「Activity」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Jordan LaPointe: Assistant English Teacher at Ohara Gakuin

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For my CIP I went to Ohara Gakuin every week as an Assistant Language Teacher. Once a week, immediately after class I would take a train and a bus to Ohara, then a short walk to the school. (On a related note, Ohara is a beautiful place during the fall and has a few reputable walking paths leading into the mountains. I highly recommend exploring the area after your CIP or on your own time. ) Part of my reason for pursuing this CIP was to determine if I wanted to apply for a JET teaching position after graduation. First, I would eat lunch with the students, and then I would either play games or assist with English instruction, ranging from vocabulary to reading comprehension. In addition, I was able to go to a school festival and watch the students perform skits and musical pieces.

I think the Ohara experience was unique in that I was able to interact with a wide range of students, from grades 1 to 8, going to different classes every week. This allowed me to observe how students of different age groups interact with each other and the forms of Japanese they use. I was also able to see the different teaching styles used by the English instructors depending on the age of the students. In respect to my participation, I enjoyed almost all of my interactions with the students and teachers. Although I was initially instructed to pretend to not understand Japanese in the presence of the students, I quickly realized that I would need to utilize my Japanese skills from time to time to coax the students into talking with me. However, this proved to be good practice for me to develop my language skills, particularly when helping students translate what they wanted to say from Japanese to English during our conversations. English Professors Kameda and Morimoto were also very easy to get along with and actively encouraged the students to interact with me during lunch and instruction time.

My main suggestion to students seeking to do this CIP is to have patience. You’ll be interacting with elementary and middle schoolers, with the latter group beginning to deal with the challenges of young adulthood. While a student may be difficult to communicate with one week, it might be a completely different experience the next week so keep an open mind. Additionally, the English instruction, especially with the younger grades, may seem too slow at times, but it’s important to remember that language instruction not just about communication but also about exposing students to a new culture and way of thinking; at the very least, just your presence can have an impact on their lives.

Yuqi Yin: Chorus Circle in Kyoto Univerisity

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My CIP is participating the chorus in Kyoto University. They have regular practice three times a week, including one for male part only, one for female part only, and one for the whole chorus. They are preparing for the on-stage performance at the end of the semester, on December 23rd. The practice consists of two part: the muscle training and the voice tanning. The muscle training was designed to strengthen the muscle around waist and stomach in order to produce a better quality of voice.

I learned how to read stave through the practice. I used to be able to read it because I learned piano for several years when I was little. However, I’ve totally forgot anything piano-related before I came to Japan. I think it is a great opportunity for me to picking it up again. Also, What I noticed about Japanese student, or the Kyoto University student, was that they were all very serious about the practice. Although the group leaders always said that if one didn’t feel well, she or he can rest at home, there was very few people did not participate in the practice. Even when they had cold, they wore masks to the practice. I think it might be a general characteristic of Japanese, or, at least, Kyoto University students.

There are less communication during the practice than I thought. In my mind, college circles such as clubs in American colleges are the place where one gets to know new people and socialize, but the chorus hardly offer any chance. Also, there are some after-practice activity that members are merely going so often because they are so busy in studying. Although the communication is not enough during the practice, there are some other events that are opened to chorus members. They have picnic events every month and some special event depending on the time of the year. I went to one of the special event, Tsukimi (appreciating the moon), and had a chance to really talk to some members. However, most of them were too shy to start a conversation with.

It is also very interesting that they have a nick name system, which I think really changed the hierarchy system in Japanese college circles. It is usual that in circle kouhai has to be respectful to senpai because kouhai tends to have less experience. In the chorus, I think it is because of the nick name system that members are not as distant as an normal circle with a lot of members. It is also common in the chorus that a senpai make a nick name for a kouhai, and it seemed that there is one girl that is really good at creating nick name for everyone.

I appreciate the chance of having CIP within Japanese local community or university circles, and I do think that the CIP helped me understand Japanese college circles, at least the Kyoto University chorus. If I were to give any advice, I think that finding an activity that you like is very important as sensei said, but the time of the CIP is also very important. To consider both whether you like the activity you chose or not and if the time of the activity fits you schedule is extremely important.

