Every Thursday afternoon I volunteer at Bazaar Cafe, a small local restaurant that’s barely a 5 minute walk away from Doshisha. From reading past students’ blog posts and the restaurant’s website, I figured this would be a good choice for a CIP since I have a lot of interest in community work and the restaurant’s goal is something that really speaks to me. The restaurant’s mission is essentially to provide a place for anyone and everyone to enjoy, regardless of age, nationality, sexuality etc. Not only that, but they also provide work opportunities for people who may otherwise have difficulty finding jobs due to a number of societal restrictions.

As a volunteer, I help wash dishes, prepare meals, and other kitchen related tasks that need to be taken care of. I would say that most weeks I go in knowing what’s expected of me and am able to carry out most tasks with ease. But every once in a while, people use the cafe as a spot to hold various kinds of meetings. What I think is really amazing about this is that the owners are incredibly open and encouraging of us learning more about their community, so often times they’ll invite me to sit in on some of the meetings that are happening. The first time this happened, there was a small group of former drug addicts who were working to help clean up and rework the garden in front of the cafe and I was able to listen to a little bit of their planning.

Going into this CIP, I thought I knew what to expect—I figured most of my coworkers would be kind and interesting, but at the end of the day, it’s a job and there’s an aspect of diligence involved. To some degree, I even expected to experience what I would have thought was typical Japanese “work culture.” But from the day that I inquired about volunteering until now, I’ve found that everyone is treated like family—the kindness and geniality that was shown to me from the beginning took me aback, but I am grateful to spend time with a community like this. I definitely wasn’t expecting to get to be a part of such an open-minded group of people during my time here in Japan, and that is in part due to my own misconceptions of Japanese society. Of course there are kind and accepting individuals in Japan, but I didn’t think I would discover a whole community this quickly.

For anyone who looking for something casual, but incredibly worthwhile, I would suggest volunteering here! You get to interact with such a wide range of individuals, there’s a lot of opportunity for conversation practice, and you get to eat good food.

I was very excited to volunteer at 保育園(Japanese nursery centers)once a week as I have dreamed a long time of having such opportunity to observe early childhood education in Japan. There are actually two types of care and education for infants and little children and 保育園(could also be called daycare centers)is the one for kids younger than age of 3 before attending 幼稚園(kindergarten). The latter one is considered more educational whereas 保育園mainly functions more to “foster” children as daytime care center for the sake of busy working mothers.

The volunteering went surprisingly smooth from day 1 because sensei tachi are super warm and nice and kids are cheerful and cute as angels. They welcomed me as a “Yuki nene” (sister Yuki) guest and spending several hours every Monday afternoon is an emotional therapy for me especially when stressed out during the day. I usually arrive after the children just finish their afternoon nap and helping them changing clothes is the first major task. I messed up time to time such as forgetting to take off the diapers before putting on pants or getting their clothes inside-out. Though instead of being angry with me or even noticing my mistake, kids always thank me energetically with big smile. Sometimes I feel like my role slightly changed when singing Japanese songs, dancing as rabbits, piling toy blocks or listening to teacher’s storytelling together with the kids — I am not a volunteer, I become one of them. I was happy to pick up many interesting 幼児語 too such as　“ブーブ”means cars, “ねんねしよ”means time for bed and “オッチン” means to sit.

According to be observation at 保育園,  I realized that Japan indeed has finely tuned educational approach to life and actions of each individual child. The thing that shocked me most is called 連絡帳 (parent-teacher notebook?) I’ve never heard of it before actually saw my host mom and teachers writing it – it is a kind of a note for both parents and teachers to keep track of very detailed activities of the children each day such as sleeping time, body temperature, food content, little stories if happened, what mood the child is in and even when they poop, sometimes including pictures. Children are really provided with considerate care and respected for their very existence. Creating and reading these kind of notes and memories as seeing the process of children growing up into themselves must be a great enjoyment for parents.

Moreover, children get to learn the rules for living in society by adopting basic daily routines of life and proper habits at 保育園. From saying  “いただきます” “ごちそうさまでした” “ごめんなさい”and “〜ください” to taking care of own dishes after finishing eating, they are learning to be more independent and well-mannered. In this case the early childhood education is sometimes disappointing as most kids are often treated like the center of the universe. Parents tend to say “leave it there I’ll clean it for you” after meal or “give me your backpack” when picking up their kids after school.

During play times, children are given enough freedom and encouraged to relate with one another through various options of activities. They can decide on their own about what to play and what to use. While there are group activities as well, there is minimal direct instruction from the teacher. This is good for children learning to be independent at decision making. Also have to make sure clean up everything by themselves before leaving, otherwise sensei would have a private talk and watch him/her put things in order.

Overall I learned a lot from the experience and I feel so lucky to be able to get involved in the community as Yuki nene. I hope I can be a better one in the future.

I stuck with my CIP from last semester, and continued to volunteer at the Kyoto Institute of Technology’s museum and archive this semester as well. Although I was at the same place with the same people, I did learn a lot of new things about the museum itself, and the Japanese work environment in general.

Although my job often consists of working with old art books, I am sometimes asked to help translate things from English to Japanese and vice versa, correct English presentations and essays, and help set up the new art exhibits. I do learn quite a lot from the old books and have fun figuring out the old kanji, but it is probably in the interactions with the employees at the museum that I learn the most about Japan.

Through working with people in the museum’s office I have noticed that a lot of importance is put on the daily kyuukei, which seems to almost always be around three o’clock (the same as the daily ‘snack time’ at my host family’s house). During this time the people in the office separate out small snacks for everyone and sometimes even offer tea. I already knew that omiyage-giving is an important thing in Japanese culture, but I didn’t so much know how important it is to also bring something for your co-workers! Whenever someone goes on a trip they bring back an easily-sharable snack for everyone in the office. I wish this sort of custom was expected in American offices!

Being the only native English speaker at the museum, I had quite a few requests to work with people to translate writings from Japanese to English (and sometimes the other way around). When speaking Japanese in class or doing homework in Japanese I try to think in Japanese to help my learning. However translating forces you to think in two separate languages, and this experience has taught me how difficult that really is! In some areas where Japanese is very detailed and poetic, English does not have the same kind of flow or beauty. In other places were English is straight and to the point, Japanese can be frustratingly indirect. I also ran into some problems with words that cannot really be translated such as dorya (used often when exerting self, moving heavy objects, etc.).

Having the opportunity to volunteer at the museum for the last two semesters has been a really great experience. I learned a lot about Japan, and a lot about the work world as well. I had an internship at an American museum a few years ago, so it was very interesting to compare those two experiences. I feel more confident in my Japanese language ability, and feel more comfortable with communication after this experience. I am very excited to use what I have learned, and to continue learning more.