Pentastic

After a few days in my Japan long-staying, I found out that my host institution, Meiji Gakuin University, has a study abroad group that will visit Taiwan soon. As a study abroad faculty veteran, I have to find out what the trip is about and perhaps tag along since I have a plan to visit Taiwan as well. It turns out the MGU travel group itinerary does overlap mine! The faculty lead of the group, Professor Nishihara, is super nice and invited me to join them in Taiwan – so here it is; I went to Tainan, the first capital of Taiwan, in a beautiful (but hot!) afternoon to join him and his students, exploring Fu Cheng (meaning “capital”)’s history and delicious Tainan street foods.

Textbooks in Taiwan did not really teach much about the role of Tainan, or the history of Taiwan for that matter when I grew up. Education at that time existed only to serve ruling Kuomintang’s “great China” ideology, so much of my knowledge of the history of the land where I grew up comes from my reading after I started college. But even though I only read about the events and stories under Dutch rule, Koxingya rule, Qing rule, and then Japanese colonial rule – but in Professor Nishihara’s lecture to his students, I came to realize that history has many lenses….and his as a scholar studying international trade shows that we can look at the role of Taiwan in the age of great exploration – when Europeans and Asian nations interacted and traded – not necessarily political in the beginning but simply explorers trying to find their wealth. Fu Cheng happens to be in an exact location where Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese merchants can meet and trade. Anyway, my quick trip to southern Taiwan was a time well spent and I look forward to meeting with more MGU stuents in Tokyo when the new semester starts!

After a long (but comfortably empty) flight, I finally arrived in Japan. We thank God for His blessings – right before our departure, I was at my church’s quarterly co-workers’ meeting and 30+ brothers and sisters along with the pastor and elder laid on their hands in prayer to bless our journey. So, my journey as a Fulbright scholar is now (almost) started. I came to Japan early with my daughter, Rebecca, who secured an internship with KPMG Ignition Tokyo so both of us are pretty excited! The funny thing is that she now actually will start work before I do…but I am happy for her. The first two days in Japan were filled with visits to municipal and immigration offices… and of course, good food that I haven’t had for a long time! Thanks to my MGU faculty host, Professor Yamada, who secured a 3? bedroom apartment near campus for us. I put a “?” to describe the room situation because one of the bedrooms is actually a room inside a bedroom – like a glorified closet but it has a bed and everything….it’s like Doraemon’s room if you know what I mean :-> Nevertheless, this apartment will now be our home away from home for the next six months!

I am so excited to be awarded the Fulbright scholarship to lecture and research cybersecurity disclosures in Japan in 2023! Becoming a Fulbright Scholar has always been one of my career goals – at the height of working on my department’s AACSB accreditation in 2021, I also took on a personal project of applying for this prestigious scholarship program offered by the State Department of the United States. I didn’t think that I will be successful in the first attempt – but to my surprise, I was awarded the lecture/research grant to go to Japan in 2023! I am very fortunate to be blessed with many who helped me in this process – from the project statement to invitation letters, I can’t imagine how I can pull it through to meet all the application criteria. As of this writing, I only have weeks before I embark on the journey to visit Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. This is not the first trip to visit this Christian university, though – I had a personal visit and took RMU students to visit the university before – the campus is beautiful and is so conveniently located in the heart of Tokyo. I look forward to visiting and spending a lot more days and nights this time!

In the summer 2002 AACSB confirmed that #RMUAccounting is now the ONLY accounting program in western Pennsylvania to have received the AACSB Accounting Accreditation. Read the AACSB news release about this historic moment. So many students, faculty, staff, and professional partners were involved in this journey. The university social media editor says it the best “from Pittsburgh School of Accountancy ➡️ AACSB Accounting Accredited – For over 100 years, accounting has been a staple of Robert Morris. A few weeks ago, we celebrated the students and faculty who made this accreditation possible!” (Here is the link.) More details of our “travel logs” for our journey to AACSB Accounting accreditation can be found here.