Message from Leiden

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One of the Japanese traits I find very difficult to handle is the "going behind your back" way of doing things here. Five of the students here just received an angry message from our professor in Leiden that our marks are not up to par. Apparently the guy in charge here, Mr. Takano decided to hop on a plane to Holland in order to convey this to our professor instead of confronting us with the results (we still haven't seen any yet) and maybe try and find a way to improve our individual results by examining the way we study. But no such luck. Apparently our professor even had to apologize for our poor performance.........
Threats seem to be really in these days and even our professor has succumbed to it: "If we do not perform better we will endanger future funding and exchange programs and make the name of our famed University a laughing stock".
Some people really know how to motivate their students.........
I recall a meeting once with him where he stated that one's input and participation are valued more highly here then the end results. Apparently not....
Some people are a little slow but try and do their best...well to no avail apparently.
Thank god I'm leaving this narrow minded country shortly for a break in Malaysia......
Spending almost 6 months here has definitely taking away the luster from the study...... meeting Japanese teachers has not been a particular positive experience and apart from being able to speak better Japanese then before there really hasn't been anything of value that was thaught to me.