First Year, First Shift: Navigating Micro-Cultural Confusions and Reconstructing Identity

This chapter tells the story of international students who come to study at a newly established yet regionally renowned university located in a cold, snowy area often described as the countryside. Despite the harsh climate and rural setting, student life in Aomori proves warm and deeply meaningful. Everyday interactions—such as international exchange within the dormitory, field trips across the region, and small but heartfelt cultural exchanges coordinated by teachers and staff—help these students feel that they belong to an international family. Through these experiences, the chapter clarifies “The Enormous Size of a Small Education Environment,” showing how evaluation shifts from physical scale and geography to the lived experience of community, where students are welcomed, learn with and from one another, practice gratitude and cooperation, and, through close support and practical encounters, live, learn happily, and grow together.