「KCJS 36 (2024-2025)」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Eve Koslofsky: Volunteering at Mitsuba kindergarten

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Above is a portrait drawn for me by one of the students at Mitsuba!

For my CIP I decided to volunteer at Mitsuba kindergarten. Each week I went to Mitsuba and for two hours I played with the kids and helped them out with small tasks. I feel like I learned so much from this experience, both in my language skills and my cultural understanding of Japanese schools. The kids were all so sweet, curious, and friendly, welcoming me into their classroom with open arms. The teachers were also very generous, something I was very grateful for whenever I was confused or stuck! Anyone who is interested in this CIP, I would say give it a shot – especially if you enjoy working with little kids and want to work on your speaking or listening skills.

Raymond McCaskey – Kyoto Justice Baseball

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My CIP was joining a local baseball team in Kyoto and practicing with the team / getting acquainted with the players and coaches. I play baseball at my home university, so I thought exploring Japanese baseball and the culture surrounding it would be interesting and something I could bring back to the states.

I learned quite a bit and realized the culture of teamwork and equal loads in helping out during practice. Even in a not extremely competitive environment / league, the players all hustled and helped out in a number of ways from finding equipment, clean up, and even assisting in drills for other players.

My advice for incoming students would be to find a CIP that you can really connect with and be invested in. I think having a common passion for baseball and a relative sports culture connection really helped spark other connections with other people in my CIP, even if nationality and language were worlds apart. Having a genuine interest, knowledge, or curiosity in whatever CIP you select will help everything that follows be more smooth and less stressful in my opinion.

Noah Goldfischer: Katsura Running Club

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This semester, I joined my host father’s best friends community running club. This long distance informal running club meets twice a week to run from Katsura station to various iconic locations throughout Kyoto. I joined them once a week on Saturday or Sunday mornings.

A lot of the members of the group were training for a 100 kilometer race in early October, so I was really pushed to run further than I had ever before, even completing my first half-marathon. We went on runs to Arashiyama, Fushimi Inari, and various other iconic locations in Kyoto. Not only did I have the opportunity to push myself physically, but I also had the opportunity to push myself linguistically as I would be running for multiple hours engaging with and getting to know other members of the community. My favorite part was the fact that after our morning run, I would be so proud of myself for getting out of bed and immediately accomplishing two really difficult things: running over 15 kilometers and practicing Japanese with native speakers.

I would really recommend this CIP to people who are willing to push themselves to the max. As a casual runner who would run maybe twice a month before doing this, this definitely would push me physically and mentally. However, even if running is not your thing, I would recommend any KCJS student to do a CIP that takes them out of their comfort zone and pushes them to their limits. Running, just like the process of learning Japanese, is something that is painful and difficult, but it is the fact that it is a challenge that makes the process worthwhile and satisfying.

Faith Li: Ikebana at Kadou Enshu

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My CIP activity is Ikebana–the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as  kadō. 

I’m taking lessons at Kado Enshu, a school which has locations in Marutamachi (group lessons), and Kitaoji (private lessons). A typical Ikebana lesson for me lasts around 1.5 hours, and consists of arranging my flowers (almost always in upright , moribana  style), with some suggestions from Sensei throughout the process, and then with some final tweaking from Sensei.

Here, I want to share the pros and cons of taking Ikebana lessons, as well as some advice:

Firstly, Ikebana is definitely one of the pricier CIP choices! I paid 30,000 yen (around $200 USD circa 2024) for 8 lessons per month. On top of this, I also paid a 2500 yen annual membership fee, and maybe around 30 USD for a kenzan  and flower scissors. KCJS is able to cover a portion of these fees, but there will still be a sizeable portion (well over $100 USD) left to pay. I believe that these prices are on the cheaper side as well!

Next, is the fact that you’re not going to get a lot of Japanese practice in–you’ll be silently arranging your flowers for the bulk of the session, and this is very much a solitary activity. This is especially true for me , since my Sensei speaks fluent English, so he often just spoke to me in English. If language immersion is a priority for you, I’d recommend something like volunteering with children.

Finally, like any traditional Japanese craft, Ikebana requires a lot of patience, and I ended up progressing slower than I expected. So, don’t expect to progress too rapidly, since it’s an art that’s meant to be perfected over one’s lifetime. Make sure that you’re sufficiently interested in Ikebana to be willing to do the same style of arrangements for pretty much 2 months straight!

If you’d like to pursue Ikebana, I highly suggest purchasing at least your own kenzan and scissors. As for the Ikebana vase, the actual Ikebana vases are quite expensive (hundreds! shudder), so I just use this random bowl that can fit a kenzan and some water. This way, once you bring your flowers home, rather then sticking them in some random vase, you can re-arrange them yourself at home. Kadou Enshu provides me with kenzan, flower bowls, and flowers while I’m practicing during class, but the only piece of my arrangement that I’m allowed to keep and bring home with me are the actual flowers.

Ultimately, I’m glad that I chose to pursue Ikebana, because it’s something that I wouldn’t have the chance to study in America (at least not without an exorbitant fee), and I would consider this a more transferable skill as far as traditional activites go (unlike something heavily ritualistic and intangible like Sado ), since I can certainly continue to make floral arrangements in the future as well. Also, it’s just a super Zen activity with a beautiful philosophy and history behind it!

Maxwell Maveus: Ikebana at Kadou-enshu

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I practiced ikebana (生け花), the art of traditional Japanese flower arrangement, at the Kadou-enshu school under the headmaster Ken Ichiju Ashida. I primarily created works under the moribana style, learning how to prune and shape plant materials, ikebana’s components (shin, hikae, gyo, do, and tome), and some of ikebana’s philosophical bases. 

I had been interested in ikebana before coming to KCJS, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to train under an ikebana master in Kyoto—let alone in private lessons in his home. My typical lesson consisted of 1.5 hours (that always sped by) of learning what each flower/plant he had for the day was, considering where everything should go, and placing the materials in the kenzan. The most invaluable component was the advice the headmaster gave me at the end of each session—he would carefully sit in front of my arrangement, make subtle changes while describing why he did them, and transform my amateur work into something beautiful. 

I advise all incoming students doing private lessons to acknowledge how kind most instructors are. I was scared to accidentally offend my headmaster by speaking up when I wanted to do something different than his arrangement chart he made for each lesson, but the whole time he encouraged me to do as I aesthetically saw fit! You will have so much more fun and grow closer with your CIP instructor if you aren’t afraid to be your (polite) self.