City Life, City Theme Activities, Kumamoto City

WCJ – YMCA student day 2012

July 3, 2012 Thomas Greve

Date of activity: June 30^th

Today we split op in 4 groups and went to various places in kumamoto city accompanied by kumamoto university students. The 4 groups visited: the art museum, an old shopping district and university, the Kumamoto castle and an old town. The following are stories and impressions of the activities given by participants from different countries:

My group went to visit the Kumamoto art museum! It was super interesting because I bad never seen ancient native Japanese art before. The museum was surrounded by beautiful cherry trees, near Minamoto castle. After that we visited a shrine. The place had a kind of magical energy and you can feel the Japanese culture there… we had a lot of fun with the university studies who came with us!

Today I got to visit the famous castle of the city and prefecture of Kumamoto. I went there with 3 other WCI members as well as 5 members of the YMCA, who are Japanese students currently studying at Kumamoto University. They want to get in touch with foreign students by participating in an exchange program or by visiting another country short-term. We went to the castle on a very humid and rainy day. When we arrived at the castle we were completely soaked by rain and sweat. But when we were actually within the castle walls the rain stopped and our awesome tour began. We first visited the oldest part of the castle after which we went to the greater complex, the official hall where the officials would gather in the old days.

The interior is amazing and functions nowadays as a museum. The main tower is rather sober in it’s interior and shows the military of the castle. After we visited some other parts of the castle we wrapped up and went back to the YMCA building.

Today we went sightseeing in Kumamoto city with YMCA students. If they hadn’t been with us we would have gotten lost for sure. Among things we discovered was an antique Japanese secondhand store, which was rather cool!

They had a wide range of items, from kimono’s, fans and umbrellas to dolls, pottery and wooden rafts, in short a lot of Japanese antiques! In general, we had a lot of fun just being together with the students, although it was rainy and we all ended up getting soaking wet.

This day our group went to an old town in Kumamoto city. Joining us were 3 Kumamoto university students, all majoring law. On the way to the old town we had a nice talk with them about various subjects about Japan and our own cultures. When we arrived at the old town we fled into a Scandinavian themed cafe and drank a variety of delicious drinks. Because there were European maps all over the table we talked about traveling a lot and talked about the various places that each of us visited. We learned a lot about our travel experiences and some of us found out new places in the world they want to go to someday. We walked around the old town for a bit when the rain started again. Luckily the leader of our group knew a place nearby that we could visit for a bit. The place was a ryokan, a typical Japanese hotel. What was special about this place was the basement. The basement was a special room for making t-shirts with some kind of wax-system. We were all really impressed in how beautiful the designs were. After having been shown this we all went back to the YMCA building while chatting some more with the Kumamoto university students.

Paulina, Anlong, Joakim, Jurriën – Mexico, Netherlands, Norway

Arao City, City Life, City Theme Activities

The Arao Arigato Evento of 2012

July 2, 2012 Thomas Greve

Date of activity: June 28^th

So the big day has finally come, the arigato event day, the last day where we are together with our host families. We are training hard all day and revise the parts we feel insecure about, like the song in Japanese sign language. In between breaks people are revising their Japanese speeches. Step by step we get more confident. We already performed a shortened arigato event in the school, but perfecting this is our goal. I, myself am amazed at how beautiful the Chinese dance looks that Ying performed on stage. Ellery asks the Dutch people to sing a happy birthday in Dutch for his little host sister with him, because it´s her birthday today. A very touching and nice idea. My host family and their niece were there as we entered the room holding flags, opening the event with a great flag-dance.

Everything goes well, people enjoy themselves on stage and the audience has a blast. Every chair is taken and LOC people keep bringing in more chairs so that everyone has a place to sit. I don´t remember such a huge audience in my last 20 arigato events. I feel relieved when the arigato event is finally over. I am still no fan of singing and dancing on stage but the people always looks so happy and some even get very emotional. This makes me feel like it was worth learning dances and lyrics, even though I don’t like it that much.

Daniel Gallion – Luxembourg

Arao City, City Life, City Theme Activities

Katana and Mayor day

June 29, 2012 Thomas Greve

Date of Activity: June 26^th

Today we first had arigatou event practice. It requires a lot of effort, but is definitely worth it. After an awesome bentou lunch box the mayor of Arao city came to visit us and we had a great Question and Answer session. We learned a lot about the city and it’s mayor.

After the interaction with the mayor we went to a katana smith. That was a great experience. We saw a bit of the process of making a katana, which takes about two weeks. Some of us got the chance to personally experience how difficult it is to deform hot iron. I for example can tell firsthand that it is really difficult.

