BY JULIE CHAZYN

Special to The Miami Herald

On my 13-day trip to East Asia I saw dried bugs sold in the Namdaemun market of South Korea. I ate raw shrimp and sea urchin in Osaka. I karaoked in Tokyo, visited printing presses at the biggest newspapers in South Korea and Japan, and washed away my imperfections before entering temples in Kyoto.

The trip, courtesy of the Scripps Howard foundation, took nine winners of the Roy W. Howard Collegiate National Reporting Competition to South Korea and Japan. The goal was to open our eyes and making us more conscious journalists, following in the steps of Roy W. Howard who, by 29, was United Press International's first president of business and editorial operations.

Brad Hamm, dean of the journalism school at Indiana University and a Roy W. Howard scholar, and Bonnie Brownlee, associate dean for undergraduate studies there, led the group. They were accompanied by Pamela Howard, Roy Howard's great-granddaughter, who joined us in Japan. The 12 of us, sometimes disoriented, flew more than 14 hours to finally land in a world where I understood nothing.

According to Transitions Abroad magazine, an online source that helps those who want to study, live or volunteer abroad, only 6 percent of all undergraduate students who study abroad go to Asia, because of this fear of the unknown.

But I feel there is much we can learn from both Japan and South Korea. Japan, home to more than 127 million people, sells around 70 million newspapers each day, while the United States, with a population of more than 295 million, sells only 48 million papers a day, according to the World Association of Newspapers.

I searched hard to uncover the reason for that difference.

I discovered a strong dedication to tradition.

Reading the newspaper every morning, at home or on the train. Bowing at a passerby. Respecting elders. Culture and tradition run deep within the veins of both the South Koreans and the Japanese, helping them cultivate their mores, yet also often creating tension between shining brightly as individuals and working together as a group for the betterment of society.

As I strolled the streets of Osaka after sunset, I was mesmerized by a sea of multicolored hair and mismatched clothing: neon purple jackets with short pink mini-skirts, ripped jeans, green heels, funky scrunched-up socks, puffy jackets. Individualism -- mixed in with the American influence of McDonald's, Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut -- buzzed and colored the city streets while the youth gambled at Pachinko machines and played Brit-pop music on the side of the road.

But by 11 at night, the streets cleared out, and in the morning the individualism was gone.

Professionals identically dress in business attire and students in white and navy uniforms march purposefully through the streets and on subways. Polite bows and whispers of ''excuse me'' and ''thank you'' could be heard; those were some of the few words I could understand.

This divide between the new and the old is shaping the youth in this part of the world. With cellphones that also serve as credit cards, video systems and televisions, along with a mentality that encourages respect and responsibility for the group as a whole, many Japanese think differently than their ancestors, who saw their emperor as a descendant of God.

In 1933, almost 73 years to the day our group visited the Imperial Palace, Roy Howard was the first American journalist to interview Hirohito, the emperor of Japan, shedding the first light on this distant land, which would soon defy the United States during World War II.

Now, many years later, it is our turn to understand Asia.

Although I'm back home and eating Florida mangoes, which ran at no less than $8 in South Korea and Japan, the taste of squid-sushi fresh from Tokyo's wholesale fish market still lingers on my tongue. I say arigato gozaimasu, thank you very much, East Asia, for opening my eyes to both our differences and our similarities.

source: http://www.miami.com