「Institution」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Emily Camarata: Kyudo

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When starting out Kyudo I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I’ve done several types of martial arts in the past and know that each of them is entirely different from the other and I knew right away that Kyudo was going to be a unique experience.  What I did not realize was how unique of an experience Kyudo practice and the atmosphere of the dojo itself was going to be in comparison to the rest of Japan.

Immediately upon contacting my sensei I realized that she was a very confident, laid back, and friendly individual.  She was very welcoming and accommodating, and as long as her students showed a general interest in learning Kyudo she was more than willing to go above and beyond to help them.  I believe it is primarily from her that the atmosphere of the rest of the dojo flowed from.  More than any group of Japanese people that I have encountered, I can say that the Kyudo Dojo felt like my ｳﾁ.  These were people that, even before they got to know me, would notice whether or not I was there and would be glad to see me.  They would respond well when I reached out to them and reach out to me in kind, often offering a lot of useful advice for Kyudo.  Once I started wearing a uniform I especially felt like I was considered part of the dojo, no different from any other student there.

The practice itself is also extremely rewarding and the more I get into Kyudo the more I sense the spirituality associated with it.  Kyudo is very much a sport with intentions of meditation and stillness in mind.  It’s less about hitting the target and more about the process, with the goal being to put every bit of your soul into each shot.  It’s a very intriguing art form that with each additional practice, becomes more and more mysterious and awe inspiring.  I was fortunate enough during a practice two weeks ago to have an experience which left me dumbstruck for a while after my arrow had already hit the target.  I was standing in position, taking aim, trying to synchronize my breaths with my shot.  When I finally started exhaling for the last time, it was as if the bow took over.  I don’t even remember releasing the bowstring, but there the arrow was, flying towards the target.  The bow then spun itself in my hand, a sign of a good release, and my ears were filled with the striking ring of the bowstring that never fails to be satisfying.  I felt as if my own body had just stood aside while the bow took over.  It was mystifying and I can’t wait for more.

Jacqueline Wee: Noh Masks and Woodblock Prints

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Masks are creepy.  I think that’s a fairly agreed-upon opinion.  And yet, somehow I’ve been spending four hours of my Mondays, almost every week, surrounded by them.  My Monday activities started about halfway through last semester, at the beginning of November.  After my host mother’s coworker heard that I was taking a class on Noh theater, she invited me to her house, where her father and one other person were learning to carve Noh masks from a teacher.  Being an arts-and-crafts person, and having always been fascinated with wood carving, I agreed to learn Noh mask carving.

The classroom is an extra room in an acquaintance’s house.  The other two students, who I’ll call Tail-san and Village-san, and teacher, Inside-sensei are all ojiisan (grandpas) who have been friends for a very long time.  On top of gathering at Tail-san’s house every Monday to hack away at some wood, they also play mahjong and basketball at other times in other places during the week.  Going to my Noh mask class might be my favorite part about being in Japan.  A lot of people who hear about my latest hobby give me a weird look when I mention that it involves hanging out with grandpas almost every week.  They go, isn’t that…boring?  But it’s far from that.  The three of them are some of the most interesting people I’ve met since coming to Japan, and having lived for quite a deal longer than I have, they have tons of stories and knowledge of things I’ve never even heard of before.  Also, since they’re good friends with each other, despite being “old”—a word I don’t buy anyway since I consider age more of a mental thing than something purely decided by number of years one has been alive—they’re always cracking jokes and displaying their competitive side.  For example, they’ll pull out a scale and argue about who has carved his mask thinner and lighter.  Or who has managed to make his mask look older and more weathered.  Every minute spent in that classroom with those three is fun, and I feel like I’ve slowly become a part of the group.

Also, although it’s not really directly related to mask carving, the actual setting of my lessons is also lively.  Since I’m there from 12:30pm to 4:30 pm, in between carving, we take lunch and snack breaks.   Sitting around the floor eating various Japanese snacks with tea, I listen to stories about Japanese customs and traditions, as well as hearing about everyone’s families and histories.  Tail-san’s wife is a talented cook, and everything she makes is delicious, from the familiar and comfortable oden to the chewy and flavorful boar meat, which I tried for the first time last week.  They also live in the countryside, in a traditional house that’s more than a hundred years old.  Between coming and going to the classroom, I walk through the well-groomed garden, and even going to the toilet brings me through the wooden corridor bordered by sliding doors.  On top of everything else, by going to mask class, my comprehension of Kansai-ben has gotten infinitely better.  When I first started going to class, I could barely understand anything that anyone was saying, but now I can get through with very few understanding problems.  And I’ve picked up some phrases that I would have never been taught in any Japanese classroom.

