「Circle (Non-Sports)」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Rachael Miller: Doshisha University Ping Pong Circle and Anime Club

投稿日時: 投稿者:

My experience with the Community Involvement Project has afforded me the opportunity to witness two phenomenon which, I believe, are equally common, but which are opposite in nature: timidity versus openness towards foreigners. Having participated in two different CIP activities during my time at KCJS, I feel that I can say with a fair degree of confidence that I’ve seen two sides of the same coin, and that the difference in my treatment in each setting had a significant impact on my enjoyment of the CIP activity as a whole.

To begin, I initially set out to join Doshisha University’s Ping-Pong Circle. I’ll confess that I don’t have much experience playing ping-pong, despite being somewhat competitively intrigued by it in my high school days, and so for the Japanese students who were already in the club – and who appeared to take their practice of ping-pong very seriously – playing with me must have been extremely frustrating. That being said, apart from their apparent unwillingness to step up to whichever table I’d staked out, I experienced a further unwillingness to even engage in conversation. Despite multiple attempts to get to know my fellow club members, to learn more about their club and its members, etc., my attempts to start conversations were repeatedly shut down by their mere unwillingness to provide me with answers.

Interestingly, while this experience certainly sheds some light on the degree of comfort these students have interacting with foreigners, Joey Ye – who joined the club before I did, and who was at a similar skill level as I was – didn’t seem to have much of a problem interacting with the club members. Thus, I couldn’t help but wonder – was their unwillingness to interact with me also because I’m a woman? I did notice that female members of the Ping-Pong Circle seemed few and far between, and it occurred to me that potentially, my  being a foreigner was not the only source of hesitation that the Doshisha students felt in interacting with me.

Unfortunately, after several weeks of repeated, failed attempts at making conversation, I came to the conclusion that perhaps the Ping-Pong Circle was not the right CIP for me. Given that the goal of CIP participation is to involve oneself in the community, I felt that rather than being involved, I was more being made to observe – regardless of my own desire to be more engaged in my activity. Feeling that I might strike better luck with a group of people with whom I had more in common, I ultimately made the decision to leave the Ping-Pong Circle in pursuit of another activity: participation in the anime club.

It was here that I found myself truly enjoying my CIP activity. The response that I received from the members of the anime club was, in almost every way, different from the response I received from the members of the Ping-Pong Circle. I was welcomed enthusiastically into the anime club, apologized to repeatedly for some minor inconveniences surrounding my membership fee, and spoken to often and willingly by the various members who would come and go without, it seemed, adherence to a strict schedule. Rather than gathering together for the purpose of cultivating a specific skill, the members of the anime club seemed to be more a group of friends who found enjoyment in one another’s company than anything else.

Although I will confess that my language skills – or lack thereof – prevented me from engaging with the members on an especially deep level, I found that they were more than willing to help me get my membership fee squared away, figure out a schedule for coming and going, helping me read various kanji, etc. In the instances that I experienced a lack of communication with the club members, the reason seemed sourced more in lack of ability than lack of desire.

Ultimately, I’ve found that my experience with the anime club has been entirely pleasant, and I am glad that I was able to find a CIP in which I felt more comfortable. While I certainly am not able to make any sociological generalizations based on my experience, again, I feel that I can accurately summarize the difference in my experiences by pointing out the different attitudes held by Doshisha students toward interacting with foreigners. While one is neither better nor worse, right nor wrong, I will admit that after my experience in the Ping-Pong Circle, I will absolutely go out of my way to interact more with foreign exchange students at my home university. Because although I have finally found a setting in which I feel more comfortable, that initial experience of discomfort was a bit disheartening.

Melissa Chang: Doshisha University Animation and Voice Actor Club

投稿日時: 投稿者:

For my CIP, I joined the Animation and Voice Actor Club at Doshisha. Since I was only here for a semester, I didn’t get to participate in any of their big events, but I was allowed to hang out in the club room. It was a cozy place where I was free to come and go as I pleased and interact with the other members. Some of the things I did were play video games with the members, talk to them about all kinds of things, and read manga.

