Anne Wen: Yosakoi Traditional Dance, Fly Dance Studio, Kyoto Student Impact (Christian Group)

I joined three different activities to fulfill my community involvement project, in part because each project lasted shorter than I expected and the circles in Japan had eligibility constraints. For starters, I spent two weeks practicing with Doshisha University’s Yosakoi traditional dance group. The practices culminated in a Yosakoi dance festival in Osaka, which later turned into one of my favorite memories in Japan because we performed three times, and I was the only non-Japanese person among a group of 40 Japanese students. Attempting to speak Japanese, given my second year language abilities, was challenging, but the awkwardness forced me to study the language even more. I also found a few Japanese allies who were crucial to learning the choreography and reading Japanese festival instructions. For Yosakoi practice, I went to the Kamogawa River twice a week and rehearsed for three hours. Beyond the dance steps themselves, I learned about the nuances of Japanese circle rules. For instance, Japanese students were extremely punctual, schedules were outlined down to the last second on Excel sheets, and many people wanted to speak with foreigners but worried that they lacked language skills. For future KCJS students, I’d recommend trying your best to find Doshisha university circles. I googled most organizations and expanded my search to Kyoto University affiliates, randomly emailing any address that I could find. I emailed seven different groups, nearly forgot which ones I emailed, and heard back three weeks later about the Yosakoi group. Though the effort was challenging at the start, interacting exclusively with Japanese people without international students to help you can make you grow as a person.

I also attended private lessons at Fly Dance Studio in Shijo. Given my lack of dancing experience, I worried that I’d be an awkward duck flailing my arms, but the teachers were super nice, and most of the students there didn’t consistently come to any one practice. Instead, students varied from week to week, and the studio’s EASY set one-month package ensured that I could show up to any class, any time of the week. Most of the classes hovered around dinner time, so I’d go once or twice a week and attend either their beginner or ultra-beginner hip hop and K-pop dance classes. For students worried about feeling awkward the first time, I’d drag a friend along and exercise together, then attend the next few sessions alone. A first once told me a mantra that I try to repeat: If you can talk, you can sing, and if you can walk, you can dance. Since I’m leaving the country after one semester, I didn’t feel as bad if I made dance choreography mistakes, and also knew that many of the teachers appreciated having more students because it created more energy. Plus, the chance to dance off all the gyoza I ate in the city was necessary, given that I don’t hit the gym.

Temporarily I attended one practice for ASH, a k-pop dance group, but the members weren’t super welcoming, so I spent my last few weeks working with Kyoto Student Impact, a Christian group in the city that’s unaffiliated with Doshisha University. I don’t think the ASH dance group members meant to be rude, but my lack of Japanese fluency proved hard to communicate with local students, and they rarely held practices, so the chance to meet friends was extra hard. Instead, through Kyoto Student Impact, which I found through the Mustard Seed Church that I attended, I met students once or twice a week and engaged in social activities. I went bowling in Japan, had a worshipping session, and as of this writing, will soon attend an international Thanksgiving feast in a country that hardly celebrates this November holiday. The experience with student impact surprised me for a variety of reasons, two of them being that Christianity is hardly practiced in this Shinto/Buddhist-dominated country and I hadn’t expected to attend church. Fortunately, it felt refreshing to practice my religion in a foreign country, and I wanted to speak English a few times, even though the goal of studying abroad was to learn Japanese. Having even a few international friends or Japanese speakers who spoke fluent English ensured that I could compare cross-cultural conversations and engage in deeper conversations. Also, church proved to be a consistent place where I could find friends and have deeper connections over a shared religion, so I resumed my religious practices.