From the combination of my Noh class and mask carving lessons, I have learned a number of things.  First of all, there’s a set number of mask types, and in the world of Noh, there is no such thing as original masks.  Of course since every mask is handmade, each one is unique in some way, but in general it follows strict mask standards.  There are even stencil-type tools that one carves the mask to fit into, and if carved properly, every curve on every mask of the same type should be the same.  For example, probably the most famous and commonly used mask type is called the Ko omote, which is supposed to represent the face of a young girl.  If you saw five ko omote masks carved by five different people, at first glance they would look exactly the same.  At the second and third glance, they’d probably still look the same.  But after staring at them for a while and getting accustomed to the subtleties of the masks, you’d start to notice a few slight differences.  The angle of the eyes might be just the slightest bit sharper on one, giving a subtle impression of slyness.  Or the corners of the mouth might lift up a little bit more on one mask, imbuing the expression with a tint of playfulness.  But take away the other masks to compare against, and you might as well have imagined the differences.

Although I started off with “masks are creepy,” I don’t actually think so anymore.  Well, for the most part.  We recently started painting our masks, and seeing multiple pure white faces lined up on the floor is still a little alarming.  But that part aside, now they’ve become like any other product of hard work.  To me, my mask is sort of pretty, rather cute, and something I’m quite proud of. I’ve also gotten a little better acquainted with traditional Japanese materials.  The tools used to carve masks are hard to find even in Japan, and I’ve never seen them in America.  They come in three general shapes, flat, curved, and diagonal, and in all different sizes.  After one finishes carving, paints the mask, but the base coat of white paint isn’t even paint at all.  It’s called gofun, and it’s used not just for masks, but also in some traditional Buddhist sculptures.  It starts out as a white powder, ground up oyster shells, and after being mixed with animal glue that resembles gelatin, called nikawa, it becomes a somewhat paint-like suspension.  Although I occasionally paint and draw, I’ve never worked with such materials in America.

After many months, I am close to finishing my first mask.  Mask making takes a long time.  A very, very long time.  But it’s a rewarding process, and through it, I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise crossed paths with.  In contrast to my other main, wood-related, activity for the semester, woodblock printing, I’d say that I’ve found a closer community in Noh masks.  But I can where the difference comes from.

My woodblock printing class was twice a month from January to March, meaning that it only met six times, two hours per session.  I also got started slightly late, so I really only got to attend a fraction of the lessons.  The classroom was on the third floor of an art building.  Although I really love woodblock printing and think it’s very fun, I do much better in small, intimate group settings, so the structure of the class made it hard for me to make any particularly close friends.  It also didn’t help that the class met so few times and ended so soon.  For outgoing people, I think classes with one teacher and many students work fine, but since I find it uncomfortable to approach unknown people and start talking, I couldn’t get past just the friendly “hello, how are you.”  To each his own, I suppose.

I did learn some techniques and information about woodblock printing that aren’t really spelled out in books.  And since the students outnumbered the teacher, sometimes I got help from fellow students who had dealt with the same problems and figured out ways around them.  I got to learn from an experienced expert as well as normal students who had some genius tips of their own.  During these moments, I could feel the semblance of community forming, but the end of the woodblock class came too fast, and I didn’t get to see any further development.  Had it kept going, despite my slightly asocial nature, I think I might have been able to make some good friends, similar to those in my Noh mask class.  Ironically, pretty much everyone in my woodblock class was also an ojiisan.  I keep being told that I have old-person interests.  I guess it might be true.

