Gillian Lionberger

About the Experience

 

The last part of my study abroad was an internship located in Tokyo. We stayed in the heart of Shibuya at a shared apartment complex for the month as we participated in various internships. My internship was with Prospere, a fashion PR company that worked with mainly celebrity and high-end clients. I do think this part of the study abroad was the most difficult for a few reasons. This portion tested my Japanese comprehension the most because my company spoke mainly Japanese and could not understand much English. With that, most of my tasks were also in Japanese. Additionally, homesickness was starting to wear on me at this point of the study abroad, so that added to the stress. Lastly, the cultural differences between Osaka and Tokyo took a while to adjust to. I would compare Osaka and Tokyo to the states’ Southern and Northern culture; Osaka is slower paced and most spread out, whereas Tokyo is very dense and very fast-paced.

 

  The first day of my internship was a bit of a struggle. The internship placement company gave me the wrong address, which I did not know until I arrived at the location to find no company there. I had also forgotten my pocket WIFI that day, so I could not contact anyone to figure out what was happening. I had to utilize my speaking and comprehension skills as I asked people if they knew the company, and when we reached the conclusion that the location was wrong, they helped direct me to a Starbucks so I could connect to WIFI. Eventually, I made it to the right location where I was thrown into work immediately, again in full Japanese. This internship was located in Harajuku, a ten minute walk to the famous Takeshita street. Adjusting to this internship definitely took some time, and some days went better than others. I took on various odd jobs as well as a translating project. Some jobs I completed were helping with clients, such as bagging clothes, scanning tags, etc., cleaning the office every morning, and doing data compiling for the company through clippings, Excel sorting, scanning, etc. The translation project I was given was to translate an English PR statement into a Japanese PR one. This was very difficult to do because not only is translating into a secondary language hard but doing it in a PR style is confusing as well. However, with some collaboration with one of the staff, we were able to complete the translation, which made me feel more confident in myself.

 

   The company itself was interesting and somewhat rare in Japan. Firstly, the company is a women led company, with five ladies running the entire business. Women’s rights and overall treatment is not the best in Japan, so seeing this company doing well was inspiring. The business practice itself was also interesting. Prospere gets paid via fashion brands, who send their clothes to Prospere's show room. Prospere then lets only high-end stylists and celebrities rent the clothing for free, as long as they feature the clothing somewhere on the internet, such as Instagram, Twitter, TV, etc. In this agreement, the celebrities get to rent the latest fashion for free, and with their clout the brands get quality PR, and Prospere gets paid to manage all this PR for the brands. Prospere also goes to and plans events, which I am not as knowledgeable about since I did not attend any.

 

   Outside of the internship, mainly on weekends, I was able to explore around Tokyo. I visited both Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Skytree, with the Skytree being the largest tower in the world. I also went to Ginza for some shopping, Yokohama to see the moving Gundam for my internship classmate’s birthday, Shinjuku to look around, etc. After the internship ended, my parents flew over to Japan for a few days where we visited around some of the same area and went to Tokyo Disneyland.

 

   Overall, this internship, and study abroad as a whole, gave me a good chance to experience living, working, and studying in another country. I was not sure if I would even get the chance to study abroad with COVID, and even after I got the opportunity, I was not sure if I would take it. I am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to be able to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity as I will never get the chance to experience Japan like this again.