We also got a demonstration of how to use a katana during our visit. And we also were lucky enough to get the opportunity to slash some bamboo mats ourselves after learning how to wield the Japanese Katanas. These bamboo mats are said to be as though as a humans stomach. It is really hard to hit the bamboo at a proper speed and angel, but when done correctly it cuts through as if cutting through air.

After the host family pickup i went to the nursery home where my host brother and sister were. After dinner this great day with a lot of new experiences slowly approached it’s end, getting closer to another day full of new exciting experiences.

Ellery Oosterberg – The Netherlands

Arao City, City Life

A host family day in Arao

June 28, 2012 Thomas Greve

Date of Activity: June 24^th

Today was another famous host family day. After a good nights sleep until late in the morning the whole family sat at the dinner table eating their delicious breakfast. During this nice Japanese style breakfast everyone was counting down until the afternoon in which we would go karaoke and while counting down discussing what songs we would sing. We left the house around half past 12 heading towards the karaoke place. Most of us had already digested our morning meal and as such we first headed for a place to have lunch. Upon arrival we immediately knew we were gonna eat ramen due to it’s distinctive smell. Though the smell might seem a bit odd to us foreigners the ramen was incredibly tasty. With our bellies full we arrived at the karaoke place called ‘paradise’. A place with such a name must be fun! With this idea in mind we entered our karaoke rooms and even the room itself, shaped as a cave, was cooler than imagined.

Singing songs in both English and Japanese the men enjoyed their beers and the women and kids kept drinking sugar filled drinks such as melon soda. After singing a few songs we personally liked, we started singing duets as well. This was really good for bonding with our host families and everyone tried their best to sing as good as they could! Everyone’s singing talent varied between normal to really good, with our host dad being extremely good at singing! After more than an hour had passed AKB songs started showing up in the karaoke list and we all sang them together! After a lot of fun and nice drinks our time ran out and we had to decide on dinner.

I had never eaten shabushabu before so we decided to go to a shabushabu restaurant. Because the system allowed us to eat as much as we wanted within 70 minutes for a given price we ordered mountains of meat and other food and started boiling them in the various types of boiling fluids in the pan on the cooking pit before us. Upon taking my first bite I was so happy we had chosen to go here, for it was extremely tasty as well as an extremely large amount. As a dessert we really wanted to eat ice cream. The problem was we had to make it ourselves. Somehow it seems Japanese people are good at anything, because our younger host brothers’ self made ice creams were really pretty and ours, the foreigners’, were totally ugly. Kyle, one of this years’ staff being hosted in the same family as me, actually needed a cup to support the ice cream on his cone as to not to collapse.

It was really fun and despite their ugliness the ice creams tasted really good! To summarize, this host family day was once again one of the best days in my life.

Jurriën Theunisz – The Netherlands

City Life, City Theme Activities, Omuta City

The Last Activity day in Omuta

June 27, 2012 Thomas Greve

Date of Activity: June 19^th

Today was the last activity day of the first session, and we spent it at Miike elementary school in Omuta. After introducing ourselves to the students during the morning assembly, we were assigned to spend the day with one class. I joined a 6^th grade class together with Rod from Canada. At first the students were shy, but they quickly warmed up to us when they were allowed to ask us questions about anything (surprisingly many requested an imitation of Japanese comedians) followed by Rod’s Canada trivia. Afterwards we had music, during which we played Taiko – various kinds of Japanese drums. The loud drumming made it impossible for the students to tell us what and how to play. However, the children surrounded us and they taught us the rhythms by action rather than words. Also, they rotated helping us, and we got to interact with all the students in the class. Afterwards we had social studies. As the 6^th graders were currently learning about the Muromachi era, the teacher had decided to get into the feeling of that time through Sado – the art of Tea ceremony.

After eating lunch together, it was cleaning time. Because they finished the cleaning early, a group of boys asked if we wanted to play cards with them. Despite the fact that neither Rod nor I knew the rules, the kids, Rod and I had a lot of fun playing cards. And though we didn’t always understand each other, we all smiled and laughed together.

The last lesson of the day was calligraphy. I was surprised by the suddenly serene atmosphere as we all sat quietly and drew Japanese signs on silky paper. In the end I was truly amazed by the contrasts I had witnessed that day: The shy class that welcomed us during the morning, the children vigorously hammering on the drums and the concentration and respect they displayed while practicing the old Japanese arts of Sado and of calligraphy.

(Torunn Olsen, Norway)