It is not often you get to make coffee from the raw bean and make awesome kabuto origami in the same day! But World Campus – Japan was lucky enough to do does things. Hinata talks about her experience roasting coffee with “Iga-yaki Horoku”, a Japanese roaster. She also talks about making different origami and playing games with the local students.
Today was our first day of activities with Japanese students, so I was excited about asking them on what they do and what their thoughts are.
We started today with a little experience exchange on how we we’re socialising with our host families. Not surprisingly, people only had good things to say about their host families. As did I.
As introductions with the volunteering students we started playing rock, paper, scissors (in Japanese: “janken pon!”) combined with names to get to know each other. Then we moved on to other social games to continue to break the ice. Spirits were high before we ventured into a more serious territory where a line was drawn on the floor and we were supposed to takes sides on difficult questions like “should it be mandatory to vote?” and “should we remove all the worlds borders?”. It was interesting to see the stands people took. Especially that no country had a unified stand. As far as I could tell most countries had different opinions about the questions. An important lesson in why tolerance and understanding is important in politics all over the world.
After our ice breaking session we had lunch with the students where the mutual interest in each other became apparent. Everybody asked each other a lot of questions on studying, daily lives and interests and a lot of common ground were found. I thought that everybody’s enthusiasm was reinvigorating and it made me look forward to more interaction with likeminded Japanese.
Then it was time for handcrafts where we learned how to roast coffee beans and make them into a nice cup of hand brewed coffee. And when we were all jacked up on caffeine we got into the next room where we where greeted by a room full of origami masters who presented us a samurai hat and promised us that in 30 minutes time we would also have folded a square piece of flat paper to something that three-dimensional and exciting. And so we did, and the result was amazing! After finishing the hat my host family came to visit me and the oldest son joined in and together we folded colourful birds to hang up when we got home. At times people were yelling out of frustration, but were quickly aided by origami experts to get them back on track. Experienced people to the rescue! And a learning experience by the people less experienced.
We finished the day of with more games with a bunch of the kids who came to see what all the fuzz was about, and we played games such as “daruma-san ga koronda” which is a kind of green light, red light game. It proved that being small and fast definitely can have its advantages, while my almost 2 meters and plus 100 kg didn’t serve me well. But I had fun. It was followed by more games, where I saw grown women (you know who you are) throw themselves on top of children in an attempt not to loose the game. Everybody laughed and only tears of laughter were shed. In the end we played a game with a name I cant remember, but it involved people sitting in the middle of a big circle and answering three questions the other participants had. Boys were for example asked if they had girlfriends and other people were asked to share stories of interest.
One of the counsellors host sister from the previous session had travelled all the way to Suita to join us in our activities. It was a testament to the dedication the host families, local organising communities and everybody else supporting the World Campus International organisation. Because of this dedication we thanked the voluntary students for spending the day with us by giving them our signed pictures as token of our appreciation. An appreciation of the new wonderful memories we received. And I can’t wait for more memories to come…
Kim Svendsen, Denmark
Almost every year World Campus – Japan is lucky enough to get invited to the home of one of the few katana swordsmiths still in existence. This time Krysta and Heide talks about their experience with smithing and trying a real katana.
We started the morning with some cheeky rounds of Karuta which we played with the cards we made together. The word “we” refers to us WCI members and the eager-to-play children of the Local organizing committee. Many of us had never even heard of the game itself, so the games were slightly over-powered by the children, but everyone looked like they were having fun all the same.
After the games were done, our vast group of many fellows departed together to be able to meet a real katana sword smith. He lives in a rather secluded place, narrow roads and lots of trees, and all of it just added to the mystique. When we arrived, there was a pair of cameramen waiting for us. They were filming material for a tourism video of sorts, and we got to be a part of it.
The actual katana experience itself was very exciting. At first, the smith told us about the history of katana, and showed us how he mends the metal. Some of us even got to try smithing – on a separate piece of metal, not an actual sword of course. Then we moved to his Dojo, and he and few others showed us how easily they can cut tatami-mat rolls. Some of us got to try cutting the tatami-mat rolls as well, and some even succeeded in cutting through the tatami.
All in all, a very exhilarating day trying activities a normal tourist might not be able to try.
Helmiina Suuronen, Finland
Today we went to the bamboo forest. Michael talks about his experience with cutting down grass and bamboo trees, followed by crafting utensils and toys out of bamboo. We were also lucky enough, to see a traditional Japanese performance (drumming, and singing in Kimonos.)
