually weren’t that many schools that offered a dedicated calligraphy program. And of those that did, many were teachers colleges whose only goal was to train teachers to teach calligraphy to elementary students (calligraphy is a mandatory subject in Japan, starting in third grade). In the end, I was only able to find twelve schools that offered a non-teacher training calligraphy major, so I just contacted all the schools. If your major is more general, you’ll probably have the luxury/burden of having to narrow down your list of possible schools.

Once you have a list of, oh, ten or twenty schools that look good to you, it’s time to seek out contact information for specific professors at those schools.

Personally, I decided to approach professors via e-mail, because that way I didn’t have to worry about the time difference and expensive phone calls. And it would give me the opportunity to perfectly craft my message to them without having to worry about my Japanese, and would give them a chance to think about my proposal carefully without me waiting there on the phone. So for me, e-mail seemed like the way to go.

I quickly found, forever, that unlike in the States, finding an e-mail address online for a Japanese professor was really tough. So if you’re Japanese is really good and you don’t mind racking up high phone bills, or calling at 2am your time, a phone call inquiry might be an easier way to connect with a Japanese professor.

That is not what I did, however. I stuck with my e-mail plan, and somehow managed to track down the well-hidden e-mail addresses of some professors. It took some sleuthing. For one professor, I found their e-mail address in an obscure PDF file on their universities website. For another, I found the professor’s name, googled that, and contacted them through a contact form I found on their blog. For another, I sent an inquiry through the calligraphy club at their school and got it that way; for another, I inquired through the school’s international center. And it goes without saying that pretty much all of this information was only found on the Japanese versions of their websites. So for those of you who’s Japanese is shaky, it might pay to see if you can get a good Japanese friend to help you.

At that point, I had the e-mail addresses of about ten different professors. But before I even thought about contacting them, I tried to put myself in their shoes.

When you contact a professor about serving as your supervisor, you’re asking for a lot. You’re asking them to supervise a near stranger from a foreign country for two whole years. Professor’s are usually busy, and having to supervise you will only be a further burden on their time. They would be held personally responsible if you behaved badly, so they’re taking a risk in that arena as well. When you consider all this, it’s easy to understand why many Monbusho applicants say finding a professor who’s willing to work with you is the hardest part of the application process.

So as I considered how I would approach professors, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them; I didn’t want to give them any excuse to rejecting me out of hand. I concluded that writing in Japanese would be the best option; I figured professors whose English might be shaky would be unlikely to read through an English e-mail (and even less likely to reply in English).

So I wrote an inquiry e-mail in Japanese. My Japanese at that point was definitely good enough to write an e-mail that would be understood, but wasn’t good enough to write it in perfect, polite, humble Japanese. Since showing a high level of respect was important at that early stage, I wrote the e-mail in Japanese, and then had a Japanese friend help me edit it, to fix politeness level errors, etc. My inquiry letter was very short; just a few sentences.

So I had my inquiry e-mail. But again, thinking of things from their point of view, I figured I should also show them examples of my artwork, so they could get some sense of who I was and what I did. I decided it would be obnoxious to send large, unsolicited file attachments and clog their inbox, so I decided that the inquiry letter would contain a link to a mini, one page website about me. That way the teacher could choose to go there, and see what I was about at their leisure. Needless to say, the website was in Japanese as well. It also contained PDF links to my Monbusho application, samples of my comic and a few samples of my calligraphy.

For informative purposes, I’m providing a link to the website I designed and submitted to the professors. The PDF links no longer work, and I took out my private e-mail address, but other than that it’s exactly as the professors saw it. [Link]
 
Of the twelve schools I sent inquiries to, half didn’t get back to me at all, despite a follow-up e-mail I sent later. Three rejected me right off the bat, and three seemed intrigued by my proposal, and wrote back that it either “might” or “probably” would be possible for me to study at their schools. This was perfect, because it allowed me to put three schools and professors on the “Attachment” part of the Monbusho application, stating that each professor has at least expressed a willingness to work with me. Since I couldn’t get anything official until after I passed the interview stage anyway, this was about as good as I could make my application.

So with all that done, I sent my application off to the Consulate, and waited to hear back from them to see if I’d been granted an interview. Check back next Friday for the final part about that.

And if anyone out there with prior Monbusho experience feels I missed the mark in my advice, or has a different take on things, please leave a comment to this entry.

Part 1 of 4–Introduction/Disclaimers
Part 2 of 4–Writing the Research Proposal
Part 3 of 4–Filling out the Application & Contacting Professors
Part 4 of 4–The Tests, the Interview, & the Long Wait

Welcome to the second in a four part series of entries about my successful application for a Monbusho Research Scholarship. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the first part (in particular, the disclaimers contained therein). This entry deals with my process for putting my research proposal together.

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The Monbusho Research Scholarship appealed to me for a number of reasons when I first heard about it. On a personal level, I love Japan. I had lived there for three years prior to my application for the Monbusho Scholarship, and have a keen interest in the culture, language, art, food and people.

On a professional/academic level, the idea of studying in Japan appealed to me because of its rich history in the realm of comic books. I’ve wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a kid, and have long believed that the medium of comics are just as capable as film or prose of creating powerful work of real artistic value. It is towards this ideal of creating “literary” comics that I aspire, and I felt confident that studying in Japan would help me in that regard.

Add into the mix that a Monbusho Scholarship would allow me to pursue my research without going severely into debt, and that cemented my desire to go for it.

