My CIP is volunteering in a museum archive that specializes in posters collection. My main job was to organize museum posters from recent years in Japan or help my supervisor Wada-sensei with some hands-on museum work.

It was highly pleasant to just look at various posters with all ranges of excellent artistic designs. I also got to work on different kinds of posters, including the poster (ポスター) collection books from Shōwa era. However, it could get a bit boring after several weeks, since archive work is repeated and I usually worked alone. Therefore, it’s important for volunteers to reach out actively to ask more about museum work or politely address our own requests. After reaching out, I found myself being much closer with my supervisor! She is also nice enough to show me around various curation works that were in progress and gave me some different work that fitted my interests. People here might seem to be introvert but are actually friendly and helpful!

I was fortunate enough to try two different experiences for my community involvement project with KCJS. I started my CIP experience by attending Klexon, a language exchange club for Japanese people who are interested in learning English. Although I enjoyed meeting new people and forming friendships, ultimately I felt as though I would prefer a different experience. Nakata-sensei helped me to locate an elementary after-school program called Doushinjidoukan near my apartment.

Before becoming a volunteer, I had to make a phone call to the program. I was very nervous about this because I had never made a phone call in Japanese before and I try to avoid phone calls as much as possible even in English. I was not confident that my speaking and listening abilities were adequate enough to handle a phone call with a native Japanese speaker, but Nakata-sensei kindly helped me practice and I was able to make the call. I was so proud of myself for being able to arrange my first appointment over the phone in Japanese. Without the CIP experience I probably never would’ve had to do anything like that.

Once I started volunteering the kids seemed somewhat wary of me at first, but ultimately they welcomed me in and had lots of games they wanted to play with me. Many of them wanted to know more about America, or wanted to show me their favorite games or toys. One day, I played restaurant/conbini (Japanese convenience store) with several of the kids which involved them serving me various different dishes and pretending to work at a conbini. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences in children’s play between Japanese and American children. For example, I had played similar restaurant games with American children, but because convenience stores do not have the same popularity in America, convenience store games are not common among children in the United States.

I was very sad that I had to leave so abruptly due to covid-19, and never got to see the children again or say goodbye to them properly. When I arrived, they were all so excited that I would be coming every week until the end of April, but in the end I was only able to go a handful of times. Despite this, I will never forget the time that I was able to spend there and the people I was able to meet.

I would advise future KCJS students to think carefully about what they want to get out of their CIP when trying to decide on what to do. In my case, I wanted to try and volunteer with children because I was living in an apartment and would not be able to interact with different generations in a host family. Also, I would advise future KCJS to be outgoing and as friendly as possible when they get to their activity. Doing so will make everyone more comfortable and will make your experience flow more easily. Although it can be difficult at first, when people are not really sure what to make of you, if you show up consistently and work hard, they will ultimately appreciate your dedication.

For my CIP, I’ve continued volunteering with the Higashi Kujo Children’s Soup Kitchen located at Kyoto Southern Church. When I returned from summer break and stepped into the soup kitchen, I was immediately greeted by some of the other volunteers from last semester who still remembered my name and who I was. That experience alone encapsulates why I have grown to love the community so much.

The organization was founded three years ago by the pastor Baekki Heo, a third generation Korean born Japanese. He and his wife do a fantastic job fostering a community while providing affordable and home-cooked meals to families who need them.

While last semester I helped with a variety of tasks each week, this time around I was pretty much assigned a permanent station of expediting the food and taking it to the customers. The girl who was almost always stationed with me was always so patient with me even though I often make mistakes with the arrangement of the food on the tray. She and all the other volunteers were always patient with me when I didn’t understand something, and would take the time to explain it to me.

Over the course of the semester it has been really great seeing people who were really shy at first gradually become accustomed to joking around with me and not feeling like they have to tiptoe around me. Every week is filled with a plethora of hilarious, informative, and sometimes embarrassing anecdotes as I get to speak with everyone and find out more about their lives. From celebrating the soup kitchen’s third anniversary to getting to speak with the older people in the community and practice my keigo, my time with the Higashi Kujo Children’s Soup Kitchen has truly been one of the highlights of my experience abroad.

For my CIP, I volunteer at a children’s kitchen（子供食堂） every Thursday. The organization is located on the second floor of a church in Higashi Kujo, and caters mainly to families with young children. The objective of the kitchen is to build a community, and I definitely felt this while working alongside the other volunteers. Most of the other volunteers were from Kyoto, and were generally college-aged. Every week we worked on a variety of different tasks including serving food, cleaning and putting away dishes, and engaging in conversations with the other volunteers. It was overwhelming at first, since I was largely unfamiliar with some of the vocabulary used, but little by little I found myself improving and becoming closer with the regular volunteers.

