私のCIPはHUB Kyotoです。HUBは今出川の近くにあるから、キャンパスからは歩いて行けません。毎週、水曜日に一時から四時半ぐらいまでHUBでCIPをすることになっています。HUBにいる時、他のインターンと係の人とCIPの事をします。
これまで、CIPでは名刺の情報を新しいデータベースに入れる仕事をしてきました。これはちょっと易しそうけど、実は難しいと思います。よく名刺に人の名前が漢字だけで書いてあります。だから、漢字を読む練習として、いい練習だと思います。それから、その名詞について、どんな情報が書いてあるかがアメリカと比べると、とても面白いです。時々、その名刺に漢字だけあり、その名刺のデザインはシンプルで、ミニマリストです。そのミニマリストな名刺を受け取るのが日本の会社です。でも、時々、名刺が洋風なデザインで、漢字もあり、ローマ字もあり、その名刺の見た目がぜんぜん違うこともあります。専門が国際関係なので、このような事に興味があります。
ボストンにいた時、「Impact Hub」という場所のことを聞いたことがある。そこに行ってみたくても、時間がなかったので、いつも行けなかった。一月にKCJSに来て、「Impact Hub Kyoto」 のインターシップの機会を聞いたので、ぜひ行くことにした。
「Impact Hub Kyoto」というのは、社会や世界を変革したい人たちが集まり、いろいろなイベントを催し、新しい行動を起こす場所だ。社会や世界を変えるために、まず自分が変わらなければいけない。
最初の日に、Hubのスタッフがオリエンテーションをしてくれ、三ヶ月間ぐらいイベントのブログを英語に翻訳することと、イベントに参加し、感想を書くことに決めた。イベントの話はわかりにくかったが、スタッフがよく通訳してくれたのでよかった。イベントに行った時は写真やビデオも撮ることになっている。
Hubは新しい思想を交流するところだし、日本人のスタッフと日本語を練習するいい場所だから、そこでインターシップをしていることは素晴らしい経験だと思う。
For my Community Involvement Project, I joined the Kyoto University Weightlifting team. It has been a fantastic experience, and one of the highlights of my semester abroad in Japan. When I first planned on joining a weightlifting team, I thought it would be some kind of group where I would go and work out for an hour or so a week whilst awkwardly trying to communicate with my Japanese contemporaries. Upon attending my first practice, I quickly realized these preconceptions to be quite untrue.
First of all, it was not a place to just “work out for an hour or so a week”. Practice generally lasted 2 ½ to 3 hours, and I usually went twice per week. Before coming to Japan, I had little experience with Olympic Style Weightlifting, in fact, I had no experience at all, save for a small overlap in exercises with some of my previous weight lifting endeavors. At the beginning, the coach, Arima-sensei, seemed like a very helpful and knowledgeable coach. Now at the end, (even with a vast array of athletic experience and many good coaches) he seems like one of the best athletic teachers I have ever had. He is more knowledgeable about his field than any other coach I have ever worked with, and was very adept at explaining various difficult concepts and techniques necessary to become a successful weightlifter. Also, this being a small group, I was able to receive much more one-on-one guidance than I ever would have in a training session for an organized sports team. Since entering college, I have found it very difficult to maintain a consistent workout schedule, and found myself losing a vast majority of the athletic ability I had built up over many years of athletics throughout my childhood and high school. Under Arima-sensei’s tutelage, and support from my team members, I was able to come close to (and even surpass) some of my accomplishments from high school four years ago.
As for “awkwardly communicating in Japanese”, I can’t say that communication was always effortless and harmonious, but the other team members were very patient with my less than 上手 Japanese ability. With the exception of another study abroad student from Germany, none of my teammates spoke (or were confident enough to speak) English with me. This provided me an excellent opportunity to use the language, without the option of using English as a crutch. A lot of the new vocabulary I learned was very specialized and perhaps not all that useful (names of exercises and the like), but often the team would go to dinner after practice or spend time chatting about nonsense between sets. This was a great opportunity to talk in Japanese with students who grew up in a culture vastly different from mine, but share the same interests.
