This semester I volunteered at Happiness Children’s Cafeteria. In this cafeteria, every Wednesday dinners are offered for free for kids from low-income families. Every Monday, the cafeteria also serves as a study room for kids to do their homework.

I went there every Wednesday from 5 pm to 8 pm. Volunteers’ duties include serving dinner, washing the dishes, cleaning up, and playing with kids. There were plenty of opportunities to communicate with kids and other volunteers.

Advice to incoming students: the children’s cafeteria had a chill and casual atmosphere. It is great for anyone who enjoys hanging out with kids. Plus, volunteers can also enjoy free meals with the kids.

Nearly every week beginning in October of the fall semester, I began volunteering at Fukakusa Kindergarten. A small kindergarten nestled in a residential area on the other side of the Kamo River, I remember how nervous I was my first day! However, all the staff were extremely kind and helpful, making sure I knew what I would be doing with the kids. My time with the kids was comprised of lots of English picture books, random vocabulary the kids wanted to know, and lots of free play time!

I was pleasantly surprised by how enthusiastic the kindergarteners were! Every week they entered the room full of excitement, and would come right up to me to ask to play together or just to ask me how to say certain words in English. As excited as they were to learn from me, I approached every visit just as excited to learn from them. Although not in any formal capacity, through the children and staff I learned so much about how schools operate in Japan! From how snack time and free play time works, to just simply how removing your shoes inside the school is a strictly adhered by custom. I was treated with the utmost respect as just a student visitor, and I was blown away by how much of a positive experience my CIP ended up being. More practically, I learned a lot more about Kansai-ben! While this dialect is often heard in Kyoto, across the Kamo River it’s almost all you exclusively hear from the locals. Picking up Kansai-ben in my interactions with the staff and the students really helped me feel more confident in my Japanese as a whole.

My CIP experience is one I’m eternally grateful for, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to participate in it thanks to the help of the KCJS office. Exploring an area of Kyoto I had previously never seen, interacting with a dialect I was unfamiliar with but wanted to learn, and simply being able to be around the cutest children I’ve ever seen are memories and lessons I will never forget.

For my CIP, I was lucky enough to volunteer as a research intern in the Misonou Lab at the Doshisha Graduate School of Brain Sciences. The lab focuses on the cell biology of neurons, specifically the nature of tau proteins and the role they play in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. The work being done in Misonou sensei’s lab is fascinating, and it was humbling to get to witness the day-to-day work that (I believe) will amount to life-improving findings. I primarily spent my time assisting two PhD students in the lab, and in them, I feel like I have found not only mentors and role models but true friends. Initially, our relationship was quite professional, but we bonded through the challenges and successes we shared in the lab. At first, I wondered if this bond I felt I shared with them was all in my head. I figured to them, I might be more of a burden than anything — that American intern who doesn’t understand any Japanese scientific terms and gets in the way more than she helps. A few weeks into interning, however, they began inviting me to hang out and explore Kyoto and Osaka on the weekends. Having afternoon tea in Osaka Castle park and admiring a lunar eclipse together with them have got to be some of my most treasured memories from all of KCJS. Misonou sensei once told me that he was excited to have me as an intern because he thought my “American friendliness” might help bring his busy grad students out of their shells. This was immediately hilarious to me as an introverted over-thinker, and I worried that I might let him down somehow. After all, the grad students were undeniably incredibly busy, and at first, were incredibly formal and serious. I now believe this to be less about them having shy personalities or them playing into Japanese social customs and more about the deep respect they have for each other and for the work at hand. This is something I truly admire and will take away with me as I continue my studies in America. Because this respect is something we all mutually shared (and because I may be undermining American stereotypes with my lack of outgoingness), our bond was slow to form but is deep. I am incredibly grateful for this. When I return to America, I hope to stay in touch with everyone in the lab, and even have plans to meet one of the grad students next year at a neuroscience conference!

After searching for NGOs in the Kyoto area that focus on international development, I decided to join NICCO for one of my CIP. NICCO stands for the Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development, and this NPO (as non-profits are called in Japan) supports self-reliance projects in developing countries around the world as well as right here in Japan. I mainly serve as a translator from Japanese or Hindi to English for online publications or information from partners on upcoming projects, but also get to enjoy just volunteering at events, such as their annual charity run along the river at Demachiyanagi. Although I am really close with some of the other interns, one staff member in particular took me under his wing, gifting me manga for kanji practice, teaching me about various Japanese historical events in the area, sharing interesting folk stories, and correcting my Japanese grammar in exchange for my help with English or explanations of American events like Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

I had many great experiences while interning, but the most interesting part was simply learning all of the small habits unique to Japanese office culture. I experienced more than my fair share of mishaps and misunderstandings during my fifteen hours/week at NICCO, especially when just joining the office. When I showed up to the NICCO office (a cozy machiya-style building) for the first time to “talk with them”, I met with four staff members for an hour or so and answered questions. To my surprise, afterwards they asked me to walk into the main office room (momentarily pausing work for everyone else seated at their desks, typing away) to give a brief self-introduction.  I realized later that our little chat was actually considered an interview, and somehow I had managed to pass their intern criteria and that’s why they had gone ahead and introduced me as a new team member.

The second time I came into the office, when I had just sat down at the intern desk, one of the staff members suddenly announced that some kind of meeting was starting and everyone around the room stood up immediately. After a couple seconds I realized that they were holding this meeting for my sake, and promptly (embarrassedly) stood up while everyone began very formally introducing themselves in keigo. Since I was only used to attending meetings where people either stand up and talk one at a time so that everyone focuses on them, or we all just stay seated, the whole process of going around the room while everyone is standing and presenting overly-formal intros was quite a surprise. Despite these formal intros, however, we all share snacks and make jokes in a very friendly work environment, with one co-worker (to my great surprise and amusement) even laughingly commenting on my Kansai-ben. It is simply a fact of office culture that the standard soro soro shitsureishimasu-es upon leaving are always met with a hearty assault of otsukarasamadesu-es.

I’m especially entertained by one other office tradition, the aizuchi (emphatic interjections to show that they are listening) that everyone uses while talking to the founder of NICCO or while on the phone. Other than just being extremely polite to their superiors (as an employee would do in any office), they speak in a voice about an octave higher, use hesitant tones to ask questions that they already know the answer to, or soften even the smallest of requests. Another intern and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh as, just a couple meters away, one co-worker emitted an enthusiastic “hai!” every two seconds while the shachou explained directions. The best part is, I notice a lot of people smile to themselves while watching others make these seemingly-ridiculous aizuchi, and yet these laughing people make the same exact aizuchi when talking to the shachou as well. I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.