By participating in this club, I was able to experience the dynamics of a Japanese club. This club was one of the more laid back clubs, with senpai–kouhai relationships not as pronounced. It was a good place to pick up on Kansai ben because a lot of the club members spoke in that dialect. Doshisha’s Anime Club was very different from the Anime Club back at Boston University. The club room at Doshisha was smaller than I had anticipated. There are also no planned activities at Doshisha’s Anime Club as opposed to BU’s Anime Club. Because the club room is open every day and I could only go once a week, I didn’t always see the same people. This made it harder to maintain relationships with them, but it was a good experience nonetheless.

My advice to anyone who wants to join this club is to try to go as often as possible. The more times you show up to club, the better your chances are of making friends. Everyone’s really nice and welcoming so don’t be afraid to talk to them! It’s also fun and useful to read manga with them because they can help you learn new words in Japanese! For anyone spending a year at Doshisha, I would suggest that they attend the special events put on by the club. The more people you meet and the more involved you get with the club, the better your experience will be.

Grace Bologna: Model United Nations

投稿日時: 投稿者:

For my fall semester community involvement project, I was extremely fortunate to continue an activity I deeply enjoy at my home school. I joined the Kyoto branch of Japan’s Model UN competition cycle. The branch includes Doshisha University, Kyoto University, and Ritsumeikan University, housing about forty college students. Through the organizations, I was able to gain a first-hand look at the inner workings of MUN in Japan as well as improve my own skills as an international delegate.

I come from an institution that takes the activity quite seriously. I spent nearly twenty hours a week on Model UN activities at the peak of competition season and a failure to win an award at competitions can end your career on the team. Our hard work shows—UChicago has been ranked number one in North America from 2011-2016. A slip due to negligence and changing competition style dropped us to 5th place in 2017, although reapplication has put us back at #1 for the start of the 2018 cycle. Needless to say, I was ready to dive into a similar level of competition in Japan.

What I found was quite different. The first shock was the level of collaboration between students from different institutions. Within the Kyoto branch, Ritsumeikan, Kyo-dai and Doshisha students share research and training sessions. The branch also hosts small simulations of topics large competitions will discuss. That is to say, the Kyoto branch may host a simulation of a committee on refugees when a national conference will offer the same topic a month later. From an American competition perspective, this would be near-suicidal. If a student from a different institution found my plans for committee before the actual competition, I’d be forced to scrap all of those plans and start anew. Such an issue seemed barely on the periphery of the Kyoto branch.

Yet there were many hidden benefits from the relaxed style of competition. The most glaring difference between the American and Japanese competitions spheres was the presence of women. American Model UN has a distinct male focus, with a ratio of about three men to every one woman. In Japan, the ratio was near equal if not more heavily tilted towards women. I was very interested in what tactics made female participation easier or more enticing on the Japanese side. Two of my friends (both women) told me they had never thought of it. Nothing in their experience on the team made it harder for them to compete than their male counterparts. I believe this may directly linked to the inherent lack of team competition. Japanese college students compete as individuals at nationwide conferences. This means you could be paired up with a student from another school, or in my case, even another country. Since there’s no team honor to defend, participants can focus solely on their own growth and knowledge. I believe America could take a lesson.

I would advise any future American participants in Japanese Model UN to keep an open mind. If you have competed in America, the laxness of Japanese competition will surely feel inadequate. However, enjoy the increased range of participation loosening competition allows participants. Develop yourself as a delegate, and take your time learning new vocabulary and building new friendships. You may not return to your American team with new skills, but you will certainly return with a greater understanding of the internationality of MUN.

Amanda Grice: Klexon and Kyoto Cooking Circle

投稿日時: 投稿者:

I am doing two activities for my CIP: taking cooking lessons with the Kyoto Cooking Circle, and volunteering my time at Klexon to help people practice English.

The Kyoto Cooking Circle was made to teach foreigners how to make Japanese food. It only meets once a month so I have only been to two meetings. The first one we made a Japanese stew dish called Nikujyaga. The second was a special meeting to teach a group of high schoolers studying abroad from Boston and took place in a very old style Japanese house. We cooked ramen over a very old wood-burning stove, and washed the vegetables from a hand-pump in the backyard. It was really interesting to be in a very old style Japanese home.

