For my CIP activity, I participated in Kyoto International Club Klexon, a conversational club where English speakers come to speak with Japanese participants who would like to practice their English. The club met once almost every week from 7 to 9 PM at the Wings Kyoto Center. The two hours were split into parts; for the first one, I usually got a new partner every ten minutes in a way similar to speed dating, where I talked with them about anything ranging from our daily lives to our opinions on recent political developments. For the second hour, several Japanese participants and I made a group of five to six, where we got to speak in a way similar to friends on a group outing. Although we were usually given topics to talk about, I found it more helpful to talk about things that often come up in conversations to help the Japanese participants improve their English.

Participating in Klexon was a great opportunity to make native Japanese friends and feel more like I’m participating in the community. I was a bit sad at the beginning thinking that I was not going to get much of an opportunity to practice my Japanese, but luckily after the first week, I got to go to the local bar with newly made Klexon friends where I spoke with them in Japanese while sharing a nice drink. After immersing myself more in the club, I began to think of Klexon as more of a social place where one meets friends rather than a place where one comes to do work. The more I participated in Klexon, the more I bonded with friends I made there. Eventually, several KCJS student participants and I got to make a group chat with our Klexon friends where we scheduled meet ups and outings on some weekends. On one Saturday, we all got together and went to the Kyoto Shibori Museum where we learned different dying techniques before we each got to dye our own scarf in wonderful patterns and colors.

Even though English is my second language while Japanese is my fourth, participating in Klexon really helped me understand my progress in Japanese, further showing me what I needed to focus on to get better. For example, after seeing where Japanese people commonly made mistakes, I was able to reflect on expressions that were difficult to say since they did not translate between the two languages very well.

Needless to stay, Klexon was a significant part of my study abroad and language study and I’d recommend it to anyone who is willing to go out of their comfort zone to make friends. My tip is – if you want to get to know someone, ask for their LINE! It’s easy and most people will say yes. Klexon is really the experience that you make out of it!

For my CIP, I participated in Wadaiko DON.  Wadaiko DON is a student-run taiko circle at Ritsumeikan University.  At my home university in the US, I am a part of a taiko club run by Brown and RISD students called Gendo Taiko, and I wanted to see how a wadaiko circle as run by students in Japan differs from a taiko club run by students in the US.

My initial contact with the club was difficult since I was still getting used to having full conversations in Japanese.  However, the students in the club were welcoming and readily willing to let me participate.  The amount of time I needed to put into my CIP was a little higher than usual since practice was usually twice a week for at least an hour, but I was determined to try and participate as much as I could.  During practice, I had to quickly get comfortable using plain forms and, more importantly, using casual speech.  In the end, even though I’m still not fluent in casual speech, I was able to hear how the friends talked to each other and gave instruction.

It is a bit regrettable that my time in the taiko group was so short and that I needed to commute far to participate.  It made it difficult to spend enough time with them to really practice my Japanese and get a sense of how they are outside of the taiko circle setting.  That said, I think it was a great insight into how student circles are run in Japan.  For the most part, there are a lot of similarities between Wadaiko DON and Gendo Taiko.  We are both student run groups, we both practice together as a group, and we play many of the same styles.  Further, like Gendo Taiko, many of the Wadaiko DON members started taiko only after entering the circle.  As for differences, Wadaiko DON is about twice the size of Gendo Taiko and, as such, they are able to perform at a much higher potential level.  For each performance, they hold auditions to decide who can participate.

On the whole, I’m very glad that I was able to participate and be accepted into a Japanese university student group, especially one that concerns taiko.  Wadaiko DON performs at a very high level, and I am very thankful to be able to have seen their mainstage performance, participate in regular practice, and perform in the Takase-gawa Sakura Matsuri (pictures and videos below).  The Wadaiko DON members were extremely welcoming and helpful even when I didn’t quickly understand their instruction.  Even though the language barrier made it difficult to interact smoothly with the groups usual happenings, this was a unique experience that could only have happened during my study abroad.  I am especially glad to have participated in the Takase-gawa Sakura Matsuri, during which I was able to see the carrying of the Mikoshi from the perspective of the parade that went down Teramachi-dōri.  It was a unique perspective on Japanese life and the continuation of tradition.