I think I accomplished many of my goals with my CIP. Before coming to Japan, I had intended to play rugby, and when that didn’t workout (no pun intended), I was a little disappointed, but I was determined to find another sports activity. I was excited when I discovered weight lifting, but I was a little nervous. As far as I know, no other KCJS student had joined their club, so I didn’t know how receptive they would be to a study abroad student from Doshisha. But, I was able to contact them myself and started practicing without any problems. Even before arriving in Japan, I was nervous about contacting my CIP, but I think the whole initial contact process went quite well. I was also glad to have joined a community outside of my English speaking friends and my comfort zone at Doshisha.
This semester I’ve been going to the lunch meetings of Doshisha University’s LGBT social circle, GRADATION. I had hoped to really get a picture of what it was like to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community as a college student in Japan. However, while I feel like I’ve been able to make some insights into the opinions of members of the group on their lives, I never really felt like I was really a part of the community or was ever really seeing what their everyday lives were like.
First of all, the group, by its very nature, is separate from the rest of the members’ lives. As I said in the last blog post, the members use nicknames in the club and agree not to relate any personal information discussed in a meeting to anyone outside of the meeting. I can’t confirm whether or not the names people used to introduce themselves were their real names or not. I got the feeling that for the most part the people attending the meetings didn’t know each other very well or at all outside of GRADATION. No one ever slipped and called someone by their real name. Other than two leader figures, one of which was the kaichō, there was significant distance between the members of the circle. Those two leader figures definitely seemed to know each other in ‘real life.’ They also usually sat next to each other. The rest of the regulars at the meetings always sat in the same seat, at least two or more seats from another person. To match the physical distance, there was obvious social distance between the members as well. Two of the regulars used desu-masu with the other members. There were also often awkward silences. Conversation was usually very hard to more forward. I’m sure that some of this was on my account, being a foreigner, but there was definitely tension between the members of the group as well. Whenever this happened, the kaichō or their friend would bring up a topic like food or anime that everyone could have an opinion on.
The topics of the meetings rarely turned to anything having to do with LGBTQ+ issues. When they did, there was a palpable apprehension from most of the members of the group. It was clear that the members were not at all used to talking about their sexuality. Mostly these conversations were about favorite districts, bars and clubs in Osaka. One day a member shared pictures of person in their class that they had a crush on. That was the closest the conversation ever got to the private lives of the members.
Another frustrating part of my experience was that gender never came up as a topic. In the meetings I attended there was never a Japanese person who performed as a woman. I’ve heard from others who attended that there are women who attend the meetings, but they are clearly a very small minority of the circle. Trans* issues never came up as a topic. In U.S. LGBTQ+ groups it is standard practice to give people a chance to request a specific pronoun to use when referring to them. Since gender pronouns are unnecessary in Japanese, this opportunity never came up. The gender identities of the group members were never discussed.
At first I was disappointed at the differences with American groups but I feel like this experience has given me a small look at how taboo LGBTQ+ topics are in Japanese society. And, consequently, how separate people’s ‘queer’ life is from their public life.
My CIP experience has a been a varied combination of people, venues, and activities.
After much searching, I finally came upon weightlifting. It was kind of a perfect fit, especially considering that I spent the first few weeks in Kyoto searching for some sort of sports-related CIP so that I could stay in shape. Weightlifting provided the perfect outlet to do this and, on top of that, the people there were incredible.
For instance, the first day I went, the main instructor asked me to perform a few basic excercises to check my form. This was not my first time weightlifting, but it was the first time that I had received instructions in such a detailed way. The instructor had video of professional female weightlifters doing the same exercise that I was and even drew diagrams on the board to explain exactly how to execue each lift. As a result, just a few hours into my first session, it became obvious that the main instructor and the student who taught with him were some of the the most knowledgeable trainers that I had ever met.
They were also some of the most patient. For instance, there was one excercise in particular in which I was disheartenly inconsistent. Sometimes I could execute the exercise reletively well, but on others it was as if I had never done the exercise before. Meanwhile, whoever was working with me gave me helpful, encouraging feedback.
