Website: https://www.klexon.net

To the ambitious, future KCJS students,

For my CIP, I have been attending the Klexon language circle, based out of the Kyoto women and gender centre (ウィングス京都). Klexon is a circle designed to help people improve their English and attracts a surprisingly wide array of people from across Kyoto. There were freshman, all the way to senior salarymen at the meetings, so it was a real opportunity to talk to a wide cross-section of Japanese society.

The language meetings are 2 hours long are generally split into 2 parts. The first half of the meeting consists of a ‘moving chair’ approach, where each member is given a sheet with a topic, and the goal of the activity is to collect names and opinions on the topic by speaking in English. These have varied massively, all the way from ‘international study’ to ‘failure’. People are generally receptive to the topic, though I have found that people tended to stray away from the negative ones, or talk about something else. This makes sense since many people will come to Klexon after working all day, and negative topics are often draining. I have been able to make relationships with some of the regulars, which has been rewarding, and had given me insight into the life and thoughts of local people. Though must of the CIP is conducted in English, understanding Japanese allows me to help people articulate their thoughts better, as I can work backwards from their thoughts.

The second half of the meeting is based around a group activity, where we are supposed to discuss the topic, as well as find out more information about each other. In my experience, this often derailed into us talking about each other or current events, as this was most interesting. Honestly I liked this part most, just because the group setting made it hard for the local Japanese people to translate keigo (敬語) into English, and so it made for more open dialogue and fun conversations. I honestly learnt a lot about Kyoto from this, and would recommend Klexon to anyone who is looking for friends and information about Kyoto, but might not have confidence to speak fully in Japanese.

Overall, I would recommend Klexon. What I learned from locals was interesting, and I think, if used correctly, could allow a lower-level Japanese speaker to integrate into Japan more than otherwise they would. (Meetings are also free for native Anglophones, and events are cheap to participate in!)

– ブルイク

While I had been to Klexon once before during last term, I began to go regularly once the embroidery class I had been attending went on break until summer. Klexon is an English practice circle for those who wish to have an opportunity to practice their conversational English with others studying the language as well as with volunteer English speakers from Anglophone countries. The group attracts a wide range of students and young adults from both a wide area of Japan and abroad, so to accommodate the resultant range of scheduling needs, the group meets Tuesdays at 19 o’clock, late though that is. Having never been to any practice group other than this one before or, in fact, provided help to those studying English as a second language in any official capacity before, I quickly found myself making adjustments both in the way I was speaking and in the way I was listening to things in order to better facilitate communication. I began to enunciate my speech a little more than I usually do and be cognizant of how opaque certain turns of phrase and idioms can be to people not from my own culture. Similarly, as I continued to go, I became more and more aware of the types of pronunciation distinctions that can be difficult for native speakers of Japanese beyond the oft-cited ‘L’ and ‘R’ pronunciation such as the subtle vowel distinctions that differentiate words such as ‘machinery’ and ‘missionary’ and listen carefully to try and suss out which was which.

But it wasn’t just the thing I was doing that helped expand my horizons. Though it surprised me initially, it’s the broad variety of people that I’m able to meet by going which keeps me attending Klexon. Through going there, I’ve been able to have conversations with many people who are not only interesting, but come from wide ranging backgrounds and professions—such as dolphin trainers, specialists in British history, and even current and former Doshisha students—whom I likely wouldn’t have had the chance to meet otherwise.

My CIP work with にこにこトマト has been extremely rewarding.  I’ve volunteered at a hospital back home, but my work at Kyoto University Hospital has given much greater opportunity to interact one-on-one with young patients.  Everyone involved in the program – a group largely composed of older Kyoto women – is remarkably devoted, spending multiple hours every week preparing and putting on any number of activities.

I’ve noticed that the overall environment is warm and relaxed without sacrificing productivity.  Everyone busily chats about their family, hobbies, and hometowns as they work diligently on things for the next week.  Recently we’ve been working on decorations for the New Year, but in the past we’ve made Halloween treat bags and Christmas-themed treats.

Still, I found myself wondering why these women, who could be doing any number of things with their time, continue to devote themselves so unfalteringly to the program.  As I spoke with them formally for class, listened to their usual conversations, and did research into the program’s history, it became clear to me that the reason many of these women continue to volunteer stems from desire to help the suffering families of the hospitalized children.

In fact, many of these women’s own children were at one time hospitalized at Kyoto University Hospital.  Because of this, I think they are intimately familiar with the pain and worry that a family with a sick child suffers.  Rather than move away from their own painful memories from the hospital, the women return every week to help total strangers.  In a newspaper article I found about the group, the author reprinted a letter sent to にこトマ by a parent whose young daughter had passed away during her hospitalization.  Though she suffered terribly, にこトマwas able to give her a little bit of fun and happiness.  For that, the family expressed deep gratitude.  Seeing those words, I felt like all the afternoons I raced from class on my bike to make it to the hospital on time were totally worth it.

Above all, what I’ve enjoyed most about my time with にこトマ is the fact that nothing marks it as exclusively “Japanese”.  I think many of us have grown up with American films and television shows that, while not necessarily belittling Japan, offer a largely static image of this country.

What I mean is, that when I talk to friends back home about my time here, they often rely on their knowledge of characters like Mister Miyagi from The Character Kid as a crutch in trying to understand Japanese culture.  I would be lying if growing up with these kinds of images hadn’t quietly influenced my own assumptions about what “community involvement” here would look like as well.