My advice to anyone studying abroad in Japan or anywhere is to definitely find a place where one belongs and to continue going for as long as possible.  I feel most part of a community at my Noh mask class, and I feel like my closest friends are there too.  And I think part of the reason I feel so at-home in my mask class is because I got started fairly early and continued going for nearly two semesters.  For the same reason, I think I wasn’t nearly as comfortable at my woodblock printing class.  But above all, I think it’s important to take part in an activity that’s interesting.  Since I like carving both masks and prints, attending class was always fun.  And because I was surrounded by others with similar interests, I always had something in common with the people around me.

Jackson Pietsch: Taiko + Igo

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Through my two CIP activities, Taiko drumming at Kitanotenmanguu Shrine and the Go club at Kyoto University, I learned several new skills. First and foremost were Taiko drumming and how to play Go, but a close second came from speaking with a good number of native Japanese people who were not as used to “dumbing down” their language for gaijin as my host parents, teachers, and other Japanese friends have been. I had to deal with speech that was much faster and more colloquial than what I was normally used to, and so had to practice both asking for clarification on specific parts of a sentence, and trying to grasp larger meanings from context. Luckily, the activities of Go and Taiko can usually be broken down and explained as one simple motion at a time, so as far as I knew there were never any terrible miscommunications.
I have not been to Go as often as Taiko, and every time I went there were different Kyodai students there, so I did not make any lasting connections through Go. However, despite the fact that I was generally unable to go to after-practice dinners or other functions, I was able to speak closely and in a friendly way with several of our other team members, and also to perform at the March 25th festival at Kitanotenmanguu. The festival alone was a great experience, and I’m glad to have been able to meet some of the people I did and participate in something I otherwise would never have the chance to.

Megan Turley: Kyudou

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To be honest, I wasn’t too confident anyone was actually going to let me choose kyudou for my Community Involvement Project, let alone willingly accept that my three days of attempted archery at Girl Scout camp was more than enough experience to dive right in and mangle my way through this well-respected, traditional Japanese sport. But I wanted to try, and my job was made infinitely simpler because I shared my enthusiasm with two other KCJS students who assured me that I would be a pro before I knew it. Thank god everyone had more confidence in me than I did.

By the first week I had been unsurprisingly labeled “一番弱い学生、” or “Number one weakest student,” by my sprightly seventy-something year-old kyudou teacher. I think we were all a little surprised at how easily we slipped into a rapport with the teachers and our more senior classmates. Apart from the routine greetings, or aisatsu, performed at the beginning and end of practices, there were few cultural hurdles for me to accidentally crash into. On top of that, the teachers kindly teased us as they corrected our form or told us to stop chattering among ourselves (much like our friendly reminders of “日本語だけ” in the Fusokan).

Sensei takes us to buy our uniforms at a kyudou store in Shiga Prefecture

Two and some-odd months later, I am shooting a bow that is as tall as I am into the center of a bale of hay at an alarmingly fast speed.  Last practice my senpai and teacher all commented that we had become “上手” – skilled. I take their praise with a grain of salt, because in comparison to my teacher’s over forty-years of training, my measly two seem almost disrespectful. At the same time, the older students (most middle age) are always so helpful, understanding, and truly warm to us that I cannot help but want to try my best and understand as much as I can about kyudou every day I am at practice. Every practice I will inevitably receive an invaluable instruction as to more gracefully lower my bow, or how to tie my obi, or even a piece of chocolate or a cell phone charm.  So, perhaps that comment not only applies to kyudou, but also how we have slipped into an easy routine with the dojo and it’s inhabitants. Although I may be living in Japan sans a host family, I feel as though the kyudou dojo has quietly and without much ceremony swept us under its wing.

I may be able to measure some of my growth by how accurately I can shoot an arrow or go through the motions, but kyudou, like many traditional Japanese endeavors, holds itself to a standard closer to artistry than sport. Kyudou is not about hitting the target at the center. Hitting the target at its center is simply the outcome that follows the feeling of shooting your bow with a conviction and accuracy that rings through your very core. It comes up through the bow as the string snaps back, and spreads through your body like a release of adrenaline as you keep your eyes steadily fixed at the target. If you feel that, whether your arrow hits or not is not luck, but inevitability.