Unfortunately, only a few weeks into weightlifting, I managed to injure myself in a way that prevented me from lifting for the rest of the sememster. As a result, I began to go to an international language exchange club, called Klexon. My first impression of the club was how organized it was. All of the English speakers were on one side of the tables, while the Japanese members were on the other. Then, every ten minutes, the Japanese members would rotate and start a conversation with another English speaker. The resulting process seem rather reminiscent of speed dating.
The second point I noticed was the variety of members. Initially, I thought that Klexon was mostly comprised of university students. However, I found that most of them were actually graduates with a wide variety of careers. During my time, there, I met doctors, salesmen, store owners, and that was just to start. In addition to the one-on-one session, we spent the last few minutes in small groups talking about set topics and then about whatever we so chose when there was a lull.
Overall, I think that both experiences, weightlifting and Klexon, were benefitial in their own way. I used Japanese more in the former, but there was not much in the way of conversation. Meanwhile, the latter was all about conversation, but the focus on English allowed for few opportunities to practice my Japanese until the final, group session. In the end, I am glad to have participated in both activities and, while I will miss weightliftng, I look forward to returning to Klexon to finish out the semester.
私のCIPプロジェクトは同志社大学の「GRADATION」というLGBTQサークルに入る事だ。連絡の問題で、まだ参加のチャンスはないのが、公式にもうサークルに入部した。今までの経験が少ないのに、色々な面白い事がわかった。
最初から連絡が難しい事に気がついた。連絡のし方は一つしかない：サイトのメールフォーム。サイトにサークルの部員の名前もメールアドレスもついていない。会長の名前さえない。始めのメールを送った後、サークル公式メールで会長は面会がいつがいいかと聞いた。会長に会った時、その人の自己紹介はとても短かった。「GRADATIONの会長でマーベリックと申します」とだけ言った。それから、サークルのルールを説明した。本当の名前を使ってはいけなくて、皆がニックネームを使うそうだ。マーベリックもニックネームだ。他のルールは誰かが個人情報を言えば、会の外で絶対に言ってはいけないことだ。このサークルはまったく匿名だ。
アメリカのLGBTQサークルでも皆の情報を守るけど、こんなに匿名じゃない。いつも本当の名前を使う。サークルのリーダの情報は匿名じゃない。時々会場はフェースブークにある。日本の大学と全然違う。
http://dlgbt.blog101.fc2.com/
私はウェートリフティングのCIPをしています。どうやってこのCIPを見つけたかは面白い話です。スポ–ツなど運動のCIPをしたかったのですが、ちょっと運が悪かったです。実際は女性の運動の活動は見つけにくかったです。色々なグループに連絡しようとしましたが 、一つしか返事をもらえませんでしたし。それで、ロスさんが私にウェ–トリフテングを勧めてくれました。高校の時、リフティングをして、とても役に立ったし、身体をひきしめたかったし、リフティングは素晴らしい選択だと思いました。当初、私は女性ですから、させてもらえないと思いましたが、それは問題ではありませんでした。
だから、一週間に二回ロスさんとリフティングをしています。そこにインストラクター二人います。一人は日本人で、一人は同志社大学の留学生のドイツ人です。その人はとても優しく、知識も豊富です。実は、今まで教えてもらった運動のインストラクターの中で、そのインストラクターが一番知識が豊富かもしれません。例えば、リフティングではフォームが一番大切なことです。だから、インストラクター達はみんなに個々のフォームがよくなるやり方を教えてくださいます。インストラクターの一人が私達が何かリフトをしてみると、どうやって直すか見せてくださって、しかも私達の母国語で説明してみてくださいます。とても思いやりのある方だと思います。
それで、ウェートリフティングをするのが楽しく、次回のレッスンを楽しみにしています。
僕のCIPは京都大学のウェイトトレーニングクラブです。一月前クラブに入りました。僕はたくさんウェイトトレーニングの経験がありますが、京都大学のクラブはオリンピックスタイルをします。僕はオリンピックスタイルをしたことがありませんから、たくさん習います。例えば、ロースナッチとかクリーンアンドジャークスポリッとジャークというエクササイズを全然したことがありません。
他の京大ウェイトトレーニングクラブメンバーは有馬先生とミハイルさんと同志社大学と京大の学生です。合計で七人ぐらいいます。普通の練習では四人ぐらいいます。有馬先生はそのクラブのコーチです。有馬先生はたくさんウェイトトレーニングの経験がありますから、ウェイトトレーニングがすごく上手です。ミハイルさんはドイツから来た同支社の留学生です。ミハイルさんはドイツではよくウェイトトレーニングをしましたから、ミハイルさんも上手です。ミハイルさんはたくさん教えてくれますから、本当のコーチだと思います。
実は、日本に来る前に僕はラグビーをしたかったので、CIPでラグビーチームを調べました。同志社にもラグビーチームがありますが、本当に強いチームですから、多分僕はできないと思いました。それから、他のスポーツをさがしました。たくさんしてみたかったんだけど、全部は無理でした。ウェイトトレーニングを見た時、大変だと思いましたが、練習に行ってみました。
その練習はとても楽しかったです。実は、有馬先生とクラブの人はとても親切な人ですから、とてもいい経験でした。次の日は体が痛かったのに次の練習に行きました。今、一週間に二回行きます。毎回力が上がるので、本当にいいCIPだと思います。
