投稿者「KCJS24」のアーカイブ

メロディー・ウー：動物のボランティア、和太鼓グループ

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私は最初に京都に来たとき乗馬部に入りたっかたです。でも、一番近い乗馬部の練習は午前七時ごろからですから、早すぎてとても不便だと思いました。それから、私は他の動物と関係がある活動を考えて、深井先生に「京都市動物園はボランティアのプログラムがありますか」と聞きました。先生はオンライン検索(けんさく)をした後、そのようなプログラムを見つけて、直ぐ私に電話の話し方を教えてくれました。それから、私は動物園に電話をかけて、新しいボランティアーのオリエンテーションのことを聞きました。

一月二十日に、初めて動物園に行きました。他の二人のボランティアーズと動物園の歴史を獣医さんから学んだり、ボランティアーズが担当するおとぎの国という子供のための展示にツアーに行ったりしました。準会員として、私は二月の最初の週末に動物の活動を始めました。もう五回に行って、いろんなタスクをしました。今まで、私は子供の兔とモルのふれあいを手伝ったり、ヤギの家族関係を説明したり、ミニブタの技を見せたりして、楽しかったです。実は専門の単語がいっぱいあるから、とても難しいと思います。しかし、動物園のスタッフと他のボランティアの皆さんは親切で、彼らに質問をよく聞いています。

リンク：http://www5.city.kyoto.jp/zoo/support/volunteer

さらに、私は二月中旬(じゅん)に北野天満宮の和太鼓グループに入りました。前の経験があまりないですが、同じグループに入ったKCJSのワンさんは高校生の時太鼓のレッスンを受けていました。ですから、私はもし一人だけ音楽を台無しにしたら、どうしようかととても心配していました。けれども、和太鼓の皆さんはやさしい人で自分の練習に集中しましたから、誰も私の間違いを笑わなくて、よっかたです！練習の後、みんな一緒に居酒屋に行って二時間くらい喋りました。

公演(こうえん)のための準備をすることができるように家に自分で練習しています。和太鼓グループの先輩たちは今月はもう京都駅の大きい階段でパフォーマンスがありましたが、その日用事があったので、残念ながら行けなかったです。でも、次回はワンさんと他のクラスメートと行こうと思います。

もし北野天満宮の和太鼓グループに興味があれば、日本語の先生と相談してください。

サラ・アレン：上京中学校で英語アシスタント

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将来、子供と接する職業に就きたいので、CIPを決める時に必ず子供と接することができるCIPを調べました。それで、同志社大学のすぐそばにある上京中学校のことを聞きました。まず、上京中学校に行って、英語の先生と教頭先生と会って、一週間、一回ボランティアすることになりました。

私にとって、上京中学校の所在地はすごく便利です。同志社大学から自転車で５分です。上京中学校は町にあるから、ほとんどの学生はバスか電車で通学しています。

バレンタインの前に、私は授業で学生を教える手伝いすると思いました。今、三回行ったことがありますが、一回だけ授業でボランティアしました。他の時、中学校三年生の学生の英語能力試験の勉強を手伝いました。この時、学生のマン釣マン会話の練習をします。私は授業にいるより、マンツマンのほうが好きです。何故から、私はもっと影響があると思うからです。授業で教えると、３０人いるし、先生も教えているので、学生はよく内容が分からないでクラスを出ます。マントマンだと、学生がしっかり内容が分かるようにできます。これをするため、私は日本語と英語をつかいます。これで、学生が絶対英語の単語や文法が分かるだけで、私にも日本語の勉強になります。

英語アシスタントをしている時に学生は英語の文を読むのが得意ですが、読解力はあまり強くないことに気が付きました。その上、学生は聞き取りもあまり強くないです。これは、授業で読むことを強調して、他のことを強調しているからです。しかし、日本人の学生は英語を読むのを得意だけど、会話や理解は弱いです。

ボランティアできるのはとてもいい経験だと思います。日本の文化が体験できます。例えば、学校に行く前に、私は日本の学生は先生にとても丁寧に話すと思いました。でも、先生に丁寧でない言葉をよく聞きます。しかも、先生が怒る時、学生に怖く叫びます。

日本の学年度はもうすぐ終わりますので、３月になったら新しいCIPを探さなければなりません。でも、その時まで、上京中学校で英語アシスタントをするのを楽しみます。

上京中学校のウェブサイト：http://cms.edu.city.kyoto.jp/weblog/index.php?id=200707

 

 

