My CIP is working as a volunteer at the Kyoto International Manga Museum. I was told before going into it that it would not be a CIP that had as many opportunities to speak at length with Japanese people as many other CIPs, and for the majority of days I came in this has been true. Most days I worked around the main areas of the museum arranging bookshelves, but other days I worked in the back making files or labeling books’ spines. The people of the Manga Museum, however, taught me a lot about Japanese workplace etiquette – which mainly involves polite greetings. I think this created a workplace atmosphere based on respect and awareness of the work other coworkers are doing. These kinds of greetings tend to be much more casual in American workplaces, and are less of an expectation than here. The setting also gave me an opportunity to practice my keigo, which is something I definitely need to work on. Other than these days, however, volunteering at the Manga Museum gave me opportunities to speak Japanese at length that I did not expect to have. The fact that I am a Boston University student in Kyoto during the two cities’ 60^th year of being sister cities resulted in me being interviewed by people from Kyoto City Hall about both cities, my time in Kyoto, and other related topics. I also have talked to Museum employees who are going to the Boston Japan Festival this year and wanted to know more about Boston and the average American person’s knowledge concerning manga. These opportunities really made me feel like I was helpful to people in Kyoto through my involvement during my time at the Museum. I have truly enjoyed my time at my CIP this semester.

For my CIP I go to a group called Klexon every Tuesday. It is kind of like speed-dating, but for friends. There are a lot of young Japanese working professionals and a few foreigners looking to learn English there. There is a different topic of the week to discuss, for example fast food, and you talk to a partner for 10 minutes then talk to someone else. I chose Klexon because I wanted an opportunity to speak Japanese with native speakers. I found that for the most part, my Japanese was better than their English, so when there was a sticking point in the conversation, my partner and I would usually speak in English. At Klexon, I learned a few things about Japanese culture.  A lot of the people I talked to were learning English for their jobs and there were especially a lot of engineers. I had no idea that so many people used English in their jobs. I also learned that the Japanese start learning English from a very young age.  Another thing I observed was that the Japanese were very persistent in their study of English. They tried and struggled to speak English when they could have easily reverted to Japanese to express their thoughts to me. However, they persevered where I might have given up. One more interesting thing I learned about Japanese culture is that a lot of the people had been born in Kyoto and had never traveled out of the country, or even to Tokyo. I learned that it is not extremely common to travel.

One of the hard things about Klexon is that the Japanese speakers there are trying to learn English so it is sometimes hard to speak Japanese because they really want to speak English. However, a lot of them were eager to speak Japanese so I was able to have a lot of Japanese conversations. I learned a lot of new vocabulary and was able to improve my speaking abilities. I failed in that I probably could’ve spoken more Japanese, even when my partner was speaking English to me.

My advice would be to pick a CIP activity that actually interests you and when you do get there, do your best to speak as much Japanese as possible.

For my semester in Kyoto, Japan, I volunteered at an NGO called Impact Hub Kyoto. Impact Hub Kyoto offers a space for people to exchange new ideas and to change the local community by organizing different forums. In addition, they also rent co working space so a lot of office workers would work here. Through Impact Hub Kyoto, I learnt a lot from interacting with the people there and from my project.

As a college student exchanging at Doshisha University, I do not really have chance to interact with office workers. Through Impact Hub Kyoto, I learnt about how you are supposed to say お疲れ様 to people who are leaving after work. Moreover, I attended a 送別会 (farewell party) for my mentor, and I was able to closely observe how people pay for the meal, what they do at the farewell party and what they say, which is very interesting. I was invited to my mentor’s house and went for food shopping with her prior. After lunch, she took out all the receipts and started calculating in front of everyone divided the price based on the number of the people. This was new to me because in China, usually the colleague that leaves the company pays for the farewell party at restaurant or cooking at home.   

On the other hand, my project at Impact Hub Kyoto taught me so much in multiple aspects. Our goal is to increase the recognition among college students, so we came up with the idea of organizing a forum that interests students. We first interviewed some students and we came up with the theme of the forum: work and travel. Nakamura sensei introduced me her friend as the guest speaker and in order to invite him, I learnt how to write in Japanese business style email and used 敬語 for every email to him. Furthermore, I was able to learn a lot about Japanese people’s mindset by cooperating with my Japanese partner. I talked very directly while he was very indirect and sometimes I misunderstood his meanings. I realized this might be a cultural difference and talked to him about what I think and finally we were on the same page.In addition, we needed to advertise for the forum and I learnt how to ask Doshisha University on Twitter to advertise for us and how to talk to Professors at Doshisha politely to ask if it is possible for him to distribute our flyers on his class.

Overall, I am very grateful for being able to volunteer at Impact Hub Kyoto not only because I get to interact with the type of people I normally do not have a chance to, but also being able to organize a Forum in Japanese with Japanese partner.

For my CIP project I volunteered at Kyotographie this semester. Kyotographie is an International photography festival that takes place in Kyoto every Spring. My work there included making timelines for various events, translating the program introduction into Chinese, creating a media outreach list, and putting up posters in Universities and cafes.

Kyotographie is a very International workplace. There are staffs from France, Britain and Hong Kong. It is a generally easygoing work environment: people sit around a big table, the director brings her kids in sometimes, and work hours are flexible. Nevertheless I still caught a glimpse of the Japanese work environment. For example, when Japanese staffs are listening to their supervisors, they have to answer “はい” after each and every sentence to show that they understand what he/she is talking about. However, the conversation is very fast-paced and the response is too immediate to convince outsiders like me to believe that they truly understand. It seems more natural to me that if people take more time to digest the information and ask more questions. When they are talking to me they slow down a little bit and use easier words to make sure that I understand.

It was also surprising that one of the staff would reply to me back in English every time even though I speak to her in Japanese. It is a common phenomena I often witness in Japan but did not expect to be the case at a work place. It reminds me that when I am in China and a foreigner speaks Chinese to me I might reply him/her in English as well. For some people they see it as an opportunity to practice English, and for some else it is a place one can say “Hey I speak English as well.” I think it is largely due to the fact that Japan and China (and most East Asian countries) are relatively homogenous societies where people don’t get to interact with “outsiders,” and it makes the moment that they speak another language special. However, now that I have lived in Japan and learned that speaking a language while the other person is using another to talk to you can be frustrating for that person, I know how to interact with foreign people better.

Overall working in Kyotographie is fun and if you are looking for CIP in Spring semester I recommend checking Kyotographie out. Also, the exhibitions are going to be from April 14th to May 13th, I will be doing supporting staff work for the exhibitions then and please come to visit us!