Around Waseda : Together with students from overseas
The resident manager of the Waseda University International Student House, the Cosmos Life Corp., Ms. Junko Nakamura

“Chirashi sushi” is among her specialties presented for the Doll Festival party. Self-fixings are available for vegetarian students.

A “Hina doll” is in the corner of the buffet and it has been decorated by Ms. Nakamura. This provides a good chance for students to get to know Japanese culture.

With Mr. Ohkubo, RA at the International Student House.

The Waseda University International Student House was built in 1997 to accommodate students from overseas. It is located where the “Abe Dormitory” once stood as a baseball club members' residence. Ms. Nakamura has been the manager of the facility since 1998.

Dormitory students are expected to do their own individual catering because of the vast variety of diets that are characteristic of their various religions or cultures. However, Ms. Nakamura sometimes treats the students to her culinary specialties on the occasion of seasonal events or she cares for them by providing them with a thin rice porridge as sustenance when they have a cold. This is possible because she is formally trained and registered as a cook. In the early days after her arrival, she invited the dormitory students to go to see the cherry blossoms and treated them to rice balls made by hand. This ensured that within ten days of taking up her position, she was able to become friendly with them. This, she says, enabled her to gain the confidence required for her position. She goes on to add with a smile that “I think eating has been a means of smoothing out the establishment of human relationships since ancient days. Everybody agrees with this, don't they?”

Before coming to Waseda, some students had lived in wealthy homes where servants were available to clean up after them. Therefore, some amusing stories can be told about them going to ask Ms. Nakamura to take on this role as their servant. On such occasions, she does not scold them but goes to their room with them and joins in the effort to help them get used to cleaning up. She explains that “I teach them as a mother would how to clean up and to continue do it for themselves. They are sometimes amazed at it is the first time they have had to do so, but it is no problem in the end because I give them proper instruction about what is involved.” Here we learn that we can advance together towards any goal and that this is the first step on the way to a global understanding.

Ms. Nakamura feels that the most pleasant thing for her is to experience respect from the students. As she puts it, “nothing is more pleasure than a heartfelt respect directed towards me from someone else. I haven't had such an experience up until now. I have been liked or loved by others, but mostly others have treated me as a good-natured grandma. I had not yet been respected in the true sense of the term.” We can see from this that the overseas students do try to identify with and face others around them full on, as well as taking the trouble to look beneath the surface of people they encounter.

Ms. Nakamura loves music and movies. She especially enjoys going to the Southern All Stars concerts. Nowadays, she seems to be totally into “Kobukuro.” She tells us that “on Sundays, I usually go to the theater to see the movies. To my pleasure, I find that I can enjoy a movie for just 1000 yen admission because I am over sixty!” She still has a great vitality that renders her age irrelevant. We find that she is never short of something to talk about with all the students from every country. “Complete happiness for me is to cook in my kitchen with the Southern All Stars music playing and the overseas students are around me to comment that they are anticipating something ‘delicious’,” says Ms. Nakamura with a full smile.

Former students often call on her, and she says of this that “it pleases me very much. As long as some former students continue to visit me, I just can't quit my job.” We see in such comments how much Ms. Nakamura loves her dormitory students and we would like to think that she will go on lavishing her affection on them.