{"id":5585,"date":"2015-11-27T23:07:06","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T14:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/?p=5585"},"modified":"2015-11-27T23:07:06","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T14:07:06","slug":"hai-anh-pham-kyoto-universitys-chorus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/%3Fp%3D5585","title":{"rendered":"Hai Anh Pham: Kyoto University's Chorus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The emails that I exchanged with the Chorus\u2019s representative gave me an impression that the circle was an all-accepting space where even the non-experienced are welcomed: \u201cThank you for your interest. We await you at the first practice. And yes, we are thrilled that you are bringing friends. Bring them all, be it 5 or 10 people!!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And really, the people were as nice as I had pictured them to be. On the first day, a guy came all the way to where I and Yuki got lost to pick us up. After the first practice was over, we newcomers were put into the spotlight, so all the members could get to know us and sing their welcoming song. Throughout my time with them, I continued to feel the circle\u2019s attempt to create a sense of belonging for all its members: free after-practice meals, weekend gatherings, and the funnest of all, the exaggerated, variety show-like reaction words we always give together when someone is doing an announcement. I wish I had more time to interact and make friends with everyone. My host family was far away from Kyodai, so I couldn\u2019t participate much in the bonding activities that the circle created for its members.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joining a circle where everyone was welcomed first gave me the assumption that the quality of real practices would be mediocre. I was wrong. Even though the songs we had to sing were really difficult, the conductor, part leaders, and most people really knew what they were doing. Not only that, they went out of their way to guide newbies like me, whether it was the breathing and diaphragm training exercises at the beginning, or the melody, beats, and nuances of each music bar. At first, it was a bit irritating to me, because their over-guidance indicated that they thought I knew absolutely nothing. However, I realized after a while that they were just fulfilling their roles of\u00a0senpai, <\/i>to welcome and help and instruct, especially considering my barriers not being a Japanese. And after months of going to the Chorus, although I did not have much opportunities to interact with the members outside of practice, the care that they showed toward\u00a0me really made me feel like a kouhai <\/i>myself, that I belonged as part of this Chorus.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The emails that I exchanged with the Chorus\u2019s representative gave me an impression that the circle was an all- … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080 →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_locale":"ja","_original_post":"5585"},"categories":[50,4,124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}