「KCJS 28 (2016-2017)」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Jaime Craven: Ohara Gakuin

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For my CIP, I volunteered as an assistant English teacher at a school in scenic Ohara. On Mondays I took the subway to Kokusaikaikan Station, the northernmost stop on the Karasuma Line, and then rode a bus into the mountains where the school was located. The full trip was about one hour there and one hour back, relative to Doshisha.

My teacher recommended Ohara Gakuin as my CIP because of my previous teaching experience in both America and Japan. However, this was my first time in a school so small. From first through eighth grade, the total head count was just seventy students!

Every week I joined a different group of students – usually two per visit – and helped out with whatever exercises the teacher had planned for the day. My role, which I initially thought would be mostly demonstrating pronunciation, was more participatory than expected. We played games to strengthen vocabulary, and conducted mini interviews to practice grammar. Because of the small class sizes, it was easy to make sure that everyone got a chance to participate. Occasionally, instead of a lesson, the students would rehearse plays, or prepare for the various school festivals sprinkled through the fall semester. Even when returning to a familiar class, no two visits to Ohara Gakuin were the same.

It was fascinating to watch as the students intuited their own language skills over time. Even their mistakes showed instinctive pattern recognition: swapping out “took a bath” for “have a bath,” for example. They worked hard to make themselves understood in class, even if the exact rules or vocabulary for the situation escaped them. In every lesson, the teachers encouraged them to think creatively about the topic at hand, going beyond what was laid out in the textbook.

As an English teacher, I tried to use as little Japanese as possible, as was expected of me. Of course, in doing so, there is always a danger that the students will be too daunted to even respond, let alone retain new information. I also worried about playing into the stereotype of a foreigner who doesn’t speak a word of Japanese. In the end, I compromised by speaking only in English, but also making sure that they knew I was listening when they spoke Japanese. Nodding along and laughing at their jokes went a long way in showing that I understood. This, in turn, made them feel more comfortable when constructing their own English sentences, knowing they could switch back to their mother tongue at any time if they needed a quick break.

In every class, the students proved themselves to be unflappably confident and attentive, and I was fortunate enough to meet as many as possible during my time there. This CIP activity comes highly recommended for any KCJS student interested in education!

 

Alex Hall : Kyoto University Basketball Circle

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I joined Kyoto University’s Free Club, a basketball circle, thinking that because I had been playing basketball since I was young, it would allow me to make connections with people based off of common ground. This was a correct choice in my eyes, as it felt natural to play and I could focus my energies on making friends in between scrimmages. While many KCJS students probably want to delve into something “new” and “Japanese”, I would suggest choosing something natural as their CIP, so they too can make valuable connections instead of focusing on learning something new.

Another thing that I feel I did correctly in the past few months with Free Club is saying “yes” to as many invitations as possible. Because of this, I got put into various Line group chats, grabbed meals with various members of the circle, and even got to go to the Autumn Camp, a group trip to Adogawa. The whole point of the CIP is to become a member of some community, and I believe the only way to truly become a member of any group is to interact with them as much as possible.

One of my fears in joining Free Club was navigating the complex Japanese hierarchy revolving around age. And while this exists (first-years always mop the court and most of my closest friends in the circle are my fellow second-years), it was not as strict as I believed. Those older than me would forgive me the occasionally omission of さん, and those younger than me didn’t really seem to be afraid of asking me to rotate faster on defense, etc. That being said, I would caution those joining university circles about the delicate balance you have to strike when it comes to these sorts of things. On one hand, I wanted to get to know everyone, and would try to talk to everyone from first-years to Ph.D. students. On the other hand, I had to be cautious of appearing rude. As a foreign student, I’m sure I got some more leeway on this issue than most, but at the same time I feel like I still made some missteps that I hope future students can avoid. My advice would be to use the です/ます form most of the time, until you feel certain that the other party is comfortable enough with you for you to stop using it. That is probably the most important thing – to not judge things from your own static point of view, but to try and see them through the eyes of the other circle members.