Some tips for future KCJS students, since I found my project activities largely through reading past blog posts:

  1. Don’t email or Instagram DM one or two groups; hit more. I started by contacting seven groups, and two of them eventually got back to me three weeks later. You want to cast your net wide, and don’t worry if you don’t hear back since it’s nothing personal. Also, most groups have eligibility requirements. For instance, my Yosakoi traditional dance group didn’t allow foreign students because they wanted to recruit Japanese freshmen and sophomores for a full year. When I reached out to them, they only wanted international students for one specific festival, and though the experience was short, I still learned a ton of new Kansai dialect slang.
  2. Don’t chicken out of going to a project. As cliche as it sounds, feeling uncomfortable means you’re growing. There were multiple times when I felt awkward in all-Japanese spaces, and one time, I arrived at a practice location and wanted to turn around, for fear of awkwardness. Your first few times at a project won’t be the easiest, but over time, the more conversations you have, the better your experience will be. When you don’t know what to say to Japanese students, ask questions and pull the “gaijin card,” aka ask about anything on your mind because you’re a foreigner and confusion feels justified.
  3. It’s okay to change your projects, even multiple times. I hopped around different projects and felt that each one of them taught me something different. For instance, the Yosakoi dance organization taught me about language immersion and the international Christian group reminded me about the comfort of speaking in my native tongue. Given the number of people that you can meet in Kyoto, don’t worry you won’t make friends. Sometimes, even in Japanese spaces, you’ll meet many internationals. At my Christian group, most people I met hailed from foreign countries like Indonesia and China, and I’ve had fun exchanging cross-cultural talks with them.

Caeden Polster : Klexon English Speaking Circle

Since I am in the academic year KCJS program, and I am a fourth year, I will be graduation at the end of the program. After graduating, I plan to stay here and work in Japan as an English teacher. Due to this interest, I decided to do something similar to my future career in my CIP, and since I plan to work in an Eikaiwa school like AEON, something like the English speaking circle Klexon seemed perfect.

In my time participating at the Klexon English Circle, I met a lot of amazing people from all walks of life, all with a genuine interest in learning English. From what I have heard from those who volunteered at schools and taught children, and from my own experience tutoring and teaching English through an online program through Toshin cram school in Kyoto and their Global English program, most people still in school generally don’t have much interest in learning English, and see it as only another class or something necessary. However, at Klexon, everyone is there because they want to be, and it is a really casual and relaxing environment. Everyone is not only motivated to speak in English and practice what they know, but also to learn more and to ask questions, and to make new friends.

I found my conversations at Klexon very valuable, as not only did I get to hear a lot of interesting experiences, I also got help with information related to my future career, and recommendations on where to go and visit in Kyoto. There weren’t only local Japanese people there, although they were the majority, but there were also people from France, Russia, Izrael, and many other places, all learning English now as a second, third, or sometimes even fourth language. It was really interesting comparing our experiences learning languages, and the differences between education systems in all of our own countries.

My advice for those looking into CIP opportunities would be to first choose something that you are interested in and are motivated to see through to the end, but to also choose something that challenges yourself or pushes you to keep growing and learning as a person. Many of my friends chose to pursue easy opportunities that wouldn’t really make them go out of their comfort zone or meet new people, but I think it is important to break out of your original group and keep meeting more people, especially if you are in Japan for a limited time unlike my situation.

Overall, I would highly recommend Klexon for anyone interested in education or language learning, or anyone who just wants a casual environment to meet new and energetic people to be friends with and practice language together!

https://www.klexon.org

Blake Chaplin : Klexon Language Circle

Website: https://www.klexon.net

To the ambitious, future KCJS students,

For my CIP, I have been attending the Klexon language circle, based out of the Kyoto women and gender centre (ウィングス京都). Klexon is a circle designed to help people improve their English and attracts a surprisingly wide array of people from across Kyoto. There were freshman, all the way to senior salarymen at the meetings, so it was a real opportunity to talk to a wide cross-section of Japanese society.

