「KCJS 24 (2012-2013)」カテゴリーアーカイブ

サラ・アレン：上京中学校で英語アシスタント

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将来、子供と接する職業に就きたいので、CIPを決める時に必ず子供と接することができるCIPを調べました。それで、同志社大学のすぐそばにある上京中学校のことを聞きました。まず、上京中学校に行って、英語の先生と教頭先生と会って、一週間、一回ボランティアすることになりました。

私にとって、上京中学校の所在地はすごく便利です。同志社大学から自転車で５分です。上京中学校は町にあるから、ほとんどの学生はバスか電車で通学しています。

バレンタインの前に、私は授業で学生を教える手伝いすると思いました。今、三回行ったことがありますが、一回だけ授業でボランティアしました。他の時、中学校三年生の学生の英語能力試験の勉強を手伝いました。この時、学生のマン釣マン会話の練習をします。私は授業にいるより、マンツマンのほうが好きです。何故から、私はもっと影響があると思うからです。授業で教えると、３０人いるし、先生も教えているので、学生はよく内容が分からないでクラスを出ます。マントマンだと、学生がしっかり内容が分かるようにできます。これをするため、私は日本語と英語をつかいます。これで、学生が絶対英語の単語や文法が分かるだけで、私にも日本語の勉強になります。

英語アシスタントをしている時に学生は英語の文を読むのが得意ですが、読解力はあまり強くないことに気が付きました。その上、学生は聞き取りもあまり強くないです。これは、授業で読むことを強調して、他のことを強調しているからです。しかし、日本人の学生は英語を読むのを得意だけど、会話や理解は弱いです。

ボランティアできるのはとてもいい経験だと思います。日本の文化が体験できます。例えば、学校に行く前に、私は日本の学生は先生にとても丁寧に話すと思いました。でも、先生に丁寧でない言葉をよく聞きます。しかも、先生が怒る時、学生に怖く叫びます。

日本の学年度はもうすぐ終わりますので、３月になったら新しいCIPを探さなければなりません。でも、その時まで、上京中学校で英語アシスタントをするのを楽しみます。

上京中学校のウェブサイト：http://cms.edu.city.kyoto.jp/weblog/index.php?id=200707

 

 

サンディー・リー：にこにこトマト

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にこにこトマトは京都大学病院のボランティアグループとして、入院した子供達が喜ぶようにお祝い日のギフトを作ったり、パーティーを計画したり、募金イベントを行ったり、子供達と遊んだり、ニュースレターを作ったり、切り抜き帖を作ったりする。

にこにこトマトは毎週火、水、木曜日に朝十一時から五時半まで病院の四階で活動をする。今学期のボランティアは大体四十代以上のおばちゃん達と大学生で、一日に十人ぐらい病院にボランティアをしに来る。

ボランティアは毎日十二時ごろ一緒に昼御飯を食べて、四時ごろおやつを食べながらお茶を飲む。ボランティアや活動の準備をする部屋は十人にとって小さいから、あたたかくて時々息がしにくいけれども、おばちゃん達はクラフトがすごく上手でとっても親しみやすくて元気な人だ。それに彼らは様々な個人的な話を聞くのが好きで、知識を広げたいと思っているので、近づきやすい人だ。

レイラ・リン：弓道

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今学期も先学期のように弓道を練習しています。毎週二回武道センターへ練習に行きます。練習の雰囲気は相変わらず穏やかですが、いつもとても楽しいです。弓道の先生はとても可愛くて、親切な人で、先生が好きではない生徒がいないと思います。先生と出会って、本当によかったと思います。または、初心者として来る生徒はふだん様々な外国人なので、練習中に色々な外国の話を聞くことができて、いっぱい勉強になりました。私は弓道がすごく難しいと思って、色々なことがまた分からないけど、弓道の穏やかな時間を大切にします。

Michael Li: Volunteering at NicoNico Tomato

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My CIP experience, volunteering at NicoNico  Tomato at Kyoto University Hospital (which I plan on continuing next semester), has been both relaxing and worthwhile. Every week would provide a respite from the seemingly never-ending workload.  While I would help out with whatever activity or task needed to be accomplished, I always had the opportunity to communicate with others and actually use what I learned.

Having volunteered in a hospital in New York, it was interesting to note how the atmospheres and environments differ. NicoNico Tomato has a strong sense of community and volunteer base. Although it is volunteer run, they take their duties and commitment seriously. For example, they personally make handmade cards for most of the major holidays. They take several weeks to cut out paper in shapes of numerous characters and to create backgrounds for the card. I couldn’t wrap my head around the notion of spending so much time for one project. However, after I started distributing the cards to the children at a Halloween party and saw their reaction, I knew that it was time worth spent. It was occasions such as these where you realize the disparity between cultural mindsets.