On the day of the Matsuri, the weather was sunny and warm, and the sakura blossoms were just beginning to lose their petals.  As the wind swept through the trees, the petals flew up and floated down gently, breezing in the background of the crowded streets.  Even though it was my first sakura matsuri, I had the feeling that it was a picture perfect representation of what sakura matsuri could be.  People of all ages attended, from the elderly who came to experience the annual matsuri once again to the children who are sure to have made fond memories.  Anyone can participate in the carrying of the mikoshi (“portable shrine”, although its significance is far deeper than the English translation would make it seem) throughout the streets and, within the large group of mikoshi carriers, there was a strong sense of community and participation in tradition.  As the large parade processed through Teramachi-dōri Shōtengai and the narrow streets adjacent to it, onlookers came out to see this once-a-year event.  The spot of the festival, the Former Rissei Elementary School, seems to have been particularly chosen because of its long history.  At the taiko performance, a woman danced among the taiko players.  Although out of the ordinary, it seemed like she and her family had attended the Rissei Elementary School before it was decommissioned and that she was moved to the point of dance by the once-again lively atmosphere of the school.  Instead of letting the building fall into disuse and be forgotten, the matsuri brings life to the location.  Although the Takase-gawa Sakura Matsuri is only in its 38th year, the tradition of matsuri goes far back in Japanese history.  Even though it was my first matsuri, I felt like there was deep significance in the passing of cultural memories through events like this.

I hope to bring these new perspectives on taiko and matsuri back to Gendo Taiko and try to inform the way we put on matsuri in our own communities half-way across the world on the East Coast.

第３８回高瀬川桜祭り　神輿

三宅太鼓

For my Community Involvement Project I participated in Klexon – an English conversation club. Every Tuesday I would meet for two hours in the Wings Gender Equality Center with other KCJS members and other native English Speakers living in the city, to talk with Japanese college students and workers in order to help them practice their English speaking abilities. For the first hour of the meetings, I would talk in one-on-one sessions with the Japanese club members – discussing anything from their jobs to their opinions on recent political developments. Then in the second hour, I would talk in groups of five to six people in order to practice group speaking abilities with them. The club would offer prompts and possible topics of conversation, but I found that most of the Japanese participants were happy to elect their own topics of conversation, and usually wanted to discuss broad cultural differences between Japan and the US, or grammatical novelties between Japanese and English. As I became closer friends with different members of the club, I began to join them for food and drinks after the meetings or at Karaoke parties on the weekend.

Through my continuing interactions with the Klexon group, in and out of the weekly meetings, I feel that I was truly able to integrate into, and participate in, Japanese social activities and functions. Furthermore, in helping to teach English to Japanese people I was better able to understand my progress with my own language studies: for example, it seems a lot of the Klexon members use the word “maybe” more often than what would be considered natural in English (eg. “Maybe, my job is working in finance”). My assumption is that this over-usage stems from learners attempting to directly translate certain phrases from their native tongue into their target language – which is probably a mistake that I make as well in my own language studies (ie. trying to convert head-first English phrasing/idioms into Japanese, instead of solely relying on the set head-last grammatical formations of the language). I also found that simply speaking to a large number of Japanese students and workers allowed for many fascinating insights into people’s opinions about food, and clothing, and history, and politics. A particularly interesting example would be my conversations with a member of Japan’s Self-Defense Force: I was able to learn about his daily work, and about how most Japanese citizens look down upon those who join the SDF.

As for my advice to future students, I can’t stress enough how important it is to get a Line! Everyone here uses Line, and it’s just such an easy way to make friends quickly. After a meeting, if you have even the slightest interest in being friends with someone, I’d highly recommend trading Line account information. And then afterwards, even if you don’t text them, the likelihood that they text you and ask to hangout is very high. There’s practically no work involved at all! And getting to meet Japanese people and hang out outside of the CIP activities is such a wonderful opportunity to make friends, to speak more Japanese, and to learn more about Japanese culture and life.

The emails that I exchanged with the Chorus’s representative gave me an impression that the circle was an all-accepting space where even the non-experienced are welcomed: “Thank you for your interest. We await you at the first practice. And yes, we are thrilled that you are bringing friends. Bring them all, be it 5 or 10 people!!” 

And really, the people were as nice as I had pictured them to be. On the first day, a guy came all the way to where I and Yuki got lost to pick us up. After the first practice was over, we newcomers were put into the spotlight, so all the members could get to know us and sing their welcoming song. Throughout my time with them, I continued to feel the circle’s attempt to create a sense of belonging for all its members: free after-practice meals, weekend gatherings, and the funnest of all, the exaggerated, variety show-like reaction words we always give together when someone is doing an announcement. I wish I had more time to interact and make friends with everyone. My host family was far away from Kyodai, so I couldn’t participate much in the bonding activities that the circle created for its members.

