Chiba University

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This time around I am studying at Chiba University, which like the University of Tokyo where I was before is a National University and as a result they both have a similar feel to them. Chiba is the prefecture due east of Tokyo, most famous for Narita Airport and Disneyland. It is not as far away from Tokyo as most people think and it takes between 30 mins and an hour to get to most places in the central Tokyo area and barely more than an hour to Yokohama as well. Of course it helps that trains in Japan are far more efficient than those back home. Chiba Uni celebrated its 50th Anniversary last year making it of middling age among Japanese universities and was a result of the post-war reapportioning of national education (before then it was actually a part of the University of Tokyo or so I have heard).

There are three campuses and apart from the main one where I am, there is one in Central Chiba which contains the Uni Hospital and Medical and Nursing Faculties and another in the distant city of Matsudo which has an agriculture faculty. While only a third the size of Monash Clayton, Chiba Uni's Nishi Chiba Campus is quite large by Japanese standards. While it may not be architecturally pleasing, it doesn't lack greenery and can even be quite beautiful, especially when the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in bloom.

Chiba Uni is also especially interesting during festival times. The main festival occurs in the first week of November around which is festival season all over Japan. School stops for three or four days and the students all try their hand at being sales people as various clubs etc hold stalls, usually for food. The international students also often get involved or at least those from the Asian nations. it seems us Westerners never can get organised. Actually this is more because Western students only come for short-term exchanges and thus there is too large a turnover for proper societies whereas the Asian students are here for a long time so there are societies for people from Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. This festival is the equivalent of Monash's Green Week I guess but is much more like a huge high school fete than anything else - nothing like it in the Aussie university system. There is also a festival which roughly corresponds with our 'O-week' at the start of the new academic year in April when the various clubs hold stalls in an effort to gain new members. Added to that, there are drinking parties held where the new recruits are shouted large amounts of alcohol and in some cases prospective students are also shouted which means the unscrupulous can get a week's worth of free food and drink!