In addition to realizing cultural differences, I have become less worried about making mistakes and to constantly engage in conversation even it if is just asking them questions about how to do something. While being the only foreigner at first made me uneasy, it naturally gravitated peoples’ attention and conversation to me (which was nice not having to always make the first initiative to engage in conversation). While the conversations ranged from talking with students, activity leaders, to other volunteers, conversations never ceased to be engaging—both interesting and allowing me use various vocabulary and formalities because of the varying range of situations. Engaging in conversation about varying customs to discussing similar music interests or even just hearing about someone’s day allowed me to not only to better develop my Japanese,  but also allowed me to better connect and forge bonds with other members of the volunteer group.

Van Dinh: Farming

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When I started my CIP, I didn’t really know what to expect from it. To be honest, after the initial meeting with my CIP contact, I wasn’t really looking forward to it at all. It wasn’t because farming didn’t seem interesting or fun, but because I had such a hard time following along with what he was saying. My Japanese isn’t what you would call good. Of course, I knew that in theory, I should slowly improve as the program goes on, but still, I had my worries. What if I couldn’t talk to anyone there? Or no one understands me because my Japanese is so terrible?

During the first weekend, I admit that I didn’t really make a lot of effort to talk to the other people there. It was intimidating and I was afraid of making a lot of mistakes and embarrassing myself. However, they were really nice and would ask me simple questions about myself. Since I didn’t know what else to say, I just asked them their questions back at them. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something I thought. As time went on, it became a little easier to talk to the Japanese people. I found that it was better to talk to someone one on one versus in a group. It was less scary that way. Also, I adopted a strategy of asking them questions so I wouldn’t have to talk all the time.

In the end, I’ve learned that in order to progress with my Japanese, I need to stop worrying about how I can’t speak Japanese perfectly. People will respond to my efforts, and if I do make mistakes (which is inevitable), then they will be kind enough to correct them so that I won’t do it again in the future.

Joseph Lachman: Kyoto University Graduate Student Tennis Circle

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Kyoto University Graduate Student Tennis Circle

The Kyoto University graduate student’s tennis circle has been an interesting experience so far for me. Recently, it has become more difficult to hold practices due to poor weather, cold, and busy schedules. Despite some of these minor setbacks, I have still enjoyed enriching cultural experiences as a member of the group.

First of all, I am the only foreigner in this tennis group, and furthermore, I am the only undergraduate student, making me the youngest by several years. As a result, the first source of confusion that surfaced was with regard to formality. In terms of tennis experience, I am relatively advanced compared to most of the group members, but of course, I am younger than all of them, and a new member of the group. I was unsure how to address people at first, and it was difficult enough trying to remember a large number of new names. However, the group seems to adhere to a rule of addressing people by their last names, although I seemed to be the one exception to that rule, since I requested that they call me Joseph.

The group seems to have a healthy mixture of skill levels, although I wish the more experienced players would show up more often. The composition of the group changes significantly each week. I attended one dinner party for the group as well, and to be honest, I didn’t recognize the group at first, seeing so many new faces.

I would definitely recommend a tennis group for exchange students of all levels. The sport is not based too heavily on verbal communication, so it’s possible to enjoy the practices without a lot of unusual vocabulary, and there’s time between rallies and after practice to socialize with the other members. Also, tennis is one of the sports in Japan where a very large proportion of the terms are borrowed from English. “ナイスラリー、Nice rally” and “ナイスショットnice shot” can be heard countless times throughout practices. The phrase in Japanese you will probably hear more than anything else is, “すみません、excuse me/sorry.” If you hit a good shot that your partner had trouble getting back, you apologize. If you miss a shot because your partner hit it well, you apologize. In other words, no matter what your skill level and relationship to your partner, you apologize. It can be excessive at times, but overall the cordiality is nice, slightly amusing, and still preferable to rudeness.

After nearly a full semester as part of this group, I am for the most part a regular member of the group, and treated as such. One incident that gave good evidence for this was a conversation with some of the other members about hockey in Japan versus America. I was asked about teams in America, and if there was a team in Seattle. I mentioned that we have a minor team, the Everett Silvertips. The “Everett Silvertips” is a terribly awkward phrase to say in katakana Japanese, so I left it as is when I mentioned it. The others looked slightly stunned for a moment, explaining to me that they occasionally forgot that I’m a native English speaker, since I hardly ever used English during practices.

