For myCIP project, I participated in volleyball circles for both the Fall and Spring semesters, In the Fall, I participated in two circles, called SANDLOT and L Volleyball, both of which are circles of the Doshisha University. In the Spring, I joined a new circle from Kyoto University of Molten Volleyball.

All three circles I was a part of had distinctive dynamics, and the level of skills also varied greatly. The two pictures below are from a tournament I participated in during the Fall semester and a regular practice session with the Molten Volleyball circle.

One advice from me would be to start conversations with new people actively. Japanese students are very friendly towards international students. However, they can be a little shy to start a conversation, so reach out to them and you will find that they are very easy and enjoyable to talk to.

This semester, I joined the Jogging club at Kyoto University. When I was deciding on a CIP, I always knew that I wanted to do something involving a physical activity, and Jogging seemed like a natural fit. I was on the cross-country and track and field team in High School, so I was pretty confident that I would be able to keep up with the other members. However, I was a little anxious about how I’d get along socially. Thankfully, everyone in the jogging club was very welcoming and friendly towards me, and I’d often get dinner with them after practice.

I’d arrive Kyoto University about thirty minutes before practice so that I could talk with others before we ran. The room allocated for the club was this janky little shack out near the back entrance – a little dirty, but had a lot of charm. The people in the circle love playing mahjong – I’d often enter and find them in the middle of a competitive match, eyes glued to the tiles. Me personally, I had no idea what was going on; I know the basics of the game, but they were playing with a different rule set. Luckily, there’d be one or two people on the side that I could talk to, and they let me in on what was going on.

The Jogging itself was also pretty fun. Usually, we’d run 8-10 kilometers every practice I went. Our usual route was from Kyoto to University to along Kamogawa River, down to the road aligned with Kyoto Station, and then back. The club itself is comprised of members who both run competitively and for fun, so there were plenty of people in between that I could run alongside with. The runs were the most exhausting part of practice – trying to translate and talk at the same time I was running was both physically and mentally taxing. Most of the time, I’d wouldn’t say much save for the occasional comment. Afterwards, the club members would bring me to a great restaurant around school campus, which was the most rewarding part of the experience. I felt that I was able to talk more freely around the other members when we were eating together.

Overall, I’m really happy with my experience in the Jogging club. It was a great way to meet new people and utilize my Japanese. My advice to new students: make jokes about how Doshisha is worse than Kyoto University on your first day- if you play up that rivalry angle, I think you’ll make a positive impression.

My Cip activity was the Doushisha Boxing Club. It met every day except Thursday and Sunday and I would typically go two to three of those days per week. An average day would have around 10 members show up to warm up, light spar, free activity/mit work/running, then wrap up for around one and a half hours total. I have made friends with around five members but am amicable with all of them; this has manifested itself outside of the club as I got food with various members several times already.

As for cultural learnings, I am forced to speak Japanese in order to communicate with everybody there except one. This means I quickly picked up certain language idiosyncrasies that I had not seen outside the club. The manner in which they greet and say goodbye to one another as well as bow out at the end I picked up on quickly to be respectful and fit in. A lot of the boxing members were very interested in American culture but the concept of that culture manifested itself differently depending on who I talked to. For example, the captain really liked American fashion and would often wear older denim with huge flashy belts which he saw as inspired from an American style. I was kind of doing the opposite by trying to make my own style with what I saw around me in Japanese fashion so when he complemented me for my American style, it was somewhat strange at first; from these encounters with the captain, I realized a lot of what people considered cultural identifiers (e.g., clothing) are not in fact the pieces of clothing by themselves, but also who is seen showcasing those identifiers and how they go about doing so. The same could be seen in the club’s fascination with American rap music. Some members of the club called me over when rapper Takeoff died recently to ask me about it; this and asking me which “zone” of Chicago I was from were questions I found kind of funny, but at the same time were indicative of a phenomena present in the States but not quite as visible. That being an interest in some form of cultural association through representation; in this case the association with being tough or a killer and rap music the people in the club can’t even understand the content of the song. That just by knowing the association, the song instills some form of feeling that helps them perform better.

Finally, the club helped a lot for my language learning. Not only did having to use Japanese at all to communicate force me to improve, but the getting out of my comfort zone helped in other aspects of language learning as well such as talking to strangers and having more things I can talk about. I Had a lot of fun in this club and am so glad I had the opportunity to learn together with such nice people.