Thanks a lot, Prettybunny and Clipvain. I hope you also will do very well in the interview and get the scholarship.
Here, for my interview, the first question is in Japanese, to ask me to make a brief introduction. And the second question, initially they asked me in Japanese and expect me to explain in Japanese, but I told them I would be more confident in English, so changed to English. Because I'm studying biology, and they don't understand my plan, so they asked me to introduce my study plan to them. Then, they asked me how important my plan is, like what benefits my plan would make, and because the study plan I wrote is a bit different from my previous major, although in the same field of biological science, they asked me why I changed my study focus and what common aspects are my current field with the field that I proposed in the study plan. And after some quite trivial and small questions, they asked me what I plan to do in the future finally. And then, that's the end of the interview. Takes around 20 min for me.
Thanks to the others who have posted and talked about the interviews last years, I have prepared for all the questions in the interview well before-hand.
Here's the summary of the questions that might appear in the interview. It's a summary after I have read all the posts on this forum on the MEXT scholarship interviews in the embassies of different countries, most of the info were from Malaysian Embassy in the last years. Althought I cannot be sure, I can say if you can prepare for all the following answers well, it's likely that you will do well in the interview.
Questions:
1. Brief introduction in Japanese / Present yourself. 自己紹介をしてください！
2. Why do you want to study in Japan? / Why are you interested in Japan?
3. Why studying Japanese?
4. What do you know about Japanese Culture?
5. Why is your research important? / How will your project benefit to Japan, your country or to the world?
6. Why is it important for you to conduct your research in Japan? / Why did you choose Japan to study this topic? / Which Japanese schools you want to go to? / Why did you choose this professor?
7. Have you contacted any professors / universities?
8. Previous experience with Japan
9. Explain the research theme you submitted, why this theme? / What do you want to study? / Explain research proposal
10. Studying in Japan involves a lot of stress and pressure, do you feel you can handle it and how will you go about once there? / What kind of challenges might exist for you in Japan and how will you tackle them?
11. How you are going to improve the diplomatic/cultural/scientific relationship between Japan and your own country?
12. What do you intend to do after returning to your country / What's your future plan?
13. What are you currently working at/ studying?
14. How are your current research/study related with your proposed research?
15. How did you come up with your research proposal? / Why are you interested in studying it?
16. What did you know about the city/ university choosen?
17. What do you know about the available associations, clubs, events that promote Japan in your country? have you joined any of them?
The other things that I suggest is to look at youtube to try to mimic the Japanese in the interview, liking bowing right after entering the room and just before leaving the rooms, saying something in Japanese like 始めまして。私はどこのだれと申します。本日はよろしくお願いいたします。at the beginning. Try to demonstrate your ability in Japanese by making a self introduction in Japanese first, and then change back to English if you want by saying あの、実は私は日本語より英語のほうが自信がありますので、この後は英語で答えさせてください。よろしくお願いいたします。and finally 今日はお忙しいなか、私のために貴重な時間を頂ありがとうございました。at the end.
I give a website in the following for the reference of interview manner in Japan
http://www.rku.ac.jp/shushoku/examination.html
In addition, there might be detailed questions on the research plan especially when there is one or two experts on the interview commitee, so be prepared about that, as the research plan is the most important thing. I think, it might matter not whether you can explain the research plan in a layman speech to let all the interviewees understand about it, but you have to tell them how important your research plan is, try to focus it and press the impression on the commitee that your research is really, really important.
The other additional thing that I want to add is that try to think some ways that you can help improve the relationship between Japan and your home country. Even if the interviewees don't ask you at the end, bring this out, because I think it's one of the important things for granding the scholarship. They don't give you the scholarship for nothing, they want something from you as well. In my case, I told them as one of my future plans that I want to do this and that to strenghen the friendship between Japan and my country.
last but not least, hope you all do well!
