The girl from Sendai city in the northern Japan works as a scholar at the Department of Cultural and Social Studies where she runs a project comparing Norwegian and Japanese’ approach to health, nutrition and physical activity.

 

The 3-year long project intends to discover how women from the two countries acquire knowledge on how to stay in good physical health. Shiho is fascinated about the fact that women from such diverse cultures score similar on high life expectancy.

 

- I hope my studies can be of interest and significance for NSSS and Norway in general, she says.

 

Freedom to express herself
Although she disagrees with the conception of Japan being something of a male chauvinistic society, Shiho is glad to be able to do her research in Norway. She finds the working conditions for female researchers much better than in many other countries.

 

- I feel very comfortable working here at Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, because the facilities are excellent and I have the opportunity to express myself much more than I would at home, she says.

 

She also takes the opportunity to praise her supervisor, Kari Fasting, for the way she takes care of her students. Kari Fasting was also the main reason why Shiho applied to NSSS in the first place. The two met during an IOC-congress in Paris in March 2000 and Shiho started exploring the opportunity to study at the school.

 

Approximately ten months later, in January 2001, Shiho arrived in Norway, despite her limited knowledge of English and Norwegian. Five years later, she is still here, although she enjoyed an intermediate year in Toronto in 2004.

 

- I love the informal atmosphere between the students and the professors here, she says, well aware that it will be difficult to experience the same thing in Japan.

 

Her supervisor, Kari Fasting, is happy to be working with Shiho and finds it enriching that NSSS has space for human resources like Shiho and others.

 

- Both for me as a supervisor and for NSSS as an educational institution, it is both useful and enriching to have students and representatives from other countries and cultures, Fasting says.

 

- I love you
Shiho enjoys her stay in Norway and is used to snow and winter sports from her Japanese hometown. She has already learned the art of cross country skiing and her next goal is to learn telemark skiing. Although English is her working language, she wished she could speak Norwegian better. But at least she has learned how say 'jeg elsker deg' which means ‘I love you’!