Sol Lee: Ceramics at Asahiyaki Studio

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Before I arrived in Japan, I knew that I had to pick an activity for the Community Involvement Project, otherwise known as CIP. Because Kyoto has a long history and culture of artisans, I decided that I wanted to involve myself in the arts in one way or another. There were so many options but the reason I chose ceramics in particular is that I had thoroughly enjoyed my experience when I took a ceramics class back in my senior year of high school. I honestly would not have minded choosing something I had never done before but at the same time, CIP was something I was committing myself to for the entire semester. As a result, I chose something that I had at least some exposure to so that I had a clear idea of what I was getting myself into.

Now, I knew that taking pottery classes was going to be a bit expensive but I was willing to pay up to a certain amount. With the help of my Japanese teacher, I found two that I thought were reasonably priced and made plans to visit them. The cheaper of the two, unfortunately, was not taking students as the teacher was not in Kyoto that often. As a result, I ended up at the slightly more expensive and slightly further studio called Asahiyaki in Uji, Kyoto. It is about an hour commute for me but Uji is one of the most serene, and most beautiful places that I have ever been to that I feel it is always worth the time to make that trip. To be completely honest, I buy a bento and sit by the Uji River every week before pottery class to reflect on my life and my experiences (lol).

Learning to throw pots at Asahiyaki has led me to many interesting observations. The first thing I noticed was how casual the teacher was with me. Knowing Japanese society and having studied some keigo at this point, I found it very interesting that the teacher omitted all forms of desu/masu and spoke as if I was a friend. However, I noticed this with not just myself, but with the other students as well — and by students, I mean the elderly. The pottery classroom is mainly full of adults and the elderly, which, in retrospect, makes sense. After several weeks of going there, I believe that I am the only college-aged student that goes there regularly. But I digress. My teacher is young, but she is definitely over a decade older than me. She definitely has the upper position in not just status, but also age and therefore, can speak casually with me. What really surprised me was how casually she spoke with the elderly and how they responded in polite form. This led me to believe that in a classroom, no matter the age, the teacher is the one with the most power — the most “erai” person. But still, being that casual with the elderly — some parts of me believe that that is really just my teacher’s friendly personality.
Having grown up in America, many of Japan’s customs and culture is somewhat of a culture shock because the two countries are so different. However, as a Korean, I often notice many similarities between Japan and my own culture and many of these differences suddenly become “understandable” to me. But that does not mean that I fully understand how Japanese society works so studying pottery at the Asahiyaki studio has definitely been a meaningful experience for me. It has allowed me to see a classroom dynamic that is not only different from the traditional school setting, but also different from America’s classroom setting.

Karinne Lorig: Traditional Embroidery

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Camelia, sakura, bamboo leaves, a maple leaf and some spheres.

My work as of the second to last class.

The thing that shocked me first about my embroidery classes was the schedule. We met six times in the term, but the dates were spread out erratically throughout the season on seemingly random Wednesdays. Of course, that was far from the only thing that wound up shocking me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected the class to have nearly as many students as it did. I had expected at first that it would be closer to the knitting and sewing classes targeted at older ladies I had seen in the back of local yarn shops, no more than ten or so beginner students and a teacher sitting around a single table. The embroidery class easily had more than twice that many students and was set up over an area roughly equivalent to the entire aforementioned yarn shop. A brief glance over some of the other student’s work quickly told me why: the class was in no way exclusive to new learners and many—if not most—of the other students were quite experienced already.

I gradually came to understand not only how to embroider maple leaves, cherry blossoms and camellias, but also about the way in which the other students use the class as an opportunity to meet with one another and discuss everything from their plans for their embroidery to family to young people who don’t know how to use keigo. Even through the age barrier, I have been able to have conversations with and learn from the people around me and wound up understanding far more about both embroidery and their lives and observations about society than I otherwise could have.

Eva Czapski: Learning the Japanese Art of Sumi-e

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I painted this in October.

