From Left: Mr. Aoki, KEYTEC Senior Managing Director, Alberkengo Watai, Mr. Lee, KEYTEC Engineer
Albert Kengo Watai
Wood Product Processing
The University of British Columbia
KEYTEC Co., Ltd. September 2007 – June 2008
The day I received news that I was accepted to work at KEYTEC Inc. in Japan, I was told from my Forestry faculty: “Congratulations, you’re the first student to ever go to Japan from our program.”
Being a second generation Japanese with Japanese parents, I was able to maintain the Japanese language. I was raised in Canada so, the first 2 months in Japan was full of culture shock due to my lack of knowledge in all cultural aspects. Though I arrived in Japan with nervous thoughts, they were dissipated very quickly as the people in Japan welcomed me with open arms. Though the cultural barrier definitely existed at first, I slowly and steadily managed to open up to the differences; by the end I found myself enjoying finding out about the differences in our culture.
The past four months here in Japan have been an amazing learning experience for me, and I plan to gain a lot more in the next 4 month that I am here. For those who are contemplating whether to come to Japan or not, I say, “come to Japan” and you will realize why I said “come to Japan”. It is something you will never understand until you come here.
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