I think the biggest difference I’ve noticed between volunteering in America and volunteering in Japan is definitely the sense of responsibility that each volunteer has towards the group. I think that sometimes, in America, especially within the college community, people just choose to join volunteer groups at random, coming and going at will. However, at Nico Toma, it seems that most of the volunteers at Nico Toma have had personal experiences related to the Kyoto University pediatrics ward. In any case, it is clear that, while the atmosphere may be very cheerful and light, they are all very devoted to this particular group. Though this may just be a result of the nature of the volunteer group, I feel that Japanese volunteers are much more dedicated to their tasks.
I’ve also noticed that the volunteers at Nico Toma are very particular about small details. Each detail of the project at hand is discussed by the group, down to the color and thickness of the pipe cleaners used to make the handles for the tiny bags that will hold candy to be distributed at the children’s art exhibition. While in America, these details might be overlooked and considered irrelevant, I found it refreshing and fun to work on simple things so thoroughly, since our hard work made the final products something that we could all be proud of. Furthermore, I found it interesting that this level of attention to detail was a given in any project, be it pricing used goods for the bazaar, or coloring next month’s calendar, or hanging up seasonal decorations in the children’s ward.
Overall, while I may not have necessarily been accepted as a fully fledged member of the group, I did enjoy my time at Nico Toma as much for the insight into Japanese culture as for the empathy for and awareness of these children’s situations that I feel I’ve gained, even if only a little. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I hope that I was able to help these children even if it was in a small, indirect way. Thank you, Nico Toma!
My recent weeks at NikoToma have gone more smoothly than the weeks preceding them I think. Perhaps that can be attributed to me getting over the initial disappointment I harbored about not being able to play with children. I was under the impression that we [the volunteers] would be doing activities with children every week, but I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. However, as one of my teachers commented, it is volunteer work after all, and more often than not, volunteers have to do rather less-than-pleasant tasks, so「仕方がない」. If we did not do those small, tedious tasks—using toothpicks to pick up microscopic cutouts of animals and painstakingly glue them to bite-sized paper handbags; making sure to find a “balance” when arranging goody bags, lest the aesthetics of the candy be ruined, even though the kids are just going rip it open in crazed excitement —who would?
At this point, I know it seems like I’m actually belittling the program with sarcasm, but I’m not. I’ve grown to genuinely appreciate (if not enjoy) the things we do at NikoToma, whatever they may be, because I know we are providing the volunteer group with help that it needs. Besides that, it just so happens that all of (or almost all of) the students in KCJS from Boston University participate in this CIP, and this has instilled a certain amount of pride in me about being a part of it. And that’s enough to make me happy about going.