Free Club’s website: http://freeclub.oops.jp/

Lahna "Fury" Sheron: L’s Cat Rescue

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After a few attempts to join more KCJS-typical CIPs, like an aikido circle and a choir, I sat down and considered how I actually wanted to participate in Kyoto’s community. The answer to this question, like many others in my life, was cats. I had volunteered for a few years with cats back in America, so I knew the gist of what I was signing up for. My language class sensei located a shelter about a minute’s walk from the Kamikatsura train station. （「＝L’s=猫の家族探し」。）
It clicked early on to me that the patient people who worked at L’s were willing to guess at my dubious vocabulary until they understood what I was saying, to my relief.
The first day I got there, there were three kittens who had been born only the previous week and abandoned in the street by their mother, pictured here: http://catls.blog5.fc2.com/blog-entry-477.html
I got to see them saved by the people working there, and sometimes even care for them myself, which was tremendously satisfying since I’d only ever volunteered with cats over the age of 15 back in the states. I remember one week I became very startled to see a very large bump on one of their bellies. I was extremely worried because I’d only ever seen that size of bump on cats who had cancer. I quickly looked up the word for tumor and told the owner of the shelter. She kind of laughed and told me to my relief that it was just a hernia. I don’t know how that little guy got a hernia at three weeks old, but he’s still fine scampering around and I know the word for tumor now.
This is just one of the many stories I have of the good people at L’s saving lives and legitimately caring about their animals. The interesting thing people don’t tell you about many shelters in Japan is that they, like L’s, take place in private homes and living spaces, and are filled with animals to which volunteers donate their time, money, and love. I was shocked to learn this, and am elated there are such good people in Japan fighting under the radar to save animals’ lives, both inside and outside NPO’s.

Anna Kelly: Volunteering at a Museum

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For my community involvement project I have been volunteering at the museum and archives at the Kyoto Institute of Technology. The museum specializes in different fields of design, and has a wide collection of antique posters, radios, art books, and more. The most recent exhibitions on display were about foreign advertisements related to food, and the Dadaist artist, May Ray, respectively.

The role that I play at the museum changes every week depending on what kind of tasks there are that need to be done. In my time there I have helped take photos to document antiques, set up and take down exhibitions, frame posters to go into new exhibitions, and enter data from old art books. Although it is probably the most tedious of my tasks, I find looking through the art books the most interesting. Some of the books were published as far back as the Meiji Period, so I have had the opportunity to learn something about old kanji that is generally not used anymore. For example, I never would have guessed that 学 used to be 學, 芸 used to be 藝, 十 can be 拾 in official documents, or that the number twenty (廿) has its own kanji!

Because I worked at a museum instead of joining a club or circle at Doshisha or Kyoto University, I didn’t have many opportunities to meet others my age through my CIP. However, I do feel that I am lucky to have had the opportunity to have a somewhat job-like experience in Japan, and although they may have not been college students, the people I met were great and taught me a lot.

 

Here is the museum’s website, if you are interested:

https://www.kit.ac.jp/en/research/museum-and-archives/

Lauren Levine: Kyoto Walking Circle

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For my CIP I knew that I wanted to be in a relaxed environment with Japanese students my own age so that I would be able to engage the other club members as peers. For this reason I chose to join the Kyoto Walking Circle, a club open to students of various colleges around Kyoto, and which meets once a week to walk around and explore different temples and shrines around the city. The club met every Saturday at 1:30 PM (at different locations around Kyoto depending on which temple or shrine we were visiting that day) with occasional night time events during the week.

One thing that surprised was how many members the club had and how much the people that came varied from week to week. At a given activity there could be more than twenty people, but very often more than half of those people would not have come the following week. Since the walking club is a very relaxed environment, attendance is always optional and most people come to events sporadically. This meant that I got to meet a lot of different people, but I often would not see the same person multiple weeks in a row, which made it difficult to stay in contact and become close friends. Still, everyone was really welcoming and friendly, and I enjoyed hanging out with everyone during the club activities.

Another thing that I noticed was that there was not a strong distinction between senpai and kouhai in this club environment. Even though there were students ranging in age from first years all the way to graduate students, most people in the club spoke in short form to each other and treated each other like friends (though some younger members did frequently speak in teinei). When speaking to mw, people usually started by speaking formally during the introductions, but soon switched to casual speak afterward.

