Nanaka Okamura, Japan Outreach Initiative coordinator at WCU, arrived in August 2021 to teach students about her home country’s culture and inspire students to take action against world hunger.
Okamura is one of many coordinators dispatched by the Laurentian Institute’s JOI Program to the American Midwest, South, and Mountain regions. She’s the second JOI coordinator WCU has had, though the last one came here 14 years ago.
Japanese is the second largest world language program on campus, but has only two instructors. These are also the only native speakers students will get a chance to interact with, so having a JOI Coordinator on campus gives them a more complete education.
Acting similarly to ambassadors, JOI coordinators host events at universities and schools focused on elements of Japanese culture. In the process, they form bonds with students and promote deeper, mutually beneficial understanding between both nations.
While it sounds like a far-reaching task, Okamura’s goals are much more personal.
“My own goal,” Okamura said in an interview, “is make lots of friends here.”
To become a JOI coordinator, Okamura had to prepare seven application documents testing her English and Japanese knowledge. She had to come up with lesson and event plans and take oral and written exams in her second language. After getting the job, she left her home behind to spend two years in an unfamiliar country—one she’d only visited twice for short trips.
However, for Okamura, this was all worth it, and the job is exactly what she expected.
“She said no to the usual type of job-hunting,” Japanese program coordinator Yumiko Ono said.
Nearly 350 students took classes in the Japanese program last year, with about 50 of them pursuing a minor and 25 to 30 pursuing the program’s equivalent to a major. Before the pandemic, around 10 students a year would study abroad in Japan for either one semester or a full year.
Okamura found the program on the internet while looking for jobs overseas. After securing the position, she was prepared to arrive in August 2020. The pandemic made that impossible.
“I just worked as a tutor,” she said. “It was my part-time job, so I didn’t get enough money. But I had lots of time.”
After finally landing in Cullowhee, Okamura immediately got to work developing her events. Her first event was on Sept. 28. It got students moving with radio calisthenics, a form of Japanese warm-up exercise set to music and broadcasted on public radio. Since then, she’s covered business and dining etiquette, calligraphy, conversation, rice balls, and more.
Three of her events partnered with Japanese non-profit Table for Two for Onigiri Action. Held every year to celebrate World Food Day on Oct. 16, Onigiri Action is a campaign during which Table for Two will donate 5 school meals to children in need for every social media post made with the #OnigiriAction hashtag.
Okamura gathered students to create rice balls out of craft materials such as clay, origami paper, and toilet paper rolls. She encouraged them to support the event by making posts of their own.
At the end of the campaign, Table for Two announced that 1,397,795 meals would be delivered to children around the world. While only a small part of that number, Okamura’s dedication to the cause was clear.
Okamura’s events have been popular, particularly among students in the Japanese program. Some classes have even offered extra credit for attending them.
Tanner Goodman, an Accounting major pursuing a Japanese minor, has attended all of Okamura’s in-person events.
“They’re very fun, educational, and one way or another they’re the highlight of my semester,” Goodman said.
“I believe her events are good for us because it gives us more cultural awareness of Japan,” Accounting major Michael Pilotos said. “There’s only so much you can fit in a class period, and the events help us understand the small nuances of Japan.”
This was Ono’s goal in asking the Laurentian Institute to invite another JOI Coordinator to WCU.
“In our program, cultural responsiveness and language fluency is a goal,” Ono said. “So through extracurricular activities we are providing opportunities for the student to be equipped with cultural responsiveness, which is part of DegreePlus. I like doing that, but there is a limitation because I have to teach…so now she’s doing those extracurricular activities. Long story short, I really appreciate her doing those workshops because we cannot do them.”
Having spent three months in the U.S., Okamura has had time to learn what she likes most about the country.
“Individual opinions are so important in here,” she said. “For example, in the class, in the U.S. students say your opinion, but in Japan everyone don’t say anything.”
She also likes the convenience of being able to take extra food out of restaurants with you, which isn’t common in Japan. But the practice of tipping wait staff confuses her, and she misses the pre-made, delicious food available at Japanese supermarkets.
Still, she appreciates the natural beauty only found in the U.S.
“In Japan, there are lots of buildings,” she said. “So no nature. But it depends on the city.”
After finishing with the JOI program, Okamura plans to return to Japan to get a third degree and continue working in the U.S. She may also pursue a Working Holiday Visa in a different country, spending six months to a year working abroad.
But until then, she wants to explore even more of the U.S. She has a large list of places she’s interested in visiting.
“I want to go to Florida, New York, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Alaska, Hawaii, Denver, Phoenix…All of those places.”
While it might be hard to take trips due to the difficulty of her job, Okamura hopes her time in the country will involve more than work. But considering how much she enjoys sharing her culture with WCU students and learning from theirs, her job often doesn’t feel like a job at all.
Over the semester, Okamura gave presentations in several Japanese classes. She organized 13 events and is planning three more for the next two weeks. She’ll spend her next three semesters at WCU hosting even more events, meeting new people, and making memories that will last a lifetime.
For more information about Nanaka Okamura’s upcoming events and her own newsletters, visit her Instagram page @nnk_joi19_wcu or her website.
