「Northwestern University」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Lisa Qi: Apollo Art Academy

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For my CIP I chose to enroll in Apollo Art Academy, an art school that was only about a 10 minute walk from my homestay. My hobby has always been drawing, so I wanted to get involved with art in some way during my stay in Japan.

A fellow KCJS classmate, John Evans, also enrolled into the same school as me and we both had classes on Thursdays. The thing about art classes is that they usually span over a long period of time, so it came as no surprise to me that the class I took ran from 1:30pm to 5pm. In fact, most of the other students in our time slot stayed longer than 5pm to get more progress done on their works.

When we first arrived at the academy, I was not sure what to expect, but Tanaka-sensei and everyone else were very welcoming and helped us fill out the short application sheet. Afterwards, we started with a trial class before beginning an actual lesson course. Evans-san and I had both originally wanted to take watercolor or oil pastel lessons, but Tanaka-sensei started us out with pencil and wanted us to slowly progress upwards to working with color.

Originally, I had been considering joining an art circle at Doshisha University, but I am glad that I chose to enroll at Apollo instead, because I heard that art circles usually consisted of students all sitting separately and working silently on their own individual projects, and I felt that I would not had had the chance to practice much Japanese. Midway through each class, everyone gathers around a big table and we get a chance to chat with eachother while eating snacks. In addition, Tanaka-sensei usually walks around the class giving each student individual criticism throughout the class. Though there are times where I am not 100% sure if communication was clear, attending these classes has been a very fun experience getting to know the other students in my class while also improving my art skills and I will most likely continue with this CIP in spring semester.

Isabel McPherson : Shamisen Lessons

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As a music education major, I knew as soon as I heard about the community Involvement Project that I wanted to learn a traditional Japanese instrument. The quarter before I came to Japan, I took a class on Asian pop music and was introduced to a duo called the Yoshida Kyoudai, brothers from Northern Japan who play a three-stringed banjo-like instrument called the shamisen. I became entranced with their music and decided I would try and learn the shamisen as well.
Having learned many other instruments before, I expected it to be pretty easy, but it came with its own challenges. Finding the individual pitches was not very hard, but I found the bachi (pick) extremely difficult to use. I worried so much about it that my wrist would get tense and keep me from being able to play properly. My teacher, a very motherly older woman, would tell me to relax, repeatedly. It was something I had heard from teachers before, but it had a different meaning with her. While other teachers had told me to relax so I could play correctly, she would tell me to relax because to her, the emotion behind a piece was so much more important than whether or not each individual note was correct, so it wasn’t worth it to stress over playing perfectly.
In her I also noticed an interesting change of personality during and after lessons that I hope to emulate one day with my students. During my lessons, she would rarely praise me (unless I was extra worried that day and she felt the need to reassure me that I was doing fine) and was very business-like, only saying what she had to to get her point across. However, after my lessons, she would chat away without hesitation, discussing everything from music to the intimate details of her life as if we were old friends. At times she surprised me with how much she felt comfortable sharing not only about herself, but also about her other students. I think Japan and especially Japanese teachers can come off as having a very serious, businesslike approach to things, but as I’ve learned, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people are unfriendly or don’t want to have a close relationship with you. The philosophy is that during the lesson, the teacher’s job is to teach, not to be friends. However, afterwards, the teacher wants to encourage a positive attitude towards learning and having future lessons, and so will talk as if you’re friends.

Matthew Albrecht : English conversation circle

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Half-way through this semester I made the scary decision to completely switch my CIP, from the Kyoto University frisbee circle Breeze, to Klexon, an English conversation circle at Doshisha. I know many people are thinking the same thing I was worried about when I joined — why spend the little time you have in Japan speaking English instead of practicing Japanese? And it’s true, almost all of the weekly meetings are done in English, but it’s also a group of amazingly friendly people and in my few weeks there I’ve made more Japanese friends than the other two months combined. After the meeting every week, most of the people there go out to a upstanding refreshment establishment nearby for a completely non-judgment-inhibiting drink of litchi juice or two, which is a great way to get to know the people better and finally practice your Japanese! There have also been two dinner parties at the leader’s apartment so far this semester, of which I was only able to attend one, but the leader made amazing Japanese food for us and it was a great opportunity to talk to everyone and have some fun.

Although it could have something to do with having come of age in Japan and not America, it seems to me that litchi juice is a lot more central to Japan’s social life than what I see in America. Maybe because Doshisha doesn’t have on-campus housing and apartments in Kyoto tend to be tiny to hang out in, almost all social events are out in the city and involve litchi juice in some way or another. Litchi juice seems to break down a lot of the social barriers that require people to be reserved and distant, and polite speech gets less and less frequent throughout the night, although even nights with litchi juice aren’t free of the kohai-sempai relationships so important in Japan. Whether in English or Japanese, the Japanese members without fail try to discern how old and what year the person they’re talking to is in school so that they know who is in the position of authority. Unfortunately, finding out that I’m both a Junior and recently turned 20, the age of a Japanese Freshman or so, doesn’t make my role any more clear. This emphasis on age sounds especially funny in English when you hear a bunch of people who just met asking each other how old they are, a rather infrequent occurrence in America.

If you’re willing to make the effort to do more than the weekly meetings, Klexon really can be a great way to both practice Japanese and make friends. I only wish I had joined earlier in the semester, as it feels like I just started right as the semester’s drawing to a close.