In order to fulfill my Community Involvement Project requirements, I am fortunate to have been given the privilege to participate in two activities that I had been interested in since before coming to Kyoto: taking cooking classes and learning to play the shamisen.

Once a month, I have participated in cooking classes with the Kyoto Cooking Circle at Wings Kyoto, a community center located near the Karasuma-Oike subway station. For a small price of ¥1000 per class, I have not only had the opportunity to learn homestyle Japanese recipes, such as kiritanpo, a style of nabe native to Akita prefecture, but I have also been able to converse with a wide variety of Japanese people, from Doshisha students to the elderly. As such, Kyoto Cooking Circle has provided me with a great chance to fulfill my goal of learning new Japanese recipes, while also giving me the opportunity to utilize and improve my Japanese outside the classroom.

With cooking classes at Kyoto Cooking Circle only being offered once a month, for each week when these classes have not been in session, I have instead taken private shamisen lessons in Ibaraki, a city in Osaka prefecture. Under the tutelage of my teacher Chimura-sensei, I have quickly learned a number of songs, such as “Sakura Sakura,” “Tanko Bushi,” and “Tsugaru Jongara Bushi.” Furthermore, similar to my experience with the Kyoto Cooking Circle, I have also been able to speak regularly with Chimura-sensei, which has helped me in becoming more comfortable in Japanese conversation. As such, taking shamisen lessons have also allowed me to fulfill one of my goals, while being able to practice my Japanese in the process.

Through both my cooking classes and shamisen lessons, I have also learned about a number of aspects and customs pertaining to Japanese culture that I would have not found out about elsewhere. Most strikingly, from my first cooking class, I learned that Japanese children are given more self-responsibility and freedom than those in America. For example, one of Kyoto Cooking Circle’s teachers allows her two boys, who are approximately eight to ten years old, to contribute to the class’ cooking by using sharp knives to chop up vegetables. Having grown up in America and seen numerous parents prevent their children from doing anything even remotely dangerous, I was almost shocked to see the two Japanese kids contributing and acting on their own. As such, I first encountered the level of freedom and independence Japanese children are given at my first cooking class. In terms of my shamisen lessons, I have noticed that there are many differences between individual music lessons in the United States and Japan. From my experience, I’ve found that guitar lessons in the United States would be focused on correctly playing every note of every song I learn. However, Chimura-sensei has explained to me that rather than playing a song perfectly, it is more important to put soul into my shamisen playing. Essentially, Chimura-sensei has emphasized that having a nice sound or tone in my playing is more important than playing every song I learn perfectly. As such, I have noticed that perhaps Japanese music lessons are more focused on playing songs with heart and soul, without having to be perfect, while in the United States, perfection was the goal.

As a whole, my experiences with Kyoto Cooking Circle and Chimura-sensei’s shamisen lessons have been extremely rewarding. In the process of having two Community Involvement Project activities, I have only only fulfilled my goals of learning to cook Japanese food and to play the shamisen, but I also have improved my Japanese and made a number of Japanese friends. As such, I highly recommend learning to cook or to play the shamisen as a CIP to anyone interested in either activity!