It seems that tennis can be an enjoyable extracurricular activity, regardless of Japanese skill level. If you’re looking for immersion into Japanese culture, I might recommend choosing something more traditional. In retrospect, I think it might have been more valuable to use my Taiko drumming class as my CIP, English tutoring, or volunteer work with disabled Japanese youth. However, it is still both interesting and useful to gain a new perspective on an activity one has only viewed from an American perspective, and see how it has been adopted and tailored for Japanese society, including ways in which it reflects aspects of Japanese culture, while still retaining foreign aspects as well. Since I will be continuing at KCJS for the spring semester, I plan to look into other potential CIP activities, but will most likely still continue practicing with the tennis circle.

Aaron Browning: EMBG (Light Music Circle)

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EMBG stands for Eastern Mountain Boys and Girls, just one of the many groups known as karui music circles (lit. ‘light,’ meaning amateur, or recreational) that gather weekly at the Kyoto University campus. Ever since I applied for KCJS I had wanted to do something of this sort, because I was interested in experiencing a young people’s rock and roll culture in Japan. After searching for a few weeks to find a circle that would allow me to participate, a friend managed to talk to a member of an associated Kyoto University karui music circle, which eventually resulted in me and Jerome (my classmate, friend, and partner in rock and roll) being graciously allowed to join.

The presence of these types of clubs at Japanese universities is a really great thing, and although my home institution is quite small (around 1,500 undergraduates), I imagine that similar organizations are quite rare even within large American universities. It has been neat not only to be a part of something fun and entertaining, but also to encounter a new type of club that I had previously been unfamiliar with. However, what has struck me the most is all about the quantity of these types of groups and the members within them, accounting for a truly robust group of circles focusing on the recreational act of forming various bands with friends and rocking out in a variety of genres.

The circles at Kyoto University all meet at a typical classroom building known as yon-kyou, which is transformed in the early evenings of meeting days from a building of classrooms to a building of practice and performance rooms. When approaching the heart of the campus, one can hear the muffled fuzz and rumble of instruments collectively sounding from various rooms in the building. Vast lines of bicycles all but cover the ground of the building’s large concrete lot. As the sun sets, cycling students gradually pour in, and after all the equipment has been loaded into each club’s assigned meeting space (usually gear transported from a rented storing space and unloaded from the back of a club van), the activities commence. At any given time, there might be sound emanating from the building’s brick walls as a few groups of people chat outside the entrance. It is apparent that this place, much like the local venues and bars in American cities, is more than a simply a place to play music or listen to music. It is a place to relax, hang out with friends, and bond over music as a common activity.

The atmosphere at EMBG has been welcoming and relaxed. While by no means disorganized or uncoordinated, EMBG is quite flexible in its scheduling and sessions, I have found. More or less, the most important part of these meetings is simply showing up. Members see each other, they unload gear together, they chat with each other, they listen and play music together. Depending on whether or not there is a specific band scheduled to perform for the rest of the circle’s enjoyment (called a raibu; ‘live’), a meeting can more or less function as a collective practice room. On a typical day, friends will sit or stand around, and if not playing an instrument of their own, the are yelling to chat over the cacophony of the collective jam. I have even had my own opportunity to try my hand at playing drums with a third year law student who was able to summon a few riffs on his guitar that I could play along to. We messed around with songs by two piece bands like The White Stripes and Japandroids. We were planning to perform at the November Festival, Kyoto University’s own gakuensai, but unfortunately we both became too busy to follow through on this. Nonetheless, I was able to attend a portion of the NF performance, and it was a blast. Around twenty bands performed, and that was only for this specific circle.

But it’s more than just music, of course. I’ve made friends here, with whom I’ll often go to eat after meetings are over. People talk and often share ideas about music, and one can tell that this is what essentially brings them closer, but yet there is much more here. Ultimately, it is music formed through fellowship, and fellowship formed through music. And I feel thrilled to have taken part.

Martha Levytsky: FBI and 交流会

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My experience with FBI was short but interesting. The club only met about once a month for a member movie marathon, and otherwise met in different locations for film shoots. With KCJS trips, it was difficult to meet with this CIP. The few times I met with everyone, I had an enjoyable time and would have liked to talk to the members more.

In order to participate in more CIP activities I started joining weekly 交流会. The Japanese members were very warm and easy to talk to. I spoke mostly in Japanese with them, but when they asked to speak English, I found it strangely uncomfortable and could not wait to switch back to Japanese. I will continue participating in 交流会 and hopefully next semester be a more active member in FBI. I am surprised that by going to 交流会 I do not feel like I am missing out on my other CIP. The 交流会 students are much easier to talk to as they are conducting a meeting with the intention of meeting with international students. FBI, while friendly, is a bit harder to feel comfortable in because the students are probably not used to foreign exchange students joining their already close team.