One of the difficulties of the Shokudo was trying to communicate when I didn’t understand instructions, since everyone was already familiar with each other and spoke very quickly in Kansai-ben. However, the volunteers were always patient with me when I didn’t understand something, and would take the time to explain it to me and make sure I understood. I also observed how friendly and accepting they were of me and the other KCJS volunteers, as well as new members who arrived at the Shokudo. Because of this welcoming atmosphere, we were always able to joke around when the kitchen wasn’t too busy and learn a lot about Japanese culture. They even taught us some useful phrases in Kansai-ben, and taught us some popular children’s games. As most of the volunteers didn’t speak a lot of English, Japanese was often the only way of communication. Because of this I was forced out of my comfort zone while trying to communicate. This was a fantastic chance to build up my own confidence and practice speaking casually with the other students my age while learning new grammar and vocabulary. Out of pure coincidence, I was even able to meet an alumna of my home college who is now living in Kyoto! I am thankful for the opportunity to volunteer at the Kodomo Shokudo and engage with the community.

For my CIP, I participated in the production of a bi-monthly informational journal “Life in Kyoto” (LIK), under Kyoto International Community House. “Life in Kyoto” is making newsletters for foreign residents, especially foreigners who came to Kyoto one to two years ago, providing the informations which foreigners can feel relieved by reading. Since the production cycle is two months, we met two times per month on Wednesday evening, usually for about two hours at a time.

I volunteered for the Japanese version, and English version of the newsletter. It was a great opportunity to get to know the difference between cultures. The most interesting difference I experienced is about the masculinity and femininity in Japanese language. From an all-women’s college where gender neutrality is highly appreciated, I could not even imagine that somebody said that “this word choice (which are Kanji compound) is too masculine and let us find a proper word (such as kunyomi words) for her”, which I heard several times during LIK meeting. I do not think it is because my native language is nothing but Kanji so I cannot tell how “masculine” the word is, and I do have the idea that Japanese language system is separated by gender. But it was still shocking when hearing people do discuss in this way for article contents. Besides gender differentiation, in Japan, how one talks and is talked to is determined by one’s seniority, and occupation. Fortunately, LIK volunteer group members are quite easygoing and friendly, and everyone was trying to create a welcoming atmosphere to new-comers. So in our meeting, members basically talked with each other with polite form, except for senior people to younger people.

Other than bi-weekly meetings, our communication was almost done by emails, which enabled me to learned how to politely email in Japanese. In the past, when emailing in Japanese, I had to search for and check the politeness word by word online, but now, to a large extent, I can directly type without copy-and-paste. Some people may think the Japanese email is full of meaningless and overwhelming greetings, but I do appreciate the warmth and the respect show in the email by the routine “お疲れ様です” and “お手数をお掛けしますが、どうぞ宜しくお願いします”.

Moreover, as a volunteer, I had gone through almost every process of publishing a journal: making plans, writing, proofreading, and editing, which involve lots of detail-oriented works, such as reading the draft aloud to find missing particles and grammatically incorrect expressions, and word choosing, as the above-mentioned. The most difficult part in the proofreading is to make every sentence easier to understand in both Japanese and English. And as a non-native English and Japanese speaker, it is about mutual learning. I pointed out my suggestions to the contents, and I got invaluable advice from other volunteers on the article I wrote in Japanese and English. I would say how much you can learn depends on how you would like to raise questions no matter how trivial the detail seems to be. I enjoyed the mutually learning experience very much.

All in all, the volunteer experience with LIK was interesting and rewarding. As a foreigner I feel I was needed by everyone in every stage of the publishing work, from content writing to proofreading. On the other hand, I really appreciate the interaction with other members. I would definitely recommend the volunteer opportunity at LIK.

For my CIP I volunteered at Yoshida Jidoukan which is an after school program that kids go to after school and while their parents are still at work. At this particular one, there are kids up to around twelve years old but the majority of the kids are in second and third grade and there are about sixty of them. Of course I can’t interact with all of them but I try to meet and play with a different group every week. It’s easy to pick out groups because the children form cliques amongst themselves and I just walk up to one of them and start talking to them. The kids are all really energetic and love to ask me questions. They also make fun of my Japanese but I was expecting that so it doesn’t really bother me. Although I have worked with kids before I did learn some new things, in particular, about myself during my CIP visits. I learned that I’m not a very outgoing person and that it is difficult for me to put myself out there, even with young kids who won’t judge in the same ways that fellow adults do. But because each visit we were supposed to try out a small task that we had come up with ourselves, I had many chances to improve myself in that aspect. I tried to talk to small groups of children and I slowly got more comfortable.