Emily and I wear our new uniforms for the first time and our Senpai are impressed

My time at the kyudou dojo can’t really be summed up by how well I came to shoot an arrow, or how heavy a bow I can draw, but instead how at home I feel taking my place in the practice hall with these people who so unquestioningly let me give it “the old college try.” In the dojo it doesn’t matter if I am a foreigner or a woman or a college student. I am simply someone who wants to shoot with conviction, and so is everyone else. And on Mondays and Thursdays from four-thirty to five-thirty, I let that feeling ring through me like a bow after the string snaps back into place, and everything is right.

Trisha Martin: Zenryuji Nursery School

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Last autumn, I compared the different disciplining styles of both American and Japanese preschools in my English CIP blog. Although most of my observations in regards to discipline haven’t changed, the age groups to which I have taken observations from have changed.  Last semester I primarily worked with 4 to 5 year olds, which were some of the oldest children at the school. However, this semester I usually work with the 2 year olds. Despite the 2 year olds being adorably cute, I do not have as much opportunity to actually communicate with them, based on the fact they are indeed 2 years old. Not only do 2 year olds lack a sufficient Japanese vocabulary, they are way too embarrassed and scared by my presence to even attempt English beyond “hello”.

Therefore, rather than talking about the communication I have with the children at my CIP; I’d rather focus on a question I’ve always pondered about my CIP – the significance of time in a time conscious society. I arrive at my CIP roughly the same time every week – 12 noon to the minute. Not only am I afraid of arriving late because it would give both KCJS and American’s a bad reputation, but I’m afraid of arriving any earlier and getting in the teachers way, since they wouldn’t be prepared for more. However, despite me arriving exactly on time, I always manage to feel either absurdly early or extremely late. Apparently there is not exact start time for my CIP (or end time, for that matter). Sometimes I arrive at noon and the students are already mid-meal, in which case I scurry to grab my food and join a table feeling like I’ve somehow arrived very late (which is not the case). Otherwise, the students are still midst their mid-morning activities and they haven’t even started the lunch prep duties, in which case I feel like I’ve arrived too early (again, this is not the case) and am standing around uselessly until lunch actually begins. I find this lack of an exact start time to be a very interesting, considering just how time-conscious my Japanese peers, host family, and school experience have all been. I wonder if lunch time is not exact because there is more emphasis placed on the motions of “lunch” rather than the promptness of “time” at this point in the education system; preschoolers are educated on the way to do things, rather than the timely fashion in which it should be done. . For example, a child has not finished lunch until has every grain of rice is cleaned from their bowl, even if it takes that child more than an hour to do so. I couldn’t even imagine being given more than 45 minutes in my elementary school, let alone an hour to finish lunch. If I didn’t finish lunch on time, well too bad for me. I either had to re-pack it and take it home or throw it away.

Does anyone else face very interesting (either expected or unexpected) challenges when it comes to being “on time”‘?

David Glekel: Go

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For my CIP, I went to a Go Center in Karasuma. Go is an ancient Japanese strategy game that I’ve been playing for several years in America. Since learning, I had always wanted to be able to play Go in Japan, so I was very excited to finally get the opportunity to do so.

The first time I went into the club, located above a convenience store, I was overwhelmed. The two rooms were filled with older men and a few women hunched over Go boards, and there was hardly any sound but the clack of glass Go stones against the wooden boards. I introduced myself to the woman who was running the club, and she quickly found me an opponent to play. Everyone looked very surprised to see me there; it was clear very few foreigners ever came to the club. Luckily, all the members were welcoming from the beginning, asking where I came from and how long I had been playing.

As time went on I got to know some of the club’s regulars, and could ask them for games without waiting for the hostess to pair us up. Often after playing we would review the game together, but their mumbled kansai-ben often proved challenging to decipher. With time I got used to their idiosyncratic speech, and soon become able to converse more smoothly with some of the members.

The moment that most made me feel like I was accepted occurred a month or two into my stay. While I was waiting for a game, one of the men I often played with came up to me with a book in his hand. He bowed and presented it to me, saying that he thought it would help my studies in Go. It was a book of Go problems, and when I opened it I found a handwritten note from the man. It had been painstakingly written in English, and said “David san, I hope you will be the champion of your country.” After I read it and thanked him, the man self-consciously asked if I could understand his written English. I assured him I could and put the book in my bag. I left the Go center that day knowing that I had found a place where if I pushed myself to reach across the language barrier, I would be met halfway.