By the end of this semester’s CIP activities, I have discovered that speaking to Japanese students feels fairly similar to speaking with my host parents. I was pleasantly surprised by how warm and welcoming the 交流会 students were and will have to strongly think about staying with them during my spring semester. Though there is a schedule during every meeting, it feels very casual and I enjoy the time I spend with everyone. By talking to the Japanese students I learned various things, such as American stereotypes felt by Japanese students. It was a fun exchange. Each of us had an Ipod or Iphone so we exchanged our favorite apps and games. Our group discussed different hand gestures and their meanings in Japan and America. The gestures themselves were the same but their meanings were quite different. Every student I met was very polite, and offered their own dinner for others. My experience in America and Japan are entirely different, simply because of the polite, open manner of the Japanese students.

Giovanny Jorge: International Language Exchange

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I would imagine my CIP experience was very different from my fellow KCJS students, at least I would hope so. Coming to Japan I was really excited at the prospect of joining Doshisha’s orchestra, especially since I have not played in about three years. However that did not go as planned as detailed in my previous blog. Of course after that fell through I had to look for a different CIP to join which led me to the Doshisha Figure Building Club and the Music Game Club.
Doshisha’s Figure Building Club (模型研究会）seemed like an amazing opportunity to expand my already growing hobby of building Gundam. The emails went well enough, although I could not understand the phone call at all. This turned out to be a precursor for how the club would end up being, a complete lack of understanding. I went to the meeting with a Gundam in hand, knowing that at the very least I would come out of it with a new figure for my desk, but I did not expect the massively awkward atmosphere that lied in wait for me. While trying to make conversation with those around me in the three and a half hours I was there for, I was greeted with one of either two possibilities. Possibility one: a conversation would start and I would have no idea what the other person said or possibly two:  I would be ignored. Either way, I did not leave the club a happy camper nor can I say I learned anything besides the fact that building Gundam is an excellent way to distract yourself from the awkward situations.
On to the Music Game Club (Do it!音ゲー) then. The meeting room is basically an ovular table, set up like a conference room, with no games set up. The members were really sweet though I could not understand them very well. I think that if I had another KCJS student with me it might have gone a lot better. I was just a little disappointing that the club does not actually play games at the regular meetings. What I learned here was that in America if I were to hear about a music game club, then I can assume that they play games during the regular meetings, unlike here where they just spoke about their interests.
The CIP that I have gone the most to is a language exchange meeting which I go to with a few other students. Those people are really nice and they make a huge effort in making sure we understand the conversation. Unfortunately, since it took about three months to finally settle on the 交流会 I have not had the chance to learn many new words or make new friends. The reason why it took so long is that coupled with our workload and the obvious desire to sight-see and experience Japan outside of classroom walls, I really did not have the time to actively search for something that fits our needs, schedule, and financial constraints. All in all the CIP program is a good attempt at giving us opportunities to expand our Japan experience, but at the end of the day the program is basically handing someone a book of school activities and saying, “Find something soon, because you’re being graded on it”. If you can not end up doing something you really want, in my case orchestra, then you still have to do something regardless of whether you are interested in it and I believe that is a pretty big flaw.

Merrick Williams: Hiking and 交流会

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When I began the mountain climbing CIP, I was very excited for it. I tried to have some kind of contact every week but it just became very difficult, but right at that time, I was told about a language exchange meeting that took place every Friday at Doshisha, and I have since begun attending that.

Although it is a language exchange program, and most of the members are capable of English as well as Japanese, at the meetings Japanese is by far the more widely spoken language, which is of course preferable to me. I find I learn the most about the Japanese language and culture when the discussion gets away from the more heavily organized discussions and we are able to just talk freely amongst ourselves. Numerous conversations have been had about simple differences we find about American culture and Japanese culture – it was a funny surprise when comparing stereotypes that while Americans often think of the Japanese as short, the Japanese think of Americans as tall. What I am most often struck by is actually the amount of American and Western culture that has been adopted by the Japanese and that they use on a daily basis, both in terms of language and also culture. It is so strange to me that their culture has evolved in such a way that makes it feel foreign but also strangely similar at the same time.

I always also enjoy asking about specific parts of Japanese culture and being able to get answers from similar aged college students about daily life and the smaller aspects of culture that you don’t have the opportunity to learn about in school. These kind of discussions usually lead to comparisons, and it is always fun learning that neither of us know the other’s culture well, and often what either thought was very normal can actually be quite different in meaningful ways. However, in the end, I guess the old cliché is true about how really, as different as we are, we’re really all just alike.

I am excited to continue with this group next semester, as well as participate in the hiking club as often as possible, and continue to forge strong bonds with the people that I meet.