Painting from October.

For my CIP, I have been studying the Japanese art of Sumi-e– paintings done with Sumi ink and a calligraphy brush– in a small-group lesson with a Kyoto woman. Fujiwara Sensei is trained in Chinese ink painting but has been working in the Japanese style for the last decade. She hosts the lessons from her studio, which she shares with her husband who runs a kimono printing workshop upstairs.

When I attend the class most Wednesdays, I find myself in a circle of two to five older women who are extremely friendly, funny and talkative. None of them take the class or their painting hobby too seriously, yet most of them are incredibly talented. They use a combination of the black Sumi ink and pigmented watercolors to create vivid, professional-looking pieces. It’s so valuable to me, as an amateur artist who is new to the Sumi-e style, to have these Sempai classmates’ skill to aspire to. Fujiwara Sensei, of course, is a master of the art–not just when creating her own pieces, but even when assessing others’ work for its design or technique.

I painted this in November after visiting the garden of a Zen temple in Nagaokakyo.

Painting from November of a Zen garden.

Calligraphy brushes (fude) and ink stone (Sumi), the only two tools needed to create Sumi-e paintings. Just add water. (Image taken from http://www.juanaalmaguer.com/)

Calligraphy brushes (fude) and ink stone (Sumi), the only two tools needed to create Sumi-e paintings. Just add water. (Image taken from http://www.juanaalmaguer.com/)

There is much more technical training involved in learning Sumi-e than I had expected going into the classes. As with any of the Japanese “ways”–Sadou (tea ceremony), Shodou (calligraphy), and so on–there is a particular way to go about Sumi painting that does not leave much room for free interpretation. I think that as I grow as a Sumi-e artist I would like to be able to change some of these traditional standards in my own art, in order to create something that is individual and unique to the times and to my own ideas, but before I put my own spin on the ancient art, I must really master the techniques that my Sensei is teaching me now.The first thing I was taught, starting on the first day of class, was the vocabulary of terms central to the art. Particularly important are the names of the three elements necessary to every “complete” Sumi-e painting, each of which refers to a different way of combining the brush, ink, and water to create part of a picture. These terms are especially interesting to me because their dictionary meaning is very simple, but their connotation in the Sumi-e world is infinitely important. For example, “nou-dan” literally means “light-dark,” but it refers to the vital gradient between light and dark that is used in good Sumi-e work.
The other two main brushwork elements are “nuzume”–to spread or bleed–and “kassure”–to graze. A piece without all three of these features is considered to lack true atmosphere or flow; it merely depicts objects without showing their relationship to one another.

See the example below, which is a fall Sakura tree that I painted last week. The leaves together create the “nou-dan” gradient, while the trunk is an example of “kassure”. In order to incorporate “nuzume,” I added the blurry falling leaf to the right.

Painting from last week. The trunk is Kassure; the falling leaf is Nijime; and the leaves together create the nou-dan gradient.

kassure, nou-dan and nuzume.

I am still working on mastering these techniques, as well as the art in itself of layout and composition, but Fujiwara Sensei has been very helpful in that process and I am pleased with the work I’ve done so far. I am also glad that I have had so many chances to practice conversing in Japanese with the Sensei and my older classmates, on a wide range of topics from our artwork to our families to aspects of Japanese culture and tradition.

Watchapol Sowapark: Volunteering for Children at Kyoto University Hospital

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For my CIP activity I volunteered at Kyoto University’s hospital’s NicoNico Tomato organization where I played with the hospitalized children in and assisted the other volunteers in the activity room. I participated every Tuesday and have had a thoroughly positive and enriching experience. My duties ranged from preparing materials for the day’s activity, to performing whatever task the other volunteers may have for me, to simply playing with the children who decided they’d rather just play with toys and have their parents do the activity for them.

As a once a week volunteer I can expect something new and exciting every time I step foot into the children’s playroom. This is because every day there is a new activity planned and in my case, a different set of hardworking and caring individuals to meet. When I first realized that with every visit I made to NicoNico Tomato I would be working with different people from last time, I was a bit taken aback since I felt like I had formed a relationship with the volunteers I had worked with before. But I soon realized this was a boon for the sake of my experience as a volunteer and as a way to improve my Japanese skills. Needless to say, I became quite adept at self-introductions and was able to quickly establish myself in a new group of people every time I visited.

