Sharing the pain
Today, we started our 4th day of the program with Nagasaki’s beautiful rain. Actually, at this moment it’s rainy season in japan especially in Kyushu island areas, it rains a lot. Although, it was heavy rain, it couldn’t prevent us enjoying today’s special event, one of the Japanese martial arts: Shorinji Kempo.
We started our day with the introduction about shorinji kempo and its history by Omura city’s proffesional master who has been practicing it for more than 20 years. Shorinji kempo is a discipline that develops individuals with 3 benefits: self defense, spiritual cultivation & health improvement. One of the wonderful life-long lesson that I learned is the quote by Doushin, the founder of Shorinji Kempo.
“Half for one’s own happiness, and half for the happiness of others” (半ばは自分の幸せを、半ばは他人の幸せを) doshin.
Personally, it was my first time to experience the Japanese unique martial art, shorinji kempo, where you don’t fight for winning or breaking down the opponent but only for self-defense, thinking and acting with equal consideration for others, with Shorinji Kempo you learn to share your learning experience including the pain.
After lunch, One of the greatest moments of the day was experiencing the shorinji kempo. We learn the basic technics and tried to use them with the masters and students. It was great to see that its technic has little to do with how strong you are but how well you perfom them”
(Sean-ショーン – Uzbekistan)
You can call us VIP
World Campus – Japan gives a unique chance to get to know Japan from the inside, not only by staying in local host families, getting involved with the community and visiting really interesting places, but also by offering opportunities like we had in Omura. Five of us went to visit the Mayor of Omura, he spoke to us about the issues he deals with in his city and also about the things he feels very proud of, like the Boat Race that happens every year right there in Omura.
He also talked to us about an unique opportunity we were about to experience during our stay in Omura, the “Fureai-no Event”, an event where more than 400 handicap people come together to play, celebrate diversity and have fun for a few hours. We were specially invited (which makes us VIP in Omura) to participate.
Check the blog in the near future to read about that amazing event!
Let’s-facebook
To all of our readers, WCI would like to inform you that our facebook page is now open to comments, suggestions, and communication. Just make a friend request to us and we will be happy to accept you. You can also find all the blog postings on our facebook page World Campus International, Inc, so can share them with your facebook friends or even suggest our page to them.
WCJ gives you unique access to Japan and really… Who wouldn’t want to travel to a beautiful place with people from many countries and build memories for life? 🙂
Feel free to share our info with all those people you know might be interested in traveling with one of the summer sessions of WCJ. If you would like more information about the program or how to get involved, please visit our website www.worldcampus.org or e mail us at Yhufford@worldcampus.org
Good Bye Session 1 2010
Before I start, I would like to say that for World Campus – Japan, starting on June 5th was something knew we want to implement from now on, that way our participants can go back home to summer jobs after having a few weeks in Japan. With that said, since it was the first time we were starting early this summer, only a few people got the opportunity to come. 5 People, 5 of the most different personalities and backgrounds I’ve ever seen.
Lu, from New Jersey with Chinese background; Yoli, Mexican-American; Kyle, tall, white, blue eyed American guy; Daniel from Luxemburg who was born in Switzerland and Ming, American with Chinese, African-American and Native American background. In Session One of World Campus – Japan 2010, we shared a lot of experiences and built up a lot of memories together like, ringing the biggest bell in the World in the City of Arao, Visiting Jikei Hospital and Kumamoto Castle in the City of Kumamoto and talking to a survivor from the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb in the City of Hiroshima.
Thanks to everyone who made Session #1 possible. For you, readers out there, please keep visiting the blog to read the stories of Session #2 in Nagasaki with the visit to the peace museum and the talk with a survivor from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb and Uda (Nara Prefecture) with the visit to Big Budda in the City of Nara.
