All posts by Thomas Greve

Abiko City Theme – Environment

As you know, in every city on the World Campus — Japan tour, we have a city theme. The theme for Abiko city was the environment. This is an issue that I feel very strong about but the topic is also quite broad.

When thinking about the environment you can talk about nature itself, but also the animals in nature on a more local level. But the environment can also be discussed on a more global level too; which today more or less means the discussion about global warming and the future that lies ahead of us. A discussion involving the life we want to leave for future generations and the ethics and morals around it.

With all these levels in this theme in mind, Abiko City and World Campus — Japan chose to focus on a few of them.

It all started in Uda City, with the group watching the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. A film portraying the problems of global warming and why global warming is an important issue. The creator of the film, Al Gore, discusses his personal story connected to the environment and global warming and why he became interested. The movie also shows important facts about global warming and proves that it is an important issue that should be dealt with. The movie has been criticised for better and for worse all over the world and there are some facts that are not scientifically proven. But the message is agreed upon in the scientific world and a discussion has started on higher levels, around the world.

Our stay in Abiko contained visiting a bird and water museum but we also explored nature around Teganuma lake. We even had a speaker at the community music event talk about global warming and the responsibilities of the richer countries in the world to take actions. An interesting point he made is the definition of a developed country. Is a developed country definition only based on economy or can the environment have a bigger say here? If we take the environment in consideration then very few countries are really developed.

By visiting the bird and water museum we had the opportunity to visit the nature around us and how human activity affects the environment we share and love.

Also in the water museum we learned how they cleaned the water from pollution as this lake that was the dirtiest in Japan for 27 years. Though they suddenly changed their mindset and began a cleaning process making the lake cleaner and more beautiful.

I also had the opportunity to present my passion to the group as a follow up on the movie we saw the week before. As a continuation on “An Inconvenient Truth” which portrays the problems more than the solutions, I therefore decided to make a PowerPoint on what you can actually do and the difference it makes.

I tried to focus on the solutions giving the most impact. Of course recycling, less waste and less consuming and energy use was at the top. But also things like eating less meat and changing your way of transportation makes a bigger impact using little tools.

The most important thing in my opinion is to see the connections for example that what you do has an influence on your surrounding. Chemicals as an example will never be reduced if we do not start to use less of them and reducing their quantity in the environment. But also informing others and creating awareness about the problem is 50 % of the job since alone we are limited but together we can change, as cliché it may sound it is still true.

But if you want to make changes then make changes you are comfortable with in order to make a long-time commitment and change.

A great week with many sources of information and activities, it was a wonderful conclusion on our amazing stay in Japan with a great foundation in becoming World Citizens.

(Jonathan Cygnaeus, Sweden)

Meeting with U35 from ExxonMobil

Meeting with Exxon U35 membersExxonMobil – a global company. Many of us have heard from the newspapers or from television about this company and the picture I got was very blurry and confusing. The only fact that was reliable was that ExxonMobil is one of the largest oil refineries.

On April 11th, we got the chance to not only visit and learn about ExxonMobil in Tokyo, but also got to know the U35 members. U35 is an interdepartmental club within the company which organizes various activities among the younger employees, and also a host of this internal exchange day with World Campus International, Inc.

Immediately after we entered the building, we had a warm welcome from ExxonMobil representative Noritada “Ted” Agatsuma who introduced the company and the schedule for the day. Through the various team building activities led by our guest facilitator Jin Kawamura, the World Campus — Japan participants and the ExxonMobil U35 created a comfortable atmosphere for everyone to discuss and share their thoughts.

Then an intercultural training game revealed the fact that people form rules and habits, but when two cultures come together it is necessary to form a new set of rules , a so-called 3rd culture, that we had already done in our World Campus — Japan class!

The dinner party was a complete success; we enjoyed the wonderful meal, talked to our new friends and collected a lot of good ideas and impressions about the day from our group presentations.