My experience with NicoNico Tomato has been genuinely awe-inspiring. I never expected such a level of care and earnest from what is essentially a volunteer program. I believe what sets NicoNico Tomato apart are the members’ passion and sincerity when it comes to helping children who are suffering from illness. Every day that I am there I am made to feel as if I was part of a truly exceptional team whose efforts bring out the smiles and laughter of those who really need it.

Alison Palmer: Kyodai Jazz Music Circle

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My CIP was participating in a Kyoto University jazz music circle called Off-Beat. It was entirely student run, and every Thursday for three hours, they held a Jazz music session: this was basically everyone, using the same collection of jazz songs, rotating who would play and solo in the next song, with at least one piano, drum, and base player, and one soloist. Players were free to come and leave depending on their schedules, so all in all, each song and each session had different feels depending on the people who were there. Though everyone there was individually talented, the quality of songs varied due to their improvisational nature, but overall the group sounded good. I felt comfortable showing up because I have played flute for 7 years, I have been singing for longer, and I am ok at improvisation even though I haven’t taken music theory. I also love jazz music. If I was both unfamiliar with playing jazz music and unsure of my skill with an instrument, I would have been more careful making this my CIP. However, because of the optional nature of each session, the members there were very receptive to me sitting in for one to see how it worked before I tried to play anything.

In this CIP, when I didn’t play, I got to sit back and observe people interacting without feeling obligated to participate in a conversation, so I saw a lot of different levels of casual interaction outside of the typical sphere of “foreignness” that I bring in when I speak. Because this was a music circle, the people in it had different interests and personalities than the typical Japanese student interested in international exchange: which described most of the Japanese students I had met so far. We interacted on a more practical level where we all worked together, as opposed to me being separate as a foreigner, so I felt more accepted and part of the group here, rather than a special addition to be inspected. Not only that, but coming into KCJS unsure of my Japanese skills, being able to connect with people without language, and with music instead was a really amazing experience. There are still a few people I played with where their sole impression of me is playing my flute, and I think the musical element acted as a great equalizer between many different people, including me as the token foreigner of the group. Feeling accepted was a huge part of me having the confidence to not only start to casually talk to my friends, but also ask questions about Japan, its culture, and its language.

Alexa Machnik: Art Restoration at ARC Ritsumeikan

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As a first-timer in Japan, I was struck particularly by the wealth of art that surrounds Kyoto. Since my arrival, I have grown to appreciate the interactions of past and present artistic traditions, which in my opinion, have only further contributed to the city’s coinage as Japan’s great cultural repository. With this said, I have realized that the national treasures of this rich, art-embedded city could not have possibly thrived today without expertise in areas of art restoration, preservation and conservation—believe it or not, there is a difference! In short, I was determined to engage in the very discipline that firstly, initiated my interest in Japanese, and secondly, brought me to Kyoto. That discipline is none other than paper conservation. While formal conservation training in Kyoto normally requires a 10 year apprenticeship, my 1 year commitment abroad did not quite make the cut. Through the help of KCJS, however, what originally seemed as an impossible CIP became possible.

This semester, I was stationed with a small restoration team at Ritsumeikan University’s Art Research Center (ARC). ARC is currently undertaking a large-scale digitalization project entailing the compilation of Japanese cultural assets into accessible archives for researchers worldwide. In effort of this project, restorations are being made on paper-based materials ranging from woodblock prints (ukiyo-e ; 浮世絵) to illustrated bound books (wahon ; 和本). Due to poor storage conditions, these pieces have been eaten by insects and/or have suffered from severe deterioration. Through hands-on training and gained experience, I have developed an awareness of materials and preservation in Japan as well as acquired the patience necessary to safely handle and perform restorations on these Edo-period treasures. Furthermore, I have been able to indulge in the fine details of wahon and ukiyo-e print illustrations, all while improving my technical Japanese skills.