Rather than the main distinction in the group being specifically by age, the more prominent distinction was in the smaller circles of friends that formed within the group. Since the group had so many members, only some of whom would come any given week, it was normal for the group walking that day to split into smaller groups of 4-6 while we were all walking. Some groups were all girls, other were all boys, and others were mixed (though there tended to be more guys than girls at the club activities). These were not official groups, but just groups that naturally formed based on friendships because our group was too large to all walk around together.

As a result, each week I would usually only end up talking to about five or six people depending on whichever smaller group I ended up walking with. I usually walked with whoever I started talking with before the activity started. The people in my CIP were very friendly, so I was almost always approached by someone who wanted to make conversation. If not, I would just introduce myself to the person who was staring at me the most. We would sometimes talk about the place we were visiting, but usually our conversations revolved around more general discussions of school, hobbies, and interests.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time as a member of the Kyoto Walking Circle. I got to see a lot of different temples and shrines around Kyoto, and because our club activities were mostly walking, there was a lot of time to make conversation and get to know the members of the circle.

Jorge Gómez Fernández: Volunteering for Children at Hospital/ Cooking Circle

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I couldn’t be more thankful with everyone who has helped to enrich my experience here in Kyōto. From giving me their recommendations for good 京都の観光客スポット (Tourist spots in Kyōto) to teaching me how to make だし巻き卵 (Egg roll with Dashi) with a special Kyōto twist, everything has been a new and unique experience.

This semester I got to volunteer at the Kyōdai Hospital with ニコニコトマト(NikoNiko Tomato), where my responsibilities and duties ranged from being able to play with the children to helping other volunteers prepare for lesson plans or activities. Playing with the children was a bittersweet experience, as there is an inevitable sad aura that you feel by being there. However, once you start to see the children play, those feeling start to diminish. As a Japanese language learner, it was very interesting to see how moms and native Japanese volunteers interacted with the children. I say that in terms of diction and level of formality; they chose to use certain words and grammar patterns that I supposed were appropriate to use with children (e.g. 遊ぼう vs. 遊びましょう, 寝んね vs. 寝って, 噛み噛み [to chew]). The volunteers in charge of NikoNiko Tomato are a great group of people who are highly dedicated to what they do and deserve the upmost respect. I’m glad I met everyone.

In addition to NikoNiko Tomato, I attended a cooking circle that meets once a month. There, native Japanese cooking instructors taught us how to make traditional Japanese dishes. My first time, we made お好み焼き(Okonomiyaki), which was a delight because after you make the meal you get to enjoy it (I love to eat so this was one of my favorite parts). Additionally, I met some of the most interesting and 元気 (Genki) cooking instructors. They were extremely helpful and you could tell they loved what they were doing. The second time I went, I was welcomed back very warmly. We made an array of Japanese dishes such as キノコご飯 (Mushroom rice) and 柿なます (Persimmon salad). I’m so grateful to the women who keep this wonderful cooking circle going. You could tell that they fully prepare as they are very knowledgeable about traditional Japanese cooking. I’m really looking forward to cooking more Japanese dishes my last time in December, where I will also have to, dismally, say my final goodbye to my cooking instructors and Kyōto.

Elizabeth Smith: Dancing- Ballet and Nihon Buyou

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For my CIP, I’ve taken ballet classes at K.Classic Ballet, and private lessons in Nihon Buyou- classical Japanese dance. It has definitely been a highlight of my time in Japan!

I had no idea how much ballet would make Kyoto feel like home. Throughout my life, ballet has followed me everywhere I’ve gone- I’ve been dancing seriously since I was about eight, helped direct my college’s ballet company, and have also studied a ballet academy in Paris. Ballet classes are remarkably similar all over the world- so enrolling at K.Classic ballet felt less like being the “new kid,” and more like re-joining a community where I’ve always belonged. Additionally, I’m so lucky to have found such an inspiring place to take class- several students from the school have placed in internationally-known competitions, and last week, the class was visited by a recent alumni- who is now dancing professionally at American Ballet Theatre!