The language meetings are 2 hours long are generally split into 2 parts. The first half of the meeting consists of a ‘moving chair’ approach, where each member is given a sheet with a topic, and the goal of the activity is to collect names and opinions on the topic by speaking in English. These have varied massively, all the way from ‘international study’ to ‘failure’. People are generally receptive to the topic, though I have found that people tended to stray away from the negative ones, or talk about something else. This makes sense since many people will come to Klexon after working all day, and negative topics are often draining. I have been able to make relationships with some of the regulars, which has been rewarding, and had given me insight into the life and thoughts of local people. Though must of the CIP is conducted in English, understanding Japanese allows me to help people articulate their thoughts better, as I can work backwards from their thoughts.

The second half of the meeting is based around a group activity, where we are supposed to discuss the topic, as well as find out more information about each other. In my experience, this often derailed into us talking about each other or current events, as this was most interesting. Honestly I liked this part most, just because the group setting made it hard for the local Japanese people to translate keigo (敬語) into English, and so it made for more open dialogue and fun conversations. I honestly learnt a lot about Kyoto from this, and would recommend Klexon to anyone who is looking for friends and information about Kyoto, but might not have confidence to speak fully in Japanese.

Overall, I would recommend Klexon. What I learned from locals was interesting, and I think, if used correctly, could allow a lower-level Japanese speaker to integrate into Japan more than otherwise they would. (Meetings are also free for native Anglophones, and events are cheap to participate in!)

– ブルイク

 

 

 

Alyssa Willeford: Shamisen Lessons at Greenwich House

This semester, I took shamisen lessons with Iwasaki-sensei at Greenwich House, a small music studio located near the intersection of Shijo-dori and Kawaramachi-dori. Every Tuesday, after eating lunch at one of the many nearby restaurants, I would show up, sheet music in hand, to practice with the others at the studio. Typically, the lesson would start at about 1:30, when Ishida-san (a very kind woman and one of Iwasaki-sensei’s friends) and I would practice shamisen technique and drill the songs I had been working on. Because I only started shamisen lessons at the beginning of the semester, I was far behind where the others were, so I needed that extra time. Then, at around 2, other students – mostly middle-aged people, though a few younger and older people too – would show up and we would begin rehearsing our songs. Inevitably, we would break at some point for gobocha, or burdock tea, and a wagashi snack, my favorite of which was definitely ichigo daifuku. I would usually leave around 3 or 3:30, but I would have been free to stay longer too. It all felt a lot like visiting a hippie music studio back home in Seattle, except, of course, for the music we were playing. Most of the other people were practicing the koto, so I was the only one on shamisen and definitely felt some pressure at times to deliver! Iwasaki-sensei was very kind and lent me one of their shamisen so that I could practice at home, which definitely helped me improve much faster. Sometimes I would practice for as much as 45 minutes a night because I found it so calming. The semester was capped off with a performance at Shimogamo Elementary School – a group of us went to serve as essentially a teaching aid for a lesson about traditional music. That was a ton of fun, and it really felt like a spectacular way to finish out my experience!

Overall, I cannot recommend this CIP enough. In terms of things I would change, Iwasaki-sensei could be a little bit spontaneous at times, and I didn’t always feel like I knew what was going on. We played three pieces at the elementary school, and I had only gotten a copy of one of them two days before, so that was definitely a little stressful. Other than that, though, I had a great time! Iwasaki-sensei was very generous with gifts, sweets, and her time – I feel like I got far more out of the lessons than the small fee should really have covered. I played trombone from fourth grade until I graduated high school, and I enjoyed the shamisen because it’s surprisingly similar in a lot of ways. But the main thing that drew me to the lessons was just the chance to reconnect with music and experience again the joy of making music with others.

Also, and this was incredible, but after my first lesson, I got to meet a maiko, or trainee geisha. Because it was the first day and I had no idea what was going on, I was definitely super stressed, but that was still one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in Japan.

I would give my CIP five stars. I would recommend it to anyone who loves playing music – but if you only want a 1-hour-a-week commitment and you don’t like snacks, you should probably look elsewhere.