World Campus International Blog » Toyota City

An Experience that I never forget

Thomas Greve — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:53:44 +0000

2011 August, 6^th – 12^th: In Toyota, I was hosted by an awesome family, and that was the Michiyamas family. On the first day, my host mother and sister took me to a ‘’KAMISHIBAI” exhibition place. There were a lot of kamishibai’s tools and instructions to let you know how to play “KAMISHIBAI”. “KAMISHIBAI” is a device to tell stories. You use a square box which has doors you can open to insert paper illustrations and pull it out when you are telling the story. I was very lucky to have this experience. I played kamishibai before kids, and they really enjoyed my performance. I felt very happy about that. Because my host mother is a professional teacher of kamishibai, so she taught me a lot of techniques. It makes me know more about kamishibai.

After we experienced kamishibai, we went to the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. There they had an exhibition of a famous painter from Holland, named Johannes Vermeer. His paintings are very elegant and realistic. We had a wonderful afternoon enjoying and appreciating every painting there.

On 8^th August, my host sister took me to Nagashima Spa Land, an amusement park that has the longest roller coaster in Japan. And my host sister and I are both crazy-loving ride on roller coaster! So, we rode every roller coaster as much as possible. There are totally seven roller coasters, we rode not only once but also twice for a tallest roller coaster. It was very exciting for me to have such a great experience in Japan. In Taiwan, we don’t have these kinds of roller coasters. It was really impressive and a lot of fun. We really had a wonderful time there.

(“Umi” Yi-Ting Cheng from Taiwan)

Everybody is waiting for you this summer in Japan!

Thomas Greve — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:54:52 +0000

Session 1

Nishimura family from Omura city, Nagasaki:
“3 years ago, we first hosted a girl from Germany on WCI program.
Since then, we’ve been looking forward to hosting a guest of WCI every year!
They always make us happy and bring us big energy!
I love this program from bottom of my heart.”

Matsuda family from Omuta city, Fukuoka:
“To unknown my family
Thank you for your support to Japan.
Our city has not been damaged by disaster.
We are looking forward to seeing you!!”

Session 2

Kinoshita family from Arao city, Kumamoto:
“It has been a hard time for Japan this year.
We are thinking what we can do in our everyday life for Tohoku which is the stricken area. Fortunately my hometown is more than 1,000 km away from Tohoku and there is no influence of the earthquake, tidal wave and damage of the nuclear power plant at all. And thankfully we are working, studying, hanging around with friends and living our normal life.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone from WCI and listening to the diverse stories from different countries this year again. I believe that small city like Arao will give you an opportunity to feel familiar and understand the depth of our culture.”

Ensatsu family from Uda city, Nara:
“Hello friends!!
This message is from Uda city in Nara.
You know the big earthquake occurred in eastern Japan.
But Nara is in western Japan, so it’s safe here.
We had many great time with WCI every year.
Come to join us !!
We are really looking forward to being your family !!”

Session 3

Dave family from Suita city, Osaka:
“Greeting from Suita city, Osaka! We are looking forward to meeting you and share our culture!!! There are so many things you can discover and experience here in Osaka! See you very soon!”

Kinoshita family from Toyota city, Aichi:
“We are looking forward to seeing you in Toyota!”

Regarding March 11, 2011 Japanese Earthquake

Thomas Greve — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:40:08 +0000

March 12, 2011

Dear Friends of World Campus International,

The shocking earthquake hitting the north-east part of Japan has caused massive destruction to the region. Currently, the Japanese national and local governments are working to assess the degree of damage.

Though there are areas of Japan that have been severely affected, all of our partner communities seem to have avoided tragedy. Currently, we do plan to facilitate the World Campus – Japan program from June 23 thru August 30.

Because the damages are reported in the northern region of Japan, and our community partners are located in central to western Japan, we are confident that our summer program will not be affected by the earthquake.

We have already contacted several community partners who are hosting our summer program and confirmed that they are OK and not severely or at all affected by these tragic events. We will continue to reach out to the rest of our community partners and communicate to you via this website any updated information.

Thank you for your understanding.

Hiro Nishimura
Chairman and CEO
World Campus International, Inc.

Update: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on March 17, 2011

Update 2: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on April 06, 2011 – Regarding New 2011 World Campus – Japan Program plan

Thomas Greve — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:07:39 +0000

Rose Sushi!

Thomas Greve — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 22:07:37 +0000

Another great afternoon in Toyota City. Today we were told we were going to learn how to make japanese food. Nice!!! ~ Many of us signed up for it because what a great opportunity.

We started with the “learning” it wasn’t as simple as we thought, of course, there are so many details that go into making a japanese dish… we thought it was going to look HORRIBLE to be honest but at the end, it wasn’t too bad. It actually looked REALLY GOOD!

We learned how to make sushi… but… once you cut it, the inside of the roll looks like roses. Yes! like roses, can you believe it? Those Japanese people really know how to make food a special thing not only to eat but to see.

Take a look at the picture!

Thomas Greve — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:07:36 +0000

The price of being an immigrant

Thomas Greve — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:07:24 +0000

In the City of Toyota you can find a very big community of Brazilian people. On this day we went to an apartment complex where 8300 people live, 4000 of them are foreigners. Not only from Brazil, which are the majority of them, also from Peru, Philippines, China and other countries.

Inside the Apartment Complex we visited a Non-profit organization that works with the kids of the immigrants, kids that can go to school because they don’t speak the language or are not up to date with the school work and can’t keep up, that’s the price they have to pay for being immigrants.

Mrs. Imura decided to open up this NPO 10 years ago called Homi Danchi, to help those kids to continue to go to school. Today the NPO keeps helping kids and even young adults to continue with their education. Some of them keep going to the place just to do homework or to feel part of something.

Toyota is a very interesting community because is very different from the rest of Japan. You can find many foreigners there, specially from Brazil, and diversity is not seen as such a strange thing. People are more used to seeing people from other countries there, many people speak English and the interest for learning about other cultures and languages is obvious.

It is good to know that we, as World Campus – Japan, could see a little bit of a different Japan in the City of Toyota. Every place in Japan, for sure has its own magic and Toyota has a very special magic.

Thomas Greve — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:07:22 +0000

Driving technology

Thomas Greve — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 22:07:01 +0000

Obviously, we