Being in the ballet studio has really helped me learn to pick up on small social cues and cultural differences. The atmosphere in most good ballet schools (anywhere in the world) ranges from disciplined to strict, and K.Classic Ballet is no different. On my first day, I remember the teacher making a speech to her students (in somewhat difficult to understand Kansai-ben) about the importance of working hard, and not wasting valuable time in the studio. As the semester has passed, I’ve noticed that the students here seem to define hard work differently than I have in the U.S. At home, there are often clear times when it is and is not appropriate to practice on the sides of the floor, (for example, when the teacher is working with another student, it is considered polite to stop dancing and watch.) Here, the students spend a much larger percentage of the time practicing on their own. They are constantly tweaking their technique and working to apply corrections, through repetition in every free moment, especially at times when in my past experience, it would be customary to be still and observant. Additionally, when Sensei gives her students a correction, I’ve noticed that in comparison with most American teachers, she leaves about twice as long for students to practice applying it. In order to fit in, I’ve had to carefully pick up on these different cues, and adjust my working style to match the other students.

Nihon Buyou has also been an incredible experience. I originally started Nihon Buyou in the U.S., when I was about four, and continued until I was about twelve. I had the opportunity to take it up again over the summer in Hokkaido, and was lucky that my sensei from then was able to put me in touch with a sensei in Kyoto. I absolutely adore my sensei here- she is one of the warmest, most understanding people that I’ve met. She spends a lot of time making sure that I understand the technical vocabulary that she uses, but has a sense of humor when things become confusing or difficult. Furthermore, something that has surprised me about Nihon Buyou here is the slight emphasis on developing a personal relationship with the teacher. In every lesson, the two of us start and end the lesson with a cup of tea, where we discuss everything from my host sister’s undoukais to her recent trip to Tokyo. I’ve taken private lessons in ballet before, and music as well, and although I’ve always gotten to know my teachers very well, there has never been an established time to stop and pause and talk with each other.  For me, especially with the occasional language barrier, taking time to drink tea together has helped me to better communicate with my teacher during the lessons themselves.

Overall, dancing in Kyoto has enriched my experience in two ways. Ballet has helped me find a place where a shared interest has helped me find a sense of belonging, while Nihon Buyou has helped me make the most of my time by helping me learn something that is incredibly difficult to pursue in the U.S. I’m incredibly grateful for the experiences I’ve had this semester, and can’t wait to see what the next will bring!

Joseph Tsuboi: Kyoto University Karate Club

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One of my goals before coming to study in Kyoto was to practice karate-do in Japan. I began shitō-ryū karate-dō when I was seven years old back home in California and I spent much of my childhood and early adulthood in the dōjō. Away at school in Boston, I have found it difficult to continue competition training and I mainly practice or teach when I am back home during vacations. Therefore, other than summer breaks, it had been a while since I had trained rigorously and continuously. Before leaving California, I talked to my sensei about karate-do in Japan, wondering how different it would be and whether I would be able to fit in easily. My sensei told me about locations in Osaka where I could practice, but, luckily, I was able to find a club that practices shitō-ryū karate-dō at Kyoto University.

Since I began practicing with the Kyoto University karate club, I have learned a lot about both karate techniques and also relationships within Japanese extracurricular activities. The first thing that was apparent to me was the senpai-kōhai social hierarchy within this club, which is prevalent among various groups. Though I had studied a bit of keigo before, I did not actually have experiences in which I could practice, so my keigo knowledge was put to the test during my initial contact with the club through email. When I showed up during the first week of the semester, I could immediately discern who were senpai and team captains. Though this karate club is taught by senpai who are either graduate school students or fellow undergraduate students, kōhai still bow to them in passing. Yet, at the same time, high and low level belts all train together and I was impressed by the skills of the lower levels students. Thus, the senpai-kōhai relationship is definitely intimidating, but the respect towards other members the club produces a great practice environment.

Additionally, I have learned quite a bit about kumite, or sparring, technique. This club splits up based on those who want to practice kata, or form, and those who want to practice kumite. I stuck with the kumite group, mostly because that’s what the majority of the group practices. Back home in my dojo, I take on a senpai role to many of the younger kids and I am expected to teach at times. At Kyōdai’s practices, I am once again kōhai and I have had to adjust my training mentality to accept critique and to be willing to change my techniques. This was not an easy thing to accept at first, but, truly, I know that I have learned a great amount of new skills. As a result, I have become more comfortable and confident in my kumite techniques thanks to Kyoto University karate club, and I hope to bring back what I have learned to my dōjō.