On my first day at ARC, I came prepared with a notebook expecting to observe restorations in the process. To my surprise, as I walked into the project room, I was promptly handed an apron and tweezers, led to a table equipped with a light-box, and sat down in front of a page from a damaged booklet. When I heard the words “honmono” (本物) and “renshu” (練習) in the same sentence, my hands froze…I mean, if you had heard that for your first “practice session” you would be restoring a “genuine article”, wouldn’t you have also had a similar reaction?…Nevertheless, this valuable method of instruction—no matter how cliché it must sound—allowed me learn directly from my mistakes. In connection with a class fieldtrip to a sudare bamboo blind workshop earlier in the semester, each student had the chance to weave a strip of bamboo into a sudare. By engaging in the process, each student “learned by doing”, which I have realized is a firm belief held not only by craftspeople in Japan, but also by restorers.

Over the semester, I worked primarily on worm-eaten booklets analyzing damage and infilling areas of loss with fibrous washi (和紙) paper. After applying homemade nori, which is a wheat-starch based adhesive, around the outline of the hole, a pre-cut piece of washi is set into place. The moisture from the nori expands the paper fibers, so the restored area must be placed between two pieces of cardboard under an iron weight until fully dry. The result: a wrinkle-free restoration. Due to this vital step, each hole must be patched one-by-one. From my abridged explanation, the restoration process must seem rather simple; however, tedious in nature, restoration is a committed job that requires concentration and careful attention to detail. For instance, I spend roughly 10 hours patching a single page, followed by another 4 hours searching for and reattaching small pieces that had fallen off. If anything, I feel as if I am solving a puzzle, and though frustrating at times, I have found much satisfaction in the process. While I am carrying out the same procedures, every restoration requires individual attention. In addition, I have also learned related tasks including the preparation of nori paste as well as the creation of traditional koyori exposed-bindings.

Outside of the classroom, my CIP experience has given me the opportunity to observe the Japanese language in a working environment. My relationship with the other workers has improved to the point where I am addressed very informally as “Are-chan”. However, when I receive a new project or when I am asked a favor of, I am always addressed with the formal title, “sama”. Although I find this unfit for my status as a student with little experience in restoration, these formalities embedded in the language reinforce the professionalism of the workplace.

In all, I am excited to continue my CIP into next semester. With a better handle of the Japanese language I will hopefully be able to further deepen my understanding of restoration principles in Japan, and how that contrasts with the West. As the project steadily progresses, I am also looking forward to seeing how my efforts have contributed to ARC and the greater Kyoto community.

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Close-up of a worm-eaten page from an illustrated booklet. Circled in red is the area of restoration. Can you tell the difference?

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Miscellaneous pieces without a home…yet!

