Day of activity: 2013 August 11^th

Too hard to say goodbye.

Today is our last day in Abiko. It is so hard to describe it as last but in fact it is. Maybe the farewell always makes people very sad and be cast down no matter how unwilling you are.

Standing in front of the house of my host family, the sight casts my mind back to the days when we passed it together. From strange to familiar, from stranger to dear ones, we have experienced so many events and left deep impressions on each other.

Due to the diplomatic relation between Japan and my country not being very good at the moment, I was a bit worried when I arrived at Abiko. I considered that maybe Japanese people would not be very friendly to me because of the conflict we have with each other. I even prepared for confronting with many incisive questions asked by Japanese people.

But in fact, I was wrong. They were free from prejudice against Chinese people and they showed their enthusiasm for taking care of me, an ordinary Chinese person, as if I was their son or relative. Their behavior touched me to the depths of my soul, so deeply that I could not help clapping for the Japanese people when we had the arigato event.

I suggest that through friendly behavior from both countries, China and Japan will return to a normal relation in the end. And that is why I chose this hard time to come to Japan in order to communicate with Japanese people.

Now I would like to share you with a prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi as an end of this article and make a wish to the people like me who are willing to resume the relation between our two countries:

Where there is discord may we bring harmony,
Where there is error may we bring truth,
Where there is doubt may we bring faith,
Where there is despair may we bring hope.

It is too hard to say goodbye but a new tour begins. Abiko, I miss you so much!

William Zhou (China)

Day of activity: 2013 August 10^th

Today was my first “Arigato Event” with World Campus Japan, it was quite the experience. Lunch consisted of various dishes from everyone’s home country; it was truly an international smorgasbord. While very embarrassing, the dances were fun because I could tell my host family really enjoyed watching the performances. The crowd really did love our surprise opening to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. I was happy I decided to read aloud my thank you letter; I received many compliments on my Japanese from my host family as well as others.

It is a strange feeling to get to know a family so well over the course of a short week. While this week has been a lot of fun and I will miss my host family in Abiko, I am excited for what adventures await me in Nagoya!

Alexander Piper (USA)

Day of activity: 2013 August 8^th

Today was a really interesting day; we went to a temple to interact with the local children and to learn about some aspects of Japanese culture. There were a lot of young children from a nearby school with whom we were going to make our own fans. It was a lot of fun to color with the children and to decorate our fans with stickers and origami, and it seemed that the children also had a really great time. When we had finished making our fans the teachers of the school did a little dance performance for us, and they asked us to join in. After doing the dance a couple of times it was time for our lunch. We sat down with the children and ate our lunch together while we talked and played with the kids. It was really too bad that they all had to leave after the lunch.

When we were done eating we started the first cultural activity: shakyo. Shakyo is basically the writing of Buddhist texts as an offering to Buddha. We could choose whether we wanted to do this the easy way (drawing over the characters that had already been drawn on a sheet) or the hard way (draw the characters ourselves). Most of us, including me, chose the hard way, and even though it was quite difficult to draw the characters it was a lot of fun to do.

The next activity was rakugo, a form of Japanese comedy. There was a rakugo player who explained the different kinds of jokes to us, like word jokes, quizzes, and short stories. The short stories were a lot of fun to watch, and luckily we also got a translation sheet in case we did not understand the Japanese. The quizzes were really funny as well; we all tried our best to find the solution to the different puzzles as fast as possible. Finally, the rakugo player also chose three people from the audience to which he taught how to act like you are eating a bowl of noodles, and these people had to perform for us as well.

After the rakugo we had furoshiki as our final activity. Furoshiki is the art of cloth wrapping, something that is quite popular in Japan. It is used when wrapping gifts, making small pouches and you can even make a shopping bag! The first thing we were taught was how to make a small hat for ourselves, and next how to make a small pouch to attach to our belt. After that we learned how to wrap a wine bottle, and the next step was to wrap two wine bottles in the same cloth. It was a lot of fun to do, and it really made me realize how handy a piece of cloth can actually be. At the end we also witnessed something really amazing: there was a special piece of waterproof cloth in which a full bottle of water was poured, but the cloth did not get wet at all! So not only did I have a really great time playing with the kids, trying shakyo the hard way, and watching a really funny rakugo performance, I also now know that I should always take a piece of cloth with me, because you never know when you might need it.

Lieke Vermeulen (The Netherlands)

Day of activity: 2013 August 6^th

It has been a colorful day. I learned a lot and enjoyed it so much.

Around half past nine in the morning, we gathered at Teganuma Park. The rain was heavy, but luckily it became sunny after a while. We took a boat trip around Teganuma Lake. I took a lot of pictures of big white swans and lotus flowers. Hiro and Hideto told us that this lake used to be the dirtiest in Japan, but now it’s has a beautiful scenery, thanks to the actions of the Japanese government. This situation reminded me of the terrible state of pollution we have in China. I think our government can learn from the Japanese government on the issue of environment protection.

After the boat ride we prepared and enjoyed our lunch; we made sushi by ourselves, and I really liked it. I was shocked when I saw that my host brother (10 years old) ate three plates of sushi! I used to think that Japanese people only ate a little bit, but it seems that I was wrong.

In the afternoon, we explored the bird museum. It was really a unique experience, not only because it is the only bird museum in the whole of Japan, but we were also joined by local high school students. We made paper models of a bird together, and we got some basic information about birds. Now I can tell you whether a bird can fly or not by just looking at its feathers!

Before I went back home with my host family, my host brother picked out a small souvenir from the museum shop for me. I think that I will be able to remember this day very clearly even after I came back to my own country. What a wonderful day!

Jerry (China)

Day of activity: 2013 August 5^th

So after yesterday, when we had really amazing host family days, the program would really start today! So that meant that after we gathered we got to hear rules about World Campus Japan, what is allowed and what isn’t.

After those first necessities a man told us something about Abiko city and it’s history. It was fun to find out all the things about Abiko, like for example two famous writers live in this town.

Next we did a few icebreaking games, the first one to learn each others name, the second was just plain fun; the Ninja Killing game. It trained our ninja skills and made us hungry. Which was perfect, because lunch was next.

When our stomachs were full, we got to enjoy some koto music. The Okamura family played koto and kokyo for us, together with a small choir of women who joined in for one song, and their cute 6-year-old son who sang the WanWan NyaoNyao song. It was lovely, the whole concert was. They even played a Disney Medley, which sounded really nice coming from the koto.

Afterwards we were allowed to play the koto for ourselves a bit. This really surprised me, I hadn’t expected to be allowed to play such an instrument, since it’s expensive and we’re koto-noobs. But it was fun, and we were taught the Sakura song.

It was a fun day, I hadn’t expected to be doing already so many unique things on our very first day. I’m excited for what the rest of the program will bring us!

Lisan (The Netherlands)