At Klexon we sit in rows at tables and talk to the person across from us. Every ten minutes we all shift one seat down so we get to practice with new people. After that, we split into groups and have a discussion.

Klexon is for anyone wanting to practice English, so it has been helpful for meeting a wider variety of people. I’ve seen college students, English teachers, pharmacy technicians, shopkeepers, Disney World workers, and chemical engineers, to name a few. I have also met other English speakers from all over the world — France, Holland, Syria, India, and Canada. I have been very thankful for this opportunity to meet and talk with such a variety of people and have made many friends at the meetings.

We’re always given a sheet of paper with a conversation topic on it but there have been many times where we have gotten sidetracked and never discussed it. Some topics have been favorite childhood foods, favorite childhood games, favorite thing to do in winter, dream vacations, or clubs you joined in high school.

I like the assigned topics sometimes because it gets you talking about things that usually don’t come up in regular conversation. For example, the night we talked about childhood games, I was seated at a table with three Japanese people, a Dutch man, and a French man. We discovered that we had played all the same childhood games, though we had different names for them. We bonded over these shared childhood experiences that I would not have guessed were so universal.

Some things I have to talk about again and again. I always have to talk about where I’m from and what is famous there and why I came to Japan and what is difficult about Japanese.

Many people I spoke to at Klexon did not understand why I wanted to learn Japanese because they felt like most people in the more visited areas of Japan spoke at least some English. In addition, most of them seemed to have felt forced to learn English for their careers. This was not true of everyone, though, and I met others who were learning English as a hobby along with other languages. 

I think Klexon has helped me be a better communicator. I was able to practice my Japanese during and after most meetings. But I also learned how to communicate better in English. Speaking to non-native English speakers forced me to speak clearly and learn how to word things so that they would be more universally understood.

Many people were shy with practicing their English. I can understand, since I’m very shy with using my Japanese. Over time I got better with keeping a conversation going, so that there would be no awkward silences.

I am really thankful I had this opportunity to meet so many different people and talk about culture.

Nicole Flett: Doshisha Hula Circle

投稿日時: 投稿者:

Dance has always been a big part of my life, so my first thought for CIP was joining a university dance circle. Although I wanted to join a hiphop circle, they unfortunately didn’t answer my email for a few weeks (twitter seems to be the big contact hub for university circles but I didn’t want to create an account). Instead I joined Meahula, a hula group on campus open to females only. They usually don’t take students mid-year (I ran into this problem quite a lot with other dance groups), but since I’ve previously danced hula for about 6 years, the president allowed me to join and learn the first-year group dances.

 

As much as I disagree with strict kouhai-senpai relationships, I’m glad I was able to experience it with my own eyes through the group. Examples include the senpai waiting for first years to move all the desks and chairs out of the way whenever we used the classroom, and also first years feeling they did something wrong because it wasn’t them who took the mirrors all the way from the other room but the older students. Yet according to my friend, the hula group is one of the stricter ones on campus compared to other university circles in terms of the senpai-kouhai relationship, but it is still far less strict than high school clubs.

 

I was in the weird position of being a foreigner – one who was sort of a first year for the group because I was learning the first-year dances, but the same age and grade as the senpai, and technically everybody’s senpai in hula because of how much experience I have. Everyone approached me to talk during breaks, but only in groups of kouhai or senpai – there was only once when I was talking to both first years and a senpai at the same time. I was also able to get away with a lot of advantages by not being a real part of the group – I didn’t have to pay fees since I was only borrowing a skirt and uniform, and I also didn’t have to pay for participating in the festival. If anyone felt animosity towards me for being able to swoop in, they didn’t show it though (but my privilege is something I couldn’t help but keep in mind, which is why I made efforts to go to both practices every week – also because I genuinely enjoyed being able to talk and dance with new and old people). I had a great time dancing something I hadn’t in such a long time, and I made a few good friends (both first years, who were arguably easiest to talk to, and senpai who were the same age as me), and many new acquaintances (there were so many girls that when I talked to some for one practice I usually didn’t talk to them again because the next time there would be a new group of girls I’d be talking to). A few my favorite conversations included dropping the “Harvard” bomb, saying that my favorite food was taiyaki, and perfecting the art of talking about my studies and where I live. The best part was hearing that many of the girls admired English and the US because people can say their opinions straightforwardly. If the modern generation thinks this way, I wonder if these senpai-kouhai and strict keigo-speaking relationships can slowly change?