In a certain way, I think I allowed these American images of stoic, polite, and ultimately traditionalist characters color what I expected of the people I’d be volunteering alongside.  Given my limited experience with Japan prior to coming to Kyoto, I might have expected terms like 和, 甘え, or 建前 somehow made their way into my day to day volunteer conversations.  After all, cultural products like The Karate Kid teach us that Japanese people, in their alien cultural sagacity, only speak to foreigners in metaphor: the cherry blossom is a human life, a sweet karate kick is a crescent moon.

Of course, these stereotypes didn’t hold true.  The people I met through にこトマ weren’t interested in talking about tea ceremony or how to show your true heart through origiami.  Rather, through volunteering at Kyoto University Hospital I came to realize something that was ultimately far more comforting than one of Mr. Miyagi’s sermons.  That is, it doesn’t matter where you go – five minutes away from Amherst or halfway around the globe – good people are good people.  Despite all of our cultural differences, language difficulties, and painful histories, we can still connect through our basic human desire to help others, to realize our good will through action together.  The extremely foreign becomes remarkably accessible when you realize that in the end, we are all human.

僕のCIPはにこにこトマトという京都大学医学部付属病院でのボランティア・プログラムです。どんなポログラムか簡単に言うと、小児科に入院している子供と遊ぶことなのですが、時間も我慢もたくさん必要だと思います。

普通、毎週、木曜日に授業が終わってから、すぐに自転車に乗って京大病院に行きます。色々な子供の活動があり、僕の役目は日によって違います。例えば、もう五回、参加しましたが、水墨とバザーとハロウィーン・パーティと掃除を手伝いました。

子供の活動が終わった後で、ボランティアは皆、四階にある準備室に集まり、一緒にお茶を飲んだり、話をしたりします。これはCIPの一番楽しいことです。その時、僕の過去に興味を持っているような女性たちは質問をたくさんして、日本語を練習しながら、楽しむこともできます。

I have been volunteering as a translator/translation editor in NICCO (Nippon International Cooperation for Community development), a Kyoto-based NGO that has initiated and operated humanity support programs both within Japan and in poverty-stricken regions of the world. While my work does not directly relate to NICCO’s field work, reading and translating web posts and publications actually became an opportunity for me to follow up closely with NICCO’s activities.

Although it is my first time working with an NGO that is involved in international-wide activities, not to mention that it is a Japan-based NGO, NICCO did not strike me as being much different from the domestic NPO’s I have worked with in the States. All the staff are really nice, and the tightly packed office room adds to the cozy atmosphere. And it feels like that they experience the same problem as their American NPO counterparts- heavy workload that keeps them busy throughout the day. But to say that all staff do in the office is working is lying. The social atmosphere in the office is quite relaxed. Maybe also because I volunteer at the office on Friday afternoons, staff tend to chit-chat while snacking on some omiyage-food later in the afternoon. One interesting thing I noticed in inter-staff communication, is that whenever someone leaves the office briefly through the day (for example, to send a mail in the post office), the rest of the staff will say いってらっしゃい, and お帰り, upon the staff’s return. The use of these expression gives a homey feeling to the atmosphere within the office, and which I can take as a sign showing that every staff is recognized as an integral member of the organization.

Since one of the goals of CIP is for the student to become and be recognized as a functioning member of the group that he/she chooses to join, I will talk briefly about my status in this organization. A KCJS 23 Senpai who volunteered at NICCO last spring commented how she still felt like an outsider due to the limited number of work hours as a volunteer as well as a sense that she did not share the same dedication as the staff. Maybe my state right now is not too much different from hers when she wrote the post, another set of wording more accurately describes my experience.

Given that the product of my volunteer work is closely integrated into NICCO’s work, I do not consider myself an outsider. At the same time, however, I do not feel that I fall under the category of “member”, either. For one reason, I am not a formally employed staff, and likely have been in the office for a time period shorter than everyone else in the office. Another reason is that I have trouble locating a proper definition of a “member” in the NICCO office. If being an employee is a more literal and physical definition of a “member”, then the more figurative definition- what it means to be a “member”- is more fluid. The first criterion that comes to mind feels somewhat similar to the literal definition- dedication to NICCO’s work. And the rest seem quite common for an NGO office setting- whether one fits in the atmosphere and the social scene in the office. For the first item, I do not think that the homey environment in NICCO even requires time to fit in; the second item is more difficult to judge, since people naturally form little social groups, and it is hard to say where a conclusive social group even exists, the criterion itself is rendered obsolete in some sense. The criteria listed so far do not form a distinctive guideline that separates members from non-members, yet all of them seem to qualify as reasonable standard for making such judgment. Maybe there are other criteria that I am yet aware of, but nevertheless give me the feeling that I am not a member of the group. It is also possible that nobody qualifies as an absolute member of the group, due to the various criteria that apply. Regardless of the question of membership, I am still grateful that I have been able to fulfill the “functioning” part of the goal, that my work generates at least some value to the organization’s operation.

I consider my CIP experience a good one, given that NICCO is a welcoming organization. Although translating work might seem mundane and it does not require much communication with the staff around me, I still had fun doing the work. NICCO is a good place to experience the professional office setting in Japan, but probably not as suitable for those who seek a lot of on-work communication with Japanese people.