Joining a circle where everyone was welcomed first gave me the assumption that the quality of real practices would be mediocre. I was wrong. Even though the songs we had to sing were really difficult, the conductor, part leaders, and most people really knew what they were doing. Not only that, they went out of their way to guide newbies like me, whether it was the breathing and diaphragm training exercises at the beginning, or the melody, beats, and nuances of each music bar. At first, it was a bit irritating to me, because their over-guidance indicated that they thought I knew absolutely nothing. However, I realized after a while that they were just fulfilling their roles of senpai, to welcome and help and instruct, especially considering my barriers not being a Japanese. And after months of going to the Chorus, although I did not have much opportunities to interact with the members outside of practice, the care that they showed toward me really made me feel like a kouhai myself, that I belonged as part of this Chorus.

What is tanka? The question is simply answered: a poem written in 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic pattern. I felt content with my answer and decided to join the Kyoto University tanka club to try my hand at the art of their composition and reading. However, as I regularly participated in the club’s meetings, I began to lose faith in this answer of mine. In these meetings, called utakai, participating members submit poems in advance, which are then discussed, analysed and judged by the group. Over the course of these discussions, it became clear that the group and I were approaching the poems in quite different ways; it seemed that our concept of the nature of tanka was estranged. It appeared to me as though the members, even if they complemented the form of my poems or the choice of imagery, struggling to engage with them in the same way. I felt that I would never be able to truly join the group until I had solved the mystery.

At first, I thought the problem lay in communication. Although I could usually understand the clear, slow voice of my Japanese teacher, this ability did not translate into a comprehension of a heated literary discussion about poems I could not prepare in advance. There were certainly many times when I felt completely lost in the discussion. I had failed to follow the line of interpretation, even if I could follow the basic meaning of the sentences.

Aside from the discussion itself, the poems provided another obstacle. Though armed with a dictionary, there was always at least one poem I failed to grasp. Since every member is called upon to make comment, these moments were often quite trying; I would tend to talk around the poem, focusing on specific images without providing any attempt to string together the separate ideas.

However, I gradually felt I was overcoming these problems. My key strategy was to focus on interpreting the poems in advance even if it meant I had to largely ignore the first poem; that time was usually lost anyway in readjusting myself to the style of discussion. Consequently, when it came to the poems I had analysed, I was in a much better position; I was aware of a large amount of possible interpretation, which made following the comments easier and I had already decided on a few points to share, which dulled the pressure and allowed me to join more actively in the discussion.

The strategy proved key to becoming a member of the group. I won the respect of the other members not through my poems, but my interpretations. They responded to the evident consideration I was putting into my interpretation, which communicated my respect for them as poets and their craft. However, even though I was accepted into the club, the distance members felt to my poems did not disappear. We seemed to conceive of tanka in fundamentally different ways.

My first thought had been that tanka was no more than any other form of poetry, no more than one of many possible modes of expression. However, I was forced to reconsider this position after my exposure to the attitude of the club members. Questions on poetry or literature in general tended to meet with surprized and confused expressions; one would think I had asked a strange, even absurd question. When a reply finally emerged, it usually stressed the uniqueness of tanka, before admitting very little interest in other poetic forms. The pursuit was not poetry, but tanka; they read tanka and wrote tanka.

After a number of weeks, I believed I was beginning to understand their perspective. Tanka are, after all, in some ways a truly unique form of Japanese poetry; they have an age long tradition in Japan and stood as the unrivalled form of verse for over half a century. The tanka cannon overflows with great poems and poets; perhaps, their own tradition so rich and deep, tanka poets did not feel the need to look outside of tanka.

However, I was forced to abandon this supposition after a revealing exchange with one of my senpai, one of the leading members of the club, who regularly competes and wins tanka contests. As we walked together back to the station, he explained to me the difference between waka and tanka. Waka literally means Japanese poetry, but, due to the historic predominance of tanka, for a long time, it was used synonymously with the term tanka. My senpai employed the term to distinguish between old and new tanka. The scope of waka, the old tanka, was heavily confined by set conventions of diction and topic. In contrast, contemporary tanka is much freer, without any formal requirements save the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure. After he had clarified the distinction, he told me I wrote in a very waka­-like style and would benefit from studying more contemporary tanka collections.

My senpai had unknowingly answered the question that had been troubling me. Indeed, I had always drawn my inspiration from the classical waka poets, aspiring to their lofty diction and keen seasonal awareness. Yet, no other member of the group was similarly motivated; I alone, it seemed, had believed in the continuity of the tradition; to the others, waka were no more than the works of poets from long ago, without any bearing on their own poetic practice.

I had my answer and indeed succeeded in presenting poems that spoke to the group, yet, if anything, I felt even more lost. I could no longer see why tanka was special, why these poets composed exclusively tanka. They do not see themselves as the last generation in a long line of tanka poets, yet nor did they see themselves as artists focused on a single mode of expression. I struggle to understand, but the struggle is interesting. One day, I will certainly find out what tanka mean to its poets.