 

Meahula: http://www.d-live.info/club/sports/index.php?c=club_view&pk=1364458310

Alan Cheng: Origami Circle

投稿日時: 投稿者:

For my CIP, I joined an origami circle and took shodo (書道) calligraphy lessons. The origami circle meets weekly on Wednesdays between 6 and 8pm in the Kanbaikan (寒梅館), located just a minute’s walk away from the Doshisha’s Imadegawa campus. No experience is needed and membership is not limited to only Doshisha students—any college student studying in Kyoto is welcome. The shodo lessons, on the other hand, were taught by a sensei living in my host family’s neighborhood, recommended to me by my host mother. The lessons took place once a week on Tuesdays from 7 to 9pm, so even though I participated in two activities, it was only a commitment of four hours per week with minimal travel, which was manageable with my schedule.

For this post, I’ll be focusing on the origami circle, which had more group interaction compared to my shodo lessons. The origami circle had a very relaxed atmosphere. We could fold whatever we liked, with paper and origami instruction books provided by the circle. There was no strict attendance requirement, so members could come and go each week as they pleased.

By participating in the circle, I feel like I have a better understanding of how group structures work in Japanese society from. Before, I envisioned that all clubs and circles would have a fairly rigid senpai-kohai structure, and I was curious to see what that would be like. However, the group structure, too, was fairly relaxed, and the senpai-kohai dynamic wasn’t so palpable in the origami circle. Rather, it felt more like a circle of friends—those who were more familiar with each other used casual language, while those less familiar stuck to polite form. For instance, during the first few sessions I attended, one of the more involved members (who was younger than I) used keigo when speaking to me, which is what one might expect in terms of senpai-kohai relations. However, after going out to dinner with fellow club members, they started using casual language with me without concern for age differences. The origami circle gave me a broader view on how Japanese people interact within groups.

As for advice to incoming KCJS students, I would recommend actively participating in CIP activities as soon as possible. I didn’t join the origami circle until a month into the program because I was still waiting for responses from some other groups and I didn’t want to commit to too many groups at once. In retrospect, I should have just joined the origami group from the start and been more decisive.

George Chen: Kyoto University Animation Club

投稿日時: 投稿者:

This semester, I joined the Kyoto University animation club, which primarily is an interest group for students interested in various types of animated TV series and films. Meetings primarily consisted of casual, informal get-togethers in small groups, discussing various shows and films. Many of the members, incidentally all guys, seemed to be interested in TV series like K-On and Gurren Lagann more than films like those by Hayao Miyazaki and Shinkai Makoto. So, while our exact interests were more distant than I thought they might be, I learned several things, not directly related to the club’s content, about how Japanese club life and relations go about.

The club was very informal, with a flat organization, and various people used distal and direct-style speech, which seemed to be mostly personal preference rather than senpai-kouhai relationship. Coming and going into the club room, which was in a science building, was fairly informal, and people just gathered with various interests, playing games, introducing shows, or debating the merits of various programs. The most important take away I had was that not all Japanese clubs used a hierarchical senpai-kouhai relationship, and this was rather dependent on the type of club’s activity and intensity. In my case, the anime club was not intense, but very welcoming and a nice place to discuss shows that I enjoyed with other like-minded, Japanese students.

Clearly, if you are looking for an intense, structured, hierarchal club, other circles would probably be a better fit. But if talking about animation in an easy-going clubroom sounds interesting, the circle could be worth a look.

Erin Gallagher: Hiking Circle

投稿日時: 投稿者:

This semester, I decided to join the Hiking Circle for my community involvement project. It was challenging at first, because I had to write very formal emails in Japanese in order to see if I could join, which I wasn’t used to doing. But once I was able to join the club, I had a lot of fun! The Hiking Circle meets once a week for a few hours every Saturday, so it fits easily into my schedule, especially since we meet on campus, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time traveling. Club activities include hiking one week out of the month, and ‘training’ the other three; usually it’s running by the Horikawa.