Will Fitzell：KLEXON

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This semester for my CIP (Community Involvement Project), I chose a different route than I did last semester by deciding to join an English conversation circle.  While it did take me awhile to find out about this circle, I have been able to attend this circle’s events three times thus far (and I intend to go to the group’s next two meetings as well before I leave Japan).  The group is open to anybody who wishes to attend, and of course by nature of it being a circle which focuses on English, foreigners are especially more than welcome to attend.  While the group does feel somewhat artificially structured in the sense that it has its activities scheduled rather precisely, it is definitely a worthwhile experience.  The structure of every meeting starts out with a sort of “speed dating” like part where one row of people stay seated and every three minutes or so the person who one is talking to moves one seat over to talk to the next person.  This is a good way to meet people quickly, but always reintroducing oneself can be a bit cumbersome.  In addition, if you have started a great conversation with somebody that you would like to continue, you’re out of luck once people have to rotate.  If you run out things to talk about during this portion of the meeting, you can always fall back onto the default topic which they provide you (in my experience it was usually something like “your favorite childhood food” or something else often pertaining to one’s childhood).  Usually during this part, people often elected to talk about, since I am obviously a foreigner, where I am from, what I am doing in Japan, where I have traveled in Japan, how long I will stay, and any other number of things that come up naturally in the conversation.  After the “speed dating” part of the meeting, for the rest of the time, people are given a random number and all split into these randomly assigned groups.  There are different prompts and topics to talk about, but this is a fun part to talk to people in a group setting about different things.  First everybody introduces themselves one-by-one while the others make comments back about things (I would always mention how I am an Asian studies major and how I really love Lady Gaga, for example).  One of the assigned topics I can recall offhand was about a dream we have had while sleeping (which was a great chance for me to show people how weird my dreams are).  Another was about games we loved to play as children, for example.  At some point, the conversation strays from these assigned topics into a more natural one where you get the chance to better connect with the people you’ve just met.  For me, I have a MUCH easier time expressing my real personality when I use English, so I felt like I could really truly be me, and if somebody didn’t understand something, I could always of course explain it to them in Japanese.  All in all, through Klexon, I did meet a LOT of very cool people, and I even had one or two people ask for my LINE contact information.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of chances to go to these meetings despite the fact that they were held every Tuesday evening, and as a result, I was disappointed in that I feel like I didn’t make any real friends from this circle.  My advice for anybody wishing to join this circle would to be more proactive with that by attending meetings more and also the group’s additional non-meeting events (which I unfortunately was never able to attend).  The meetings themselves were certain enjoyable even though the Tuesday evening meeting time forced me to cancel my host family dinner time every Tuesday.  One unfortunate thing I thought about the meetings was right when the official meeting time ended, nobody stuck around to talk more outside of meetings which I feel would have been valuable for really making connections with other people.  But, at the end of the day, Klexon was a very nice and very convenient circle to join that I would recommend for casual fun and getting to talk to people.

I can’t in all good conscience make any sweeping claims about Japanese culture as a whole from my time at these meetings, but perhaps a few cultural characteristics can be inferred.  Particularly, the most noticeable, to me at least, is how structured and regularized this group is.  It feels much less like a place to make new friends and much more of a place to get in something of an hour of English practice at the same tightly scheduled time every single week.  Meetings start promptly at 7pm every Tuesday evening and end promptly at 8pm.  At that time, everybody leaves the room (a different circle has its event immediately after in the same room), and everybody returns on their merry way, nobody stays after to further pursue conversations.  It ultimately feels like a less natural and more artificially scheduled and carried out sort of affair.  Perhaps this could be a reflection of Japanese people to treat such opportunities as just another time slot to fill versus a time to just relax and talk to new people.

Raynor Mesa: Go Classes

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There are many sizes of boards in go. Although the standard is a square of nineteen rows by nineteen rows, you can use even smaller boards; for example, I started learning go on a nine by nine board. Naturally, as you increase the size of the board, the difficulty of playing on it increases: while a nine by nine board has only eighty-one possible places to put a stone, a standard board has a total of 361. Moreover, although the number of places only increases four times, the number of possible plays increases exponentially. A game of go on a standard board has so many potential plays that even the strongest super computers cannot model every possibility.

The sheer number of possibilities is why go is so difficult. It’s said that the best way to learn go is to lose your first fifty games, then keep playing anyway. For me–after taking weekly classes for seven weeks–I was only able to move on from the simple nine by nine board in the last two weeks, after a total of roughly fifteen hours of classes.

Still, going from losing every game on a nine by nine board, to barely winning a match on a thirteen by thirteen board, represents significant progress. More importantly, my Japanese classmates have been a constant source of help. Because I am undoubtedly the most inexperienced member of the class, all of the people I practice against have been invaluable sources of help and experience. Of course, mistakes abound on my part: poorly positioned pieces, missed opportunities, and badly constructed strategies. But my classmates always step in to reassure and assist me–they show me what I could have done better, what to keep in mind for next time, what they themselves had done. For a novice such as myself, such advice in a welcoming environment make my experience that much easier and memorable.

And the complement to their aid when I lose, is their praise when I win (even if rarely). I am by no means skilled at go. But the friendliness and warmth of my classmates means every class I go to is memorable and enjoyable, even on days when I do nothing but lose.