When Naoya Karita finished high school in March 2005, he felt he had two choices -- one was to attend a popular university near his hometown and the other was to go to a school in Shanghai.
Carefully weighing the two options, including the then soured relations between Japan and China on his campus life, Karita nonetheless picked Shanghai.
"Having studied Chinese, I wanted to do something that could help enhance communication between people in Japan and China," Karita, 20, said. "I didn't want to find myself engaging in things many dull people at Japanese universities do, such as club activities, part-time jobs and parties."