What I like about the Hiking Circle, though, is that it’s not just about the training. After activities are over, people usually spend some time hanging out in the club room, talking, playing video games, and making food. It’s sometimes been hard for me to keep up with conversation because everyone talks pretty fast, but they’ve been really good about slowing down and clarifying things for me when I don’t understand.

I’ve had a lot of fun with my CIP so far. The other members are really cool, and I get to go hiking in the mountains around Kyoto, which are gorgeous. I’m so glad I decided to join!

http://d-live.info/club/sports/index.php?c=club_view&pk=1364458233

Isaac Jemielita: Shogi

投稿日時: 投稿者:

I did not know what to expect when I started my CIP. When I was in high school, I played some chess so I thought it would be fun to learn how to play Japanese chess- shogi. The first time I went to the shogi room, this tiny little room called a box, I opened the door to find a single person sleeping on the floor. Not wanting to disturb him, I slowly closed the door and took down the contact information for the club. That was a weird introduction to the shogi club but was pretty representative of the club as a whole. The atmosphere of the club is very relaxed- people come and go as they please, they play shogi as the want, and generally just want a place to kick back with friends.

When I started learning shogi, I had two problems. The first problem was that I had no idea how to play shogi. This was further compounded by my inability to read the kanji on the pieces. The second problem was that chess strategy is hard enough to understand without trying to figure out what is being said in Japanese. Somehow, I figured out how to play the game after a couple of thoroughly embarrassing interactions. I’m still getting trashed by all the other shogi players but it’s okay because if I ever want to relax and play a quiet game of shogi, I know where to go.

Lauren Levine: Kyoto Walking Circle

投稿日時: 投稿者:

For my CIP I knew that I wanted to be in a relaxed environment with Japanese students my own age so that I would be able to engage the other club members as peers. For this reason I chose to join the Kyoto Walking Circle, a club open to students of various colleges around Kyoto, and which meets once a week to walk around and explore different temples and shrines around the city. The club met every Saturday at 1:30 PM (at different locations around Kyoto depending on which temple or shrine we were visiting that day) with occasional night time events during the week.

One thing that surprised was how many members the club had and how much the people that came varied from week to week. At a given activity there could be more than twenty people, but very often more than half of those people would not have come the following week. Since the walking club is a very relaxed environment, attendance is always optional and most people come to events sporadically. This meant that I got to meet a lot of different people, but I often would not see the same person multiple weeks in a row, which made it difficult to stay in contact and become close friends. Still, everyone was really welcoming and friendly, and I enjoyed hanging out with everyone during the club activities.

Another thing that I noticed was that there was not a strong distinction between senpai and kouhai in this club environment. Even though there were students ranging in age from first years all the way to graduate students, most people in the club spoke in short form to each other and treated each other like friends (though some younger members did frequently speak in teinei). When speaking to mw, people usually started by speaking formally during the introductions, but soon switched to casual speak afterward.

Rather than the main distinction in the group being specifically by age, the more prominent distinction was in the smaller circles of friends that formed within the group. Since the group had so many members, only some of whom would come any given week, it was normal for the group walking that day to split into smaller groups of 4-6 while we were all walking. Some groups were all girls, other were all boys, and others were mixed (though there tended to be more guys than girls at the club activities). These were not official groups, but just groups that naturally formed based on friendships because our group was too large to all walk around together.

As a result, each week I would usually only end up talking to about five or six people depending on whichever smaller group I ended up walking with. I usually walked with whoever I started talking with before the activity started. The people in my CIP were very friendly, so I was almost always approached by someone who wanted to make conversation. If not, I would just introduce myself to the person who was staring at me the most. We would sometimes talk about the place we were visiting, but usually our conversations revolved around more general discussions of school, hobbies, and interests.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time as a member of the Kyoto Walking Circle. I got to see a lot of different temples and shrines around Kyoto, and because our club activities were mostly walking, there was a lot of time to make conversation and get to know the members of the circle.