サンディー・リー：にこにこトマト

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にこにこトマトは京都大学病院のボランティアグループとして、入院した子供達が喜ぶようにお祝い日のギフトを作ったり、パーティーを計画したり、募金イベントを行ったり、子供達と遊んだり、ニュースレターを作ったり、切り抜き帖を作ったりする。

にこにこトマトは毎週火、水、木曜日に朝十一時から五時半まで病院の四階で活動をする。今学期のボランティアは大体四十代以上のおばちゃん達と大学生で、一日に十人ぐらい病院にボランティアをしに来る。

ボランティアは毎日十二時ごろ一緒に昼御飯を食べて、四時ごろおやつを食べながらお茶を飲む。ボランティアや活動の準備をする部屋は十人にとって小さいから、あたたかくて時々息がしにくいけれども、おばちゃん達はクラフトがすごく上手でとっても親しみやすくて元気な人だ。それに彼らは様々な個人的な話を聞くのが好きで、知識を広げたいと思っているので、近づきやすい人だ。

レイラ・リン：弓道

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今学期も先学期のように弓道を練習しています。毎週二回武道センターへ練習に行きます。練習の雰囲気は相変わらず穏やかですが、いつもとても楽しいです。弓道の先生はとても可愛くて、親切な人で、先生が好きではない生徒がいないと思います。先生と出会って、本当によかったと思います。または、初心者として来る生徒はふだん様々な外国人なので、練習中に色々な外国の話を聞くことができて、いっぱい勉強になりました。私は弓道がすごく難しいと思って、色々なことがまた分からないけど、弓道の穏やかな時間を大切にします。

Michael Li: Volunteering at NicoNico Tomato

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My CIP experience, volunteering at NicoNico  Tomato at Kyoto University Hospital (which I plan on continuing next semester), has been both relaxing and worthwhile. Every week would provide a respite from the seemingly never-ending workload.  While I would help out with whatever activity or task needed to be accomplished, I always had the opportunity to communicate with others and actually use what I learned.

Having volunteered in a hospital in New York, it was interesting to note how the atmospheres and environments differ. NicoNico Tomato has a strong sense of community and volunteer base. Although it is volunteer run, they take their duties and commitment seriously. For example, they personally make handmade cards for most of the major holidays. They take several weeks to cut out paper in shapes of numerous characters and to create backgrounds for the card. I couldn’t wrap my head around the notion of spending so much time for one project. However, after I started distributing the cards to the children at a Halloween party and saw their reaction, I knew that it was time worth spent. It was occasions such as these where you realize the disparity between cultural mindsets.

In addition to realizing cultural differences, I have become less worried about making mistakes and to constantly engage in conversation even it if is just asking them questions about how to do something. While being the only foreigner at first made me uneasy, it naturally gravitated peoples’ attention and conversation to me (which was nice not having to always make the first initiative to engage in conversation). While the conversations ranged from talking with students, activity leaders, to other volunteers, conversations never ceased to be engaging—both interesting and allowing me use various vocabulary and formalities because of the varying range of situations. Engaging in conversation about varying customs to discussing similar music interests or even just hearing about someone’s day allowed me to not only to better develop my Japanese,  but also allowed me to better connect and forge bonds with other members of the volunteer group.

Ambika Singh: Angelnet

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When I first heard about the CIP project, I was at a complete loss as to what I would do. However, after some deliberation I decided that I would be an assistant English teacher. Back in the US I had been an art camp counselor since I was 14, so I figured that dealing with children would be basically the same regardless of what country I was in. Despite my initial confidence, my CIP proved to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life to date.

My CIP had its ups and downs, but I can definitely take away some life experience from it. I learned how to politely quit an organization (definitely an important skill), as well as how to handle situations in which you do not feel comfortable. In the US, politely quitting is not a common concept, as people tend to quit due to their job mistreating them or being less than desirable. However, in Japan this concept is well-known, and it seems that many people use it to leave their jobs. After realizing that my CIP was not what I had expected, I called my boss and thanked her for the volunteering opportunity and wished her the best. This conversation was pretty awkward, but in the end I think I accomplished my goal, to leave on a positive note.

Before I came to Japan I never had to deal with a situation like mine at Angelnet. I am less naïve now about volunteering, as it is not always an enjoyable experience, and I know that it can become very stressful and exhausting. Since I’ve also never had to deal with problematic children before, I’m glad that I now have the experience under my belt of how to handle them. In the future, I am definitely going to continue being a camp counselor in the US and I’m not going to let my CIP affect my love for volunteering.

