2025 Japanese Prize Award Winner: Tennegon Johnson

Prior to entering Bowdoin, I spent the last year and a half of highschool like almost all of my fellow incoming first years: isolated and reluctantly participating in online school. I felt like a good portion of my social skills had deteriorated, and moving from Oregon to Maine to start college where I didn’t know a single soul was pretty intimidating. For a good portion of my freshman year, I didn’t have many friends and I spent a lot of my time feeling lonely. But Aridome-sensei and the Japanese community knew my name and would say hello to me in passing, and that made me feel at home at Bowdoin. Despite meeting at 8am five days a week, I always looked forward to Japanese class. Aridome-sensei made learning Japanese fun, and the learning activities helped us to grow closer as a class. 

One of my favorite activities was the end of semester video we made in small groups. The videos showed off the vocabulary and grammar we had learned that semester, and we tried to make them funny, emulating an anime or dating show while adding our own little twist. The videos would then be presented at the Shirokuma Awards, and I was one of two hosts who would introduce the skits and present awards. This is just one example of how Aridome-sensei created such a welcoming community that helped me feel more confident and less lonely. I signed up for second year Japanese, and thanks to Morita-sensei and my fellow gakusei, had an absolute blast while furthering my Japanese proficiency. Sophomore year language table has a special place in my heart and I fondly remember all the dinners spent laughing at jokes made in Japanese and not wanting dinner to end. I was lucky enough to study abroad in Kyoto my junior year. Studying abroad was a highlight of my life because of the friends I made and my relationship with Okaasan, my host mother. 

I was also lucky enough to go on a month-long adventure across three of Japan’s four main islands with a fellow Bowdoin Japanese student, Wilder-san. I had first met Wilder-san at the pre-classes departmental open house freshman year, but I never would have guessed that he would later become my roommate, Japan adventure buddy and one of my best friends. While abroad, one of my Japanese professors, Yoshimura-sensei, offered for her husband to give me a tour of a nuclear fusion facility, and being a physics major interested in renewable energy, I joyously accepted. I loved the facility and inquired about an internship, and this fall, I will be partaking in a three-month long internship with the National Institute for Fusion Science in Nagoya, Japan. Studying abroad, my internship and being able to travel Japan would not have been possible without all the support from Aridome-sensei, Morita-sensei and the Bowdoin Japanese community. 

I just graduated in May, and at the Asian Studies departmental open house, I introduced my entire family to Aridome-sensei. Watching them interact and getting to share the love I have for sensei with my family reinforced that taking Japanese at Bowdoin was one of the best decisions I have made.