So when I first resolved to apply for the Monbusho Scholarship, that’s where I stood: I had the vague idea that my research would be geared towards improving the quality of my comics, but exactly how I would spend my time was still very much up in the air.

So my first step was to decide the specific focus of my research proposal. After giving it a lot of thought, I ultimately decided that research focused not on comics, but rather on traditional Japanese line art, would be the best way to go. I won’t go into why I reached that conclusion here, but if you’re interested, see this blog entry.

I started working on my first draft of my research proposal in January 2007; a full six months before the application was to be due. While I was doing this, I started seeking out the advice of people with Monbusho experience. I’d recommend you start networking efforts in earnest at least six months before your application is due; even earlier would be better. One professor I talked to thought a year before the application date would be ideal!

If you already personally know people with Monbusho experience, great, you have a good head start. For the rest of you who don’t know anyone with Monbusho experience, you’re in the same boat that I was. This is where you put the “six degrees of separation” theory to the test. Contact every Japanese person you know who went to a college in Japan and ask if they know anyone who ever got a Monbusho Scholarship, or know any professors who supervised Monbusho Scholars. Contact people you know with links to international exchange programs at the university where you did your undergrad. Network at Japan related organizations in your hometown. Odds are you’ll be able to find a “friend of a friend” who is willing to talk to you.

In my case, I found two people; one who was a former Monbusho Research student, and a professor who had helped his students get the Monbusho Scholarship a few years ago. Both offered useful insight that helped me in my application.

My first attempt at creating a research proposal expressed an intention to research just about every type of Japanese line art under the sun, from hundreds of years ago to the present. I intended to start with calligraphy, move onto ink drawing, then move unto Ukiyo-e style prints, and finally end a few months of studying modern comic book techniques.

There were a number of problems with this proposal. It was arrogantly overambitious for just two years of study, for one. But a bigger problem with it was that it was too broad to be able to find a professor who could competently serve as my advisor for all aspects of it. It’d be like saying you intended to research all facets of “Science” for two years. There would be no professor would be qualified (or willing) to supervise such an unruly, unfocused proposal.

It’s important to keep in mind that you’ll eventually be pitching your research proposal (and yourself) to prospective professors-supervisors, so your proposal should, ideally, be custom tailored to fall under the canopy of a particular academic school found at accredited Japanese universities. A Japanese professor will probably be a little reluctant to supervise a complete stranger for two years anyway; they’ll be even less likely to do so if your research proposal is partially outside of their area of expertise.

In my case, I decided to narrow the focus down to just calligraphy, with a unit of ink drawing thrown in as well. I ultimately sought letters of acceptance for professors in Calligraphy departments. Even with my narrowed focus, some professors expressed concern about the “ink drawing” unit, since that wasn’t related to calligraphy in their minds.

So I started working on a revised research proposal. Once I had a rough draft done, I had various people review it and offer their suggestions. Someone with Monbusho experience would be ideal for this sort of review, but anyone with experience in the world of academia will do (or failing that, anyone whose opinion you trust). Just make sure you let them know you want their unvarnished opinion.

What I kept hearing from many different reviewers was that my proposal should be more detailed and concrete; what would I do, when would I do it, what did I hope to achieve, etc., etc. At first I was a little reluctant to commit to paper exactly what I would be doing in, say, February of 2010. It seemed somewhat arrogant to even imply that I knew that specifically. I mean, there are so many variables that could affect the course of my research over the course of twenty-four months, so how could I know exactly what I’d do when, especially twenty or so months down the road?

But it ultimately occurred to me that what was really important was demonstrating to the people who would be reviewing my application that I had given serious thought to the subject, and had a roadmap for how I would use my time. Sure, some aspects of my research might deviate from that plan, but at least I showed that I had a plan in the first place.

I so continued working on revising and re-revising my research proposal, until I finally had something I was basically happy with. And with that, one major aspect of the application was done.

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So finally, here’s a summery of my advice for preparing a research proposal:

• Start early; ideally six months to a year before the application deadline. Try to establish contacts with Monbusho experience, such as professors and current/former Monbusho scholars in your field or from your home country. Seek out their advice. You should continue this networking throughout the application process.
• Formulate a research topic that fits neatly into a particular academic school found at accredited Japanese Universities. Be aware that you’re eventually going to be asking a professor to supervise you, and they might be reluctant to do so if your research proposal is broad and partially outside of their area of expertise.
• Be as specific as possible about how you intend to spend your time; provide a breakdown of what you’ll do, and when. I did a month-by-month breakdown; week-by-week would probably be even better. You may end up deviating from this once you get to Japan, but at least you’ll demonstrate to the people evaluating your application that you’ve given serious thought to exactly how you’ll spend your time. Plus it will reassure professors that they won’t have to hold your hand throughout the two years.
• Research your area of research beforehand. Pepper your research proposal with terms that demonstrate that you know your research area well. But at the same time, make sure a layperson can understand it.
• Make sure your research proposal has clear goals/benefits; both for yourself and for your host university/Japan/the world.
• Have friends and colleagues look over your research proposal, to look for mistakes and offer suggestions.

If anyone out there with prior Monbusho experience has a different take on things than what I’ve written here, please leave a comment to this entry.

I’ll end with a link to the research proposal that I submitted with my application. [Link to Lars' Research Proposal].

That’s it for now. Check back next Friday for part three.

Part 1 of 4–Introduction/Disclaimers
Part 2 of 4–Writing the Research Proposal
Part 3 of 4–Filling out the Application & Contacting Professors
Part 4 of 4–The Tests, the Interview, & the Long Wait