Experiencing Japan in a month: Beauty behind the flashiness of tourism
Fourth Year Student Ndaru Bhramastra shares his experience in his summer abroad program at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.

The University of Toronto (U of T) is the best place for us to practice cultural appreciation. With students from over 175 countries, we as students have much to appreciate about our peers’ diverse backgrounds. We can listen to anecdotes from our friends, learn about international customs from classrooms, and sample recreations of traditional artifacts. It’s almost like we’re there, except we’re not.

While U of T allows us to encounter new cultures, we can never get a firsthand experience of other countries from within our Canadian confines, except for international students, where Canada as their new home.

However, the university offers us opportunities to see the world beyond, with extensive exchange programs like the Outbound Exchange, UTM Abroad, and the Summer Abroad program.

Ndaru Bhramastra, a fourth-year computer science and geographical information systems (GIS) major, decided to take the plunge and immerse himself in an entirely new culture. Last summer, in May 2025, Bhramastra participated in the Summer Abroad program to study at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, for one month. In an interview with The Medium, he reveals more about the experience.

The Summer Abroad Program

U of T’s Summer Abroad program allows students to complete a “full-year University of Toronto undergraduate degree credit in three to four weeks over the summer” at a foreign university. 

The Summer Abroad program was the perfect opportunity for Bhramastra to experience Japan. “I’ve had a strong interest in Japanese culture since I was young,” Bhramastra said. “The opportunity to go there and experience the culture myself was too good to pass up.”

The program’s shorter time frame also enticed Bhramastra. “I wanted to have a learning experience abroad,” Bhramastra explained. “But I didn’t think I was ready for a full semester abroad. The Summer Abroad was a good in-between where I could still study abroad, but not for a full semester.”

Japanese indirectness and Western directness

At Keio University, Bhramastra took the course IRE332: Resolving Workplace Conflict While Employing a Cross-Cultural Perspective under Professor Bob Thompson at Keio University. 

“At first I was very worried that what I was learning would have no connection to me as a computer science and GIS major,” Bhramastra said. However, he soon changed his mind when he realized IRE332 offered “soft skills that apply to everything outside of academics.”

IRE332 focuses on showing students communication techniques that can help diffuse conflicts by contrasting the Japanese and Western communication cultures.

“If someone is doing something wrong, in typical Western culture, we would tell them they are doing something wrong, and this is how to fix it,” Bhramastra explained. “But in Japan, people tend to take an indirect approach. They won’t outright say you’re doing something wrong… instead of saying ‘don’t do this,’ they would say ‘Have you tried this instead?’” 

Bhramastra observed the same tendency to avoid conflict among the locals. “After learning about [the theory] in class, when you’re talking with locals or going into shops, you can see that indirectness or soft-spoken communication culture we learned about in class.”

From his experiences, rather than subscribing to one communication style, Bhramastra found that achieving a balance between Japanese indirectness and Western directness is the most effective, and looks forward to combining them for future projects.

Beyond the classroom experience

During the program, Bhramastra had three-hour lectures for IRE332 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Summer Abroad team took the students sightseeing. Some of the locations include the Japan Stock Exchange Building, the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, some temples and some shopping districts.

Bhramastra particularly enjoyed attending a tea ceremony where students got to wear a kimono (a traditional Japanese attire), and visit a small village around the base of Mount Fuji to see a perfect, cloudless view of the mountain. However, Bhramstra’s favourite part about Japan had nothing to do with the “touristy” locations he visited. 

“You see a lot of beautiful buildings [in Japan], a lot of great food and attractions,” Bhramastra explained, “but a few blocks away from those buildings, you can stumble upon a residential area that’s more captivating than all those buildings and attractions put together.”

“No one really talks about it, but just talking to the locals and communicating with them is such a different feeling than all the popular attractions,” Bhramastra reminisced. “Some of these food and attractions were [overhyped], but one step or one block away, there are so many wonderful people and hole-in-the-wall restaurants that don’t get talked about often, and are some of my best experiences.” 

In his free time during the program, Bhramastra explored Tokyo, “seeing what looks good, and hopping right in without a particular plan.” While he was originally worried about the language barrier, Bhramastra was able to explore Tokyo and talk to the locals without much issue.

Brahmastra explained that since Tokyo was a popular tourist location, many locals were able to speak English. “Not perfect English,” he admitted, “but enough to get by. In the worst case, I had to use Google Translate, which sometimes might slow things down or make things awkward. But it’s not like you can’t do anything if you don’t know the language.”  

For students interested in visiting Japan, Brahmastra shared that although you can “point your way through most restaurants or stores,” knowing “a few basic phrases and words goes a long way.”

Bhramastra shared that his favourite experiences came from talking to the locals. “Some of the best conversations I had were in restaurants or bars where I was slightly drunk,” Brhamastra shared. “Not a care in the world, with random people I’ll probably never see again, but they still become core memories for me.”

One of the interactions that particularly stood out for Bhramastra was when he visited a second-hand bookshop. An old man, who spoke a bit of English, came up to Brahmstra and talked about his life. 

“It was kind of like talking to an old grandpa,” Bhramastra described. “I didn’t say much; it was more like he was rambling. But it was great to hear about other people’s lives and how different it was compared to Canada.” 

While Bhramastra was successful in connecting with the locals, he acknowledged that “if you want to go talk to locals, you have to go out of your way to talk to them.” The program housed the students in a hotel, which Bhramastra thought was a “shame, because [he] hoped they would put [him] in student housing to get more chances to interact with other students and locals.” While the Summer Abroad program had originally planned a meet and greet with Keio University students, it was unfortunately cancelled.

At the end of the interview, Brahmastra was asked whether, if given another opportunity to go abroad, he would choose a summer program or a full semester. He replied that if he “were in [his] second or third year,” he would choose a full exchange.

“If you’re unsure whether this program is right for you or useful for you, I think you should still go for it,” Bhramastra advised. “You’ll never know until you take it. If I didn’t have that mindset and not apply, I would have missed out on an opportunity that broadened my perspective.”