Van Dinh: Farming

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When I started my CIP, I didn’t really know what to expect from it. To be honest, after the initial meeting with my CIP contact, I wasn’t really looking forward to it at all. It wasn’t because farming didn’t seem interesting or fun, but because I had such a hard time following along with what he was saying. My Japanese isn’t what you would call good. Of course, I knew that in theory, I should slowly improve as the program goes on, but still, I had my worries. What if I couldn’t talk to anyone there? Or no one understands me because my Japanese is so terrible?

During the first weekend, I admit that I didn’t really make a lot of effort to talk to the other people there. It was intimidating and I was afraid of making a lot of mistakes and embarrassing myself. However, they were really nice and would ask me simple questions about myself. Since I didn’t know what else to say, I just asked them their questions back at them. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something I thought. As time went on, it became a little easier to talk to the Japanese people. I found that it was better to talk to someone one on one versus in a group. It was less scary that way. Also, I adopted a strategy of asking them questions so I wouldn’t have to talk all the time.

In the end, I’ve learned that in order to progress with my Japanese, I need to stop worrying about how I can’t speak Japanese perfectly. People will respond to my efforts, and if I do make mistakes (which is inevitable), then they will be kind enough to correct them so that I won’t do it again in the future.

Joseph Lachman: Kyoto University Graduate Student Tennis Circle

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Kyoto University Graduate Student Tennis Circle

The Kyoto University graduate student’s tennis circle has been an interesting experience so far for me. Recently, it has become more difficult to hold practices due to poor weather, cold, and busy schedules. Despite some of these minor setbacks, I have still enjoyed enriching cultural experiences as a member of the group.

First of all, I am the only foreigner in this tennis group, and furthermore, I am the only undergraduate student, making me the youngest by several years. As a result, the first source of confusion that surfaced was with regard to formality. In terms of tennis experience, I am relatively advanced compared to most of the group members, but of course, I am younger than all of them, and a new member of the group. I was unsure how to address people at first, and it was difficult enough trying to remember a large number of new names. However, the group seems to adhere to a rule of addressing people by their last names, although I seemed to be the one exception to that rule, since I requested that they call me Joseph.

The group seems to have a healthy mixture of skill levels, although I wish the more experienced players would show up more often. The composition of the group changes significantly each week. I attended one dinner party for the group as well, and to be honest, I didn’t recognize the group at first, seeing so many new faces.

I would definitely recommend a tennis group for exchange students of all levels. The sport is not based too heavily on verbal communication, so it’s possible to enjoy the practices without a lot of unusual vocabulary, and there’s time between rallies and after practice to socialize with the other members. Also, tennis is one of the sports in Japan where a very large proportion of the terms are borrowed from English. “ナイスラリー、Nice rally” and “ナイスショットnice shot” can be heard countless times throughout practices. The phrase in Japanese you will probably hear more than anything else is, “すみません、excuse me/sorry.” If you hit a good shot that your partner had trouble getting back, you apologize. If you miss a shot because your partner hit it well, you apologize. In other words, no matter what your skill level and relationship to your partner, you apologize. It can be excessive at times, but overall the cordiality is nice, slightly amusing, and still preferable to rudeness.

After nearly a full semester as part of this group, I am for the most part a regular member of the group, and treated as such. One incident that gave good evidence for this was a conversation with some of the other members about hockey in Japan versus America. I was asked about teams in America, and if there was a team in Seattle. I mentioned that we have a minor team, the Everett Silvertips. The “Everett Silvertips” is a terribly awkward phrase to say in katakana Japanese, so I left it as is when I mentioned it. The others looked slightly stunned for a moment, explaining to me that they occasionally forgot that I’m a native English speaker, since I hardly ever used English during practices.

It seems that tennis can be an enjoyable extracurricular activity, regardless of Japanese skill level. If you’re looking for immersion into Japanese culture, I might recommend choosing something more traditional. In retrospect, I think it might have been more valuable to use my Taiko drumming class as my CIP, English tutoring, or volunteer work with disabled Japanese youth. However, it is still both interesting and useful to gain a new perspective on an activity one has only viewed from an American perspective, and see how it has been adopted and tailored for Japanese society, including ways in which it reflects aspects of Japanese culture, while still retaining foreign aspects as well. Since I will be continuing at KCJS for the spring semester, I plan to look into other potential CIP activities, but will most likely still continue practicing with the tennis circle.

Aaron Browning: EMBG (Light Music Circle)

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EMBG stands for Eastern Mountain Boys and Girls, just one of the many groups known as karui music circles (lit. ‘light,’ meaning amateur, or recreational) that gather weekly at the Kyoto University campus. Ever since I applied for KCJS I had wanted to do something of this sort, because I was interested in experiencing a young people’s rock and roll culture in Japan. After searching for a few weeks to find a circle that would allow me to participate, a friend managed to talk to a member of an associated Kyoto University karui music circle, which eventually resulted in me and Jerome (my classmate, friend, and partner in rock and roll) being graciously allowed to join.