Hopefully this event may continue in the future, it was one of the most impressive learning opportunities during this tour in Japan.

(Katharina Haack, Germany)

Uda City Theme – World Religions

On March 24th, the World Campus International participants had a lecture about Buddhism by a monk (who was also my host mother) and then took part in a series of presentations and discussions organized by the participants.

In the lecture given by Ms. Okazaki, she explained to us her view of Buddhism. Quite a few of the participants from western cultures were surprised that Buddhism should be considered a religion because they had heard Buddhists say it’s more a way of life than an organized religion back at home.

We learned that there are a lot of different forms of Buddhism and the one she is practicing is called Nembutsu Buddism which is based on the teachings of High Monk Shinran (1173-1262).

Shinran spread the teaching of the Nembutsu. The preaching of the absolute power of the other, that one need only trust entirely in Amida Buddha. He focused on the forty-eight vows of Amida and if we have faith in Amida, we have already been saved.

Taking the Nembutsu as an invocation of gratitude to the Buddha, he categorically denied practices of one’s own power as superfluous. He preached absolute reliance on power of the other (= Amida), such that one is saved when one achieves correct faith.

Afterwards we had presentations and discussions on other World Religions. Groups of 4 to 5 World Campus — Japan participants presented a certain religion to the others so that everyone had a basic understanding of those religions in order for us to talk about them. Those religions were Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism as well as Buddhism.

Whenever possible in our discussions we did give people in our group who belonged to one of the discussed religions also a platform to explain their views of their own faith.

We also asked people about the stereotypes of different religions and discussed that some religions had bad media representation and can be misrepresented.

In this process we learned a lot about religions and how people from different ones can work together on a topic like religion with out having negative outcomes as seen so often in the world.
In the end we also gave people who are Atheist time to speak so they could share their views too.

After the discussions, everyone agreed that no one should have a bad view of someone because they have different faiths and that we should live together and respect other people’s values and belief systems.

It was a great day to be able to discuss a topic which is not easy in such a kind and friendly manner with people from all around the world including the local Japanese and we all learned much and did get a step closer to understanding global citizenship.

I wish that all religious leaders in the world could experience that what we did here in Uda City in Japan in our discussion about World Religions as it would really change their world as well.

(Daniel Gallion, Luxembourg )

Connecting through Music in Uda

March 29th was a day filled with song and dance. It began on a wonderful note with a “Share your skills” session among World Campus — Japan participants, which included a beautiful Ugandan song by Stephen. As with all music, knowledge of the language is not necessary to be able to understand the passion and beauty of the piece. Thank you Stephen!

In the afternoon we had the privilege of participating in a concert in Uda city. The concert itself was headlined by Mr. Tomoya Takaishi. Truthfully, none of the participants had ever heard of Mr. Takaishi before, but he was once a popular protest song singers in the 60’s. Although he had retired from mass music business a few decades earlier to lead a quiet life, the cozy gymnasium was still packed to the brim with his adoring fans.

Mr. Takaishi was quite the entertainer, often encouraging the audience to sing and clap along to certain portions of his well-known classics. This tactic was rather useful in keeping World Campus — Japan participants alert.

The best part of the concert was certainly when the children’s choir from the local Music Village were on stage. Their performance was indescribably adorable, especially when they swayed in unison as they sang. かわいいですね! (How cute!)

Although it was his concert, Mr. Takaishi was kind enough to invite us up on stage to accompany him for a couple of songs, as he thought World Campus — Japan is the “Wind” to bring positive energy to the local community, while the community being the “Soil” for the changes to take place in.

A few verses of the always cheerful, “You are my sunshine” rejuvenated us. And our international group’s singing of the chorus of “Hana”, a traditional Japanese folk song, amazed the elderly crowd. Our contribution to the community event was rather small but enjoyable nevertheless. I was even able to fight through legions of rabid fans to snag an autograph!

(Guang Yeung, United States of America, Colorado)