KWC_Exchange

toc

Below are links to the pages of the KWC students who take part in the exchange with USB as well as general information about KWC and Nagasaki.

To see pictures of KWC: Click [|here] and then choose "Slideshow".

The Students Participating in the Exchange
The students who participate in the exchange are all second-year English majors. Click on the links to see their pages.

Ayumi M. Ayumi O. Azumi Haruka Maki Mari Kaori Kanako Kyouko Miho Nozomi Reika Terumi Youko Yukari Yuri K. Yuri Y. Yuuko Yuumi

The Teacher
Dr. Sergio Mazzarelli is an Italian who received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the UK and has been teaching English in Japan since 1997. He created and maintains KWC's Moodle site. If you wish to know more about him, you can click here. If you wish to ask him questions, you can use the discussion button at the top of the present KWC Exchange page.

General Information about KWC
KWC is a private institution founded in 1879 by a Protestant missionary from the United States. At that time, higher education for women was almost unheard of in Japan. KWC now enrolls approximately 1,500 students. Its main campus is located at the top of the Dutch Slope, a famous sightseeing spot in Nagasaki.

KWC has three faculties: Humanities, Music, and Wellness Studies.

The Faculty of Humanities comprises three departments: English, Contemporary Japanese Culture, and Human Relations.

The Faculty of Music comprises two departments: Music Performance and Applied Music.

The Faculty of Wellness Studies comprises three departments: Nutritional Health, Design and Science for Human Life, and Child Development and Education.

General Information about Nagasaki
Pictures of Nagasaki and KWC are available in Dr. Mazzarelli's Flickr photostream. Click [|here] to see them. Nagasaki is a city of 500,000 inhabitants situated on the island of Kyushu. It is also the capital of one of Japan's 47 prefectures. Among Japanese prefectures, Nagasaki is the one that includes the largest number of islands (almost 600).

You may notice that a certain number of pictures show Catholic churches. This is a characteristic of Nagasaki prefecture. Catholic missionaries from Spain and Portugal came here in the 16th centuries and were very successful, but then the government, fearing a foreign invasion, forbid Christianity and finally closed the country to foreigners. Only the Dutch and Chinese were allowed to trade with Japan, and the Dutch were confined to Dejima, an artificial island in Nagasaki harbor. Ferocious persecutions seemed to have wiped out all traces of Christianity, but when the country was reopened in the second half of the 19th century, thousands of hidden Catholics revealed themselves and, along with missionaries and new converts, eventually built those churches you see in the pictures. The persecutions are powerfully reconstructed in Shusaku Endo's novel //Chimmoku// [Silence]. In Nagasaki, there is also a small museum dedicated to the first Catholic martyrs in Japan. You can see its website [|here].

Nagasaki is famous as the port through which many foreign influences reached Japan. Nagasaki's traditional kasutera is a sponge cake whose name derives from Castilla, a region of Spain. Through their Dejima outpost (1641-1858), the Dutch imported into Japan goods such as woollen cloth, glassware, chocolate, tomatoes, and potatoes. Moreover, it was through Dutch books that the Japanese first learned something about astronomy, medicine, and other scientific fields. Nowadays, a reconstruction of the Dutch factory at Dejima is one of the main tourist attractions in Nagasaki. You can learn more about Dejima by clicking [|here].

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was hit by an atomic bomb. This killed 74,000 people. In addition, many who survived continue to suffer to this day because of the aftereffects of the radiation they absorbed at that time. To learn more about this tragic event you can click [|here]. The city has been completely reconstructed and many of its citizens are active in promoting peace education and nuclear disarmament.