The presence of these types of clubs at Japanese universities is a really great thing, and although my home institution is quite small (around 1,500 undergraduates), I imagine that similar organizations are quite rare even within large American universities. It has been neat not only to be a part of something fun and entertaining, but also to encounter a new type of club that I had previously been unfamiliar with. However, what has struck me the most is all about the quantity of these types of groups and the members within them, accounting for a truly robust group of circles focusing on the recreational act of forming various bands with friends and rocking out in a variety of genres.

The circles at Kyoto University all meet at a typical classroom building known as yon-kyou, which is transformed in the early evenings of meeting days from a building of classrooms to a building of practice and performance rooms. When approaching the heart of the campus, one can hear the muffled fuzz and rumble of instruments collectively sounding from various rooms in the building. Vast lines of bicycles all but cover the ground of the building’s large concrete lot. As the sun sets, cycling students gradually pour in, and after all the equipment has been loaded into each club’s assigned meeting space (usually gear transported from a rented storing space and unloaded from the back of a club van), the activities commence. At any given time, there might be sound emanating from the building’s brick walls as a few groups of people chat outside the entrance. It is apparent that this place, much like the local venues and bars in American cities, is more than a simply a place to play music or listen to music. It is a place to relax, hang out with friends, and bond over music as a common activity.

The atmosphere at EMBG has been welcoming and relaxed. While by no means disorganized or uncoordinated, EMBG is quite flexible in its scheduling and sessions, I have found. More or less, the most important part of these meetings is simply showing up. Members see each other, they unload gear together, they chat with each other, they listen and play music together. Depending on whether or not there is a specific band scheduled to perform for the rest of the circle’s enjoyment (called a raibu; ‘live’), a meeting can more or less function as a collective practice room. On a typical day, friends will sit or stand around, and if not playing an instrument of their own, the are yelling to chat over the cacophony of the collective jam. I have even had my own opportunity to try my hand at playing drums with a third year law student who was able to summon a few riffs on his guitar that I could play along to. We messed around with songs by two piece bands like The White Stripes and Japandroids. We were planning to perform at the November Festival, Kyoto University’s own gakuensai, but unfortunately we both became too busy to follow through on this. Nonetheless, I was able to attend a portion of the NF performance, and it was a blast. Around twenty bands performed, and that was only for this specific circle.

But it’s more than just music, of course. I’ve made friends here, with whom I’ll often go to eat after meetings are over. People talk and often share ideas about music, and one can tell that this is what essentially brings them closer, but yet there is much more here. Ultimately, it is music formed through fellowship, and fellowship formed through music. And I feel thrilled to have taken part.

Martha Levytsky: FBI and 交流会

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My experience with FBI was short but interesting. The club only met about once a month for a member movie marathon, and otherwise met in different locations for film shoots. With KCJS trips, it was difficult to meet with this CIP. The few times I met with everyone, I had an enjoyable time and would have liked to talk to the members more.

In order to participate in more CIP activities I started joining weekly 交流会. The Japanese members were very warm and easy to talk to. I spoke mostly in Japanese with them, but when they asked to speak English, I found it strangely uncomfortable and could not wait to switch back to Japanese. I will continue participating in 交流会 and hopefully next semester be a more active member in FBI. I am surprised that by going to 交流会 I do not feel like I am missing out on my other CIP. The 交流会 students are much easier to talk to as they are conducting a meeting with the intention of meeting with international students. FBI, while friendly, is a bit harder to feel comfortable in because the students are probably not used to foreign exchange students joining their already close team.

By the end of this semester’s CIP activities, I have discovered that speaking to Japanese students feels fairly similar to speaking with my host parents. I was pleasantly surprised by how warm and welcoming the 交流会 students were and will have to strongly think about staying with them during my spring semester. Though there is a schedule during every meeting, it feels very casual and I enjoy the time I spend with everyone. By talking to the Japanese students I learned various things, such as American stereotypes felt by Japanese students. It was a fun exchange. Each of us had an Ipod or Iphone so we exchanged our favorite apps and games. Our group discussed different hand gestures and their meanings in Japan and America. The gestures themselves were the same but their meanings were quite different. Every student I met was very polite, and offered their own dinner for others. My experience in America and Japan are entirely different, simply because of the polite, open manner of the Japanese students.