Reflections on Nagasaki: Lessons Beyond Science

The Nuclear Debate module has been pretty fun for me, but I’m not the biggest fan of history. Therefore, after hearing that on this weXplore we will finally be focusing on some science stuff, I could not wait to finally learn the things that I’ve been looking forward to. I thought I’d be having so much fun getting to know how things work and how the world might be in the future.

Besides nuclear, solar and wind power seems to be an excellent candidate (Kitakyushu Next Generation Energy Park. Photo by Mak

I was right. I enjoyed the trip, and things are a lot clearer in my mind now than ever before. With that being said, I underestimated what this trip gave me by a lot. By this, I was right that I’d  learn a lot about science, but I overlooked a lot of aspects. I gained a lot more insights than just science, and from all of that, this experience will be ingrained as one of the most notable events in my already notable high school life.

On one of the days in the weXplore, me and my group were given a chance to do whatever we wanted within a limited time frame. It was not the hardest trip, and there were not that many people to accommodate, but for the one night we had, and how much we managed to cover in 10 hours, I learned a lot about how time works. Normally, I would either allocate way too much time for writing an image caption or give myself next to no time to pack for a whole week — inevitably with neither going as planned. This trip taught me how to plan a trip properly.

Mt. Inasa was a cool place to have dinner at. Photo by Mak

One thing that struck me is how delicate and caring Japanese people are. It might not be the biggest thing in the world, but it sure adds to the total experience. For one, I know that when you depart from a place, Japanese people will never stop waving until you are out of their sight, but I had never seen that for myself. This trip gave me a chance to see that in action twice, and it was a nice touch and certainly provided some nice feelings. Another thing is, despite the language barrier and the stereotypical image of the Japanese, how friendly they are. I’m trying to learn Japanese and use it as much as possible. From this trip, I realized that the sentence “Don’t be afraid to get things wrong” works every single time and they like to see foreigners try to learn their language. When the natives realized that I was learning, they tried to help me so much, despite the small amount of time I had with each of them. I was having so much fun using my very limited Japanese and seeing how much they care.

Ayumi-san was his favorite from last day of the trip (Kitakyushu Next Generation Energy Park). Photo by Mak

After all of this, I walked out of the experience with some of the precious skills and confidence that I really appreciate and need, and I couldn’t even imagine how this trip would have turned out without all of the people I met and all of the experiences we had.

I has also learned how Japanese people are excellent at marketing, judging by how they have a mascot for everything and how these stamps are everywhere in Japan.