Melanie Berry: Volunteering at the Kyoto International Manga Museum

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Volunteering at the Kyoto International Manga Museum has been a fun and interesting but occasionally demanding experience. I have definitely learned a lot there, not only about manga itself but also about tourism in Japan, how the Japanese tend to view their own pop culture and foreigners’ perceptions of it, and the culture of the workplace. Adjusting to such a new environment, though, is not exactly simple. The main two difficulties I’ve encountered while volunteering are switching sets of social cues between the Japanese staff and foreign guests and interacting on a casual basis with the staff.

Overall, I have found that for the most part I can communicate fairly effectively with the staff of the museum, but occasionally I have had trouble switching between Japanese and English when conducting tours and answering questions. Switching between the languages themselves is not necessarily the problem, although that is sometimes difficult. Moreover, the various social cues you utilize while in a setting like a museum seem to differ to a certain extent between Japan and America. Though I’ve volunteered in an American museum before, it was difficult to bring a lot of what I learned there to this experience, as the way one greets customers and generally behaves around them seems to be generally a bit different here. It can also be rather jarring to switch from using formal language in Japanese with our supervisors to using English with the guests. One suddenly feels the instinct to make one’s language more formal toward the guest, although my intuition developed while working in an American museum tends to push me to want to seem friendlier, more welcoming, and therefore a little more informal. This has definitely been more interesting than it has been difficult, though. Figuring out the different ways to interact with both the guests and the staff makes every day fascinating.

In addition, bonding with the staff has been a little difficult, mainly because we are always in a constant work environment. I regularly talk to the two employees who supervise us, Yasui-san and Uramune-san, who are both extremely nice and friendly and also have occasionally been able to speak to some of the other employees, such as the kamishibai artist who performs shows at the museum. However, because our breaks are at different times from the rest of the employees, having time outside of the main areas of the museum to speak casually is rather rare. Because of this, it has admittedly been difficult to get to know people at the museum. Overall, though, I’m glad that I’ve gotten to know the employees I have met at the museum! It has been a great experience.

Hillary Fens: Cooking Class

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This is fun – I am supposed to sum up my experiences with KCJS’ Community Involvement Project, and I’ve only made it up to two of the six required CIP meetings. (April will be busy!) To be fair, I’ve been looking, as have Nakamura-sensei and Maeguchi-sensei. The problem is, I’ve been unwilling to spend more than sen, ni sen en per class.

To back up, my official CIP is cooking class. I can’t cook, and I like food – fairly straightforward reasoning in signing up for cooking classes.

On top of learning how to make simple Japanese recipes and, of course, eating what we make, cooking class provides great language instruction without the day-in day-out feel of a classroom. The cooking classes are all in Japanese, technical cooking terms and all. But because you watch the instructors go through whatever step they’re explaining, new kotoba are easy to soak up! Learn new words while you learn how to cook – it’s great for someone in a lower language level.

The specific group I committed to for the semester is Kyoto Cooking Circle, KCC. They meet once a month at Kyoto Wings (super convenient! near Daimaru on Shijo), and the price is subsidized for foreigners only, at 1000. Most importantly, the class really caters to non-native Japanese speakers – I’ve always been made to feel included.

The instructor spoke at a normal pace, but would repeat herself if she felt we did not understand; many times, we would punch whatever unknown word into a denshi jisho then repeat the word in English, and she would confirm or deny it. I’ve never taken a cooking class in America, but I can’t imagine it being too different in terms of teaching style or use of language.

Thinking about American and Japanese cooking classes, my speculation is that the structure and attitude of classes of this type differs. In my time with KCC, I was always in a group, and it was in groups that we later went around to introduce ourselves. Everyone was engaged in the self-introduction period of class. After class, no one tried to shirk housekeeping duties like washing dishes, cleaning, etc. No one leaves right after the cooking portion is over. The social atmosphere fosters a sense of pride in the group. I’m not just in KCC to learn how to cook, I’m also there to form connections with other group members.

Lindsay Kosasa: Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness)

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After spending a couple of semesters researching Butoh, I have finally translated my research into a physical praxis. Because this workshop is more or less open to anyone, our focus is on body awareness via various breathing and visualization exercises. Some people see dance as a universal language-and falling head first into this workshop with little knowledge of “dance” terminology in Japanese confirmed this notion. The first two workshops were simply watch and copy, but by the third workshop I could focus less on the physical and more on the mental part of the exercises. In Butoh, one’s thought process is equally, if not more, important than the physical aesthetics, and that it itself is difficult to grasp for most people.

Movement, whether we are conscious of it or not, initiates with a breath.  The aim for many of the warm up exercises involves becoming aware of our breath and channeling such energy to various parts of the body. Each movement initiates from an inhale, is held, and returns with an exhale. Finding your body’s center after each breath is essential for gaining complete awareness and control.

The metaphors and imagery we translate into our bodies creates a sensation for us as movers, and alters the space we occupy. Through this mutual change in time and space, we become attune to our individual bodies in space.  For example, in one exercise, we had an image for various body parts, and being aware of all at once, we walked through space:

1. A waterfall is flowing from the crown of your head down your back to the floor. 2. Your favorite flower is at your chest, and your nose takes notice and smells. 3. A 1000 year old forest is on both shoulders. 4. There is a lake in front of your stomach and a man lives at the shore. 5. There are rock formations and mountains in front of your knees. 6. A young family with a new born baby lives behind your knees.

I continuously question the meaning of conceptual body practices, and in performance, how much of the movement is still strictly personal and therefore goes unnoticed by the audience? After seeing my Butoh teacher perform, and considering society’s expectation of “performance”, how much does she, as a performer, sacrifice to satisfy those expectations? I have found it wonderful that the Japanese movement artists/visual artists who I’ve met or researched don’t give two cents about what society expects from them as artists. They have their own reasons for doing what they do, and they don’t owe an explanation to anyone.

Joomi Kim: NicoNicoTomato Volunteer

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My CIP project at NicoNicoTomato isn’t the first volunteer experience I’ve had at a hospital. It’s also not the first volunteer position I’ve had with children or in a foreign language I’m not comfortable in. Throughout all my different experiences in America however, my time at NicoNicoToma has been strangely unique and similar to them all.

In a very basic sense, NicoNicoTomato is very….Japanese. As obvious as that is, the famous “customer service”, attention to detail, and efficiency I found and expected everywhere in Japan came to life in a new form within the hospital setting. My previous encounters with volunteering, medical-related experiences, and kids in general were never very organized or based on anything further than the pure essentials of the job. Flowers, snacks, and games were always secondary or a means of killing time. Without me who would wipe the tables down, wheel the patients, or run through basic vocabulary? These tasks, however menial, made me feel like an integral part of the system I participated in, and although I knew NicoNicoToma would be fundamentally different from everything else I had been through, I was caught off-guard once I realized how exposed and inexperienced I was in this new form of contributing.

Once I started inserting toy after toy into plastic bags, taking time to match the most suitable ribbon color with the content inside, I slowly began to realize that the goal of NicoNicoTomato picks up after all the basic work I had done in my other jobs and volunteering attempts. Perfectly gluing a paper bear’s paws to make it hug a heart seemed like a colossal waste of time at first, especially since I sucked at it. I was used to brushing over the details to get the job done, despite rough edges, and I was proud of it; but the other volunteers brought me down to their pace. NicoNicoToma volunteers are kind, seasoned, and deliberate. I began to see how the program pushed itself not to babysit the children or educate them, but to provide a childhood and memories. The painstakingly simple details mattered. The quality and care mattered. They were constantly changing the decorations and photographs in the children’s ward, creating an atmosphere of progress and relationships that I doubt many other long-term patients in the hospitals throughout Japan and the rest of the world are able to have. They appreciate the little sparks in daily life, and the constant waves of hard work NicoNicoToma puts into its little patients and events is one of the coolest personal accounts I have of watching and experiencing some very positive aspects of Japanese values first-hand. I am still really shy and embarrassed when speaking with Japanese people, but I am glad that I have these small, steady revelations in NicoNicoTomato that provide a new way for me to experience Japanese society and giving in general.