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    Photo Kate Waltman

    May 28, 2015

    Coming Home

    There is a Japanese expression: yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Native-English speakers typically translate it as: “Pleased to meet you.” However, at the beginning of a year abroad in Tokyo, Kate Waltman ’13 discovered that, among native Japanese speakers, the phrase holds a deeper meaning: “Please, let’s form a good relationship from here and into the future.” It’s not so much a saying as it is a way of life, one that Waltman spent 12 months adopting, becoming part of a new community and developing lifelong friendships with the people she met.

    After earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the College, Waltman took a one-year leave of absence from the College’s Master of Business Administration program to live and work in the Japanese capital. She embraced life in this large, international city, living in 53-square-foot apartment in a building whose residents hailed from four continents; walking, riding her bike or taking public transportation almost everywhere she went; and learning to let go of things that were beyond her control.

    During her time abroad, Waltman taught English classes at Tokyo Metropolitan University and gave private English lessons to individuals, some as young as 5 and others well into their 70s. (It marked her first time at the head of a class, and she credited her teachers and mentors at Le Moyne, including Jia Man in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, with instilling in her the confidence to take on this challenge.) Watlman also served as a community development intern at Second Harvest, a nationwide food bank that she discovered through research prior to her trip.

    “What’s been instilled in me at Le Moyne since day one is to make every group you come into contact with better,” she said. “That’s changed me. In high school, and even as a freshman at the College, I’m not sure I would have given back in the way that I did if it weren’t for the things that I have learned here.”

    Waltman’s work at Second Harvest brought her into contact with a population living in poverty in Japan that she previously “hadn’t known existed.” She assisted with a program that provides a basket of groceries each week to individuals and families in need and involved members of the greater Tokyo community, including her students, by holding food drives. As the year progressed, Waltman’s role at Second Harvest was shaped by the gap she found in reaching out to refugees living in Tokyo, many of whom come from Africa and China, and who speak little Japanese and are unfamiliar with the culture.

    Now that she has returned to the U.S., Waltman is continuing to adopt many of the practices she learned about in Japan, for instance living simply and giving her best to every group she encounters. It can be difficult, she acknowledged, but it is well worth the effort. That is the same was she feels about every day she spent in Japan. Not only did it transform her, but it also solidified the direction she wants to take her life – both in work and in service.

    “You have to surrender the comfort, the familiarity, your sense of belonging. Everything you knew about yourself and your place in your community is challenged,” she said. “I think this year forced me to surrender to a space where I could think about my place in my community back home in a new way.”