Category Archives: 地域学習

訪問地, 地域学習, 大阪府吹田市

Visit to Senriyama Daini elementary school

Day of activity: July, 1st

Hello everyone! My name’s Arno and I’ll be telling you about my first day in World Campus Japan. After arriving, I found myself to be very lucky about my anointed Osakan host family. They’re amazingly sweet, caring people and I feel very good with them.

After a well-deserved night’s rest, we went to a local primary school to meet fourth- and fifth graders. Not only I, but also the kids, were greatly looking forward to this! I played a rock-paper-scisor game with about 100 fifth graders (and lost miserably: I need to brush up on my game-skills!). Had a great time! After that, the celebrity treatment started during lunch: we World Campus Japan members have probably never been studied so diligently by dozens of kids while failing with chopsticks until now! They were very shy, but I started speaking to them and was amazed with their English level, they’re good. I also spoke Japanese with them, and after one day already, my Japanese seems to be improving.

The food was actually quite delicious, contrary to what I’m used to in Belgium. Somehow, though, the kids even beat me at finishing their plate before me… painful but funny!

Today was a very interesting day! All the various encounters and new friends I made really help me expand my horizon. I’m looking forward to Thursday!

Arno Ceriez (Belgium)

熊本県荒尾市, 訪問地, 地域学習, 大牟田市

Coal mining and Katanas in Omuta and Arao!

Isak with the smith

Day of activity: June 25th, 2015

Today we had two very different experiences. First, we went to the mining museum in Omuta to learn about the important role the city played in Japan’s industrialization. We learned that Omuta is blessed with an abundance of high quality coal, and as such it was perfectly suited for providing the fuel Japan needed for its industrialization efforts. The transfer of technology from the West to the East is something that the Japanese are proud to have been a part of, and since we don’t learn much about it in the west, it was quite interesting. The mining sites are a candidate for becoming a UNESCO world heritage site because of the unique role they played in the history of the world.

Our guide in the museum was himself a former coal miner who could tell us more about modern mining techniques in Japan as well, and he was very enthusiastic about teaching us what he knew.

After spending some time at the local mall eating lunch and shopping, we went to meet with a katana swordsmith. With his 37 years of experience (he is currently 62) he was able to teach us much about the difficult art of making a katana sword. The metal folding process is especially important, since Japanese iron is normally made from iron sand which produces a material that is not necessarily well suited to weapon making.

After talking with the swordsmith, we were instructed on how to cut a wet, rolled up, tatami mat in half using a katana. Most of us failed on our first attempt, but I and several others were able to make a clean cut by our second attempt.

Simon Presley (Denmark)

熊本県荒尾市, 訪問地, 地域学習, 大牟田市

Cutting bamboo in the Bamboo forest

Splitting bamboo in the forest

Day of activity: June 23rd

On our second activity day in Omuta/Arao, we went to the Bambooforest to cut bamboo, because it grows really fast here in Japan, and kills the other plants. It was the first time for the WCI doing this.

First we went to a little shrine in the forest, which functioned as our headquarters for the day. After we arrived, we received an exorcism
from the 75 years old priest of the shrine. She wished us good health and that we went without any accidents throughout the day. After that, we split into two groups, one for cutting weeds and bamboo, the other one for the kitchen. They prepared the sllide for the Nagashi Somen noodles and the rest for lunch.

The bamboo-cutting-team made many things from bamboo, like beerglasses or cups, bracelets and plates, and chopsticks.

The kitchen team cut big bamboos in half and prepared them so that they could be used as a slide. Eating Somen out of this silde wasn’t as difficult as we expected. After Lunch, we had a lesson about the Japanese forests and the role of the bamboo in them. We also learned that bamboo is a really supermaterial, because it’s waterproof, antibacterial, and doesn’t break, so you can use it for everything.

It was a really fun day, but also really exhausting.

Phillip Mahn (Switzerland)