2019 summer program for ASEAN and KyotoU students concludes (30 July – 9 August 2019)

Published on

2019/11/22

From 30 July through 9 August, the Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit (KUASU) held the Kyoto Summer Program 2019 for students from Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan. This program was supported by Kyoto University under the Wild & Wise Collaborative Learning Program, and organized in partnership with the School of Letters and the Institute for Liberal and Arts and Sciences (ILAS).

Of the 34 participants, 18 were from the ASEAN region's five leading institutions: Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; the University of Indonesia; the National University of Singapore; the University of Languages and International Studies, a part of Vietnam National University; and the National Taiwan University. Students were supported and joined by 16 KyotoU students from eight undergraduate faculties and one graduate school.

The 34 participants attended lectures and went on cultural excursions , organized around the themes of "Japanese language and culture", "interdisciplinary and international collaborative learning", and "natural environmental studies". They also delivered presentations on related topics, engaging in lively discussions afterwards.

The program also offered several off-campus activities to deepen the students' understanding of Japanese and Kyoto culture . These included: a visit to Lake Biwa Canal Museum in Kyoto; a lecture on Japanese literature held at Seifuso Villa, a KyotoU-owned Important Cultural Property of Japan; a visit to Nabel Co Ltd, featuring a special lecture on Japanese small- and medium-sized companies; a one-day excursion to the prefecture of Shiga, where, courtesy of the University of Shiga Prefecture, participants attended lectures on the environment of Lake Biwa while surveying the lake.

The 2019 Sumer Program received significantly positive feedback from both participants and the faculty of the ASEAN-based universities. The organizers were also pleased to note that this annual program — coupled with the short-term ASEAN-bound programs that KUASU has been operating for KyotoU students — appears to have resulted in an increasingly solid bidirectional exchange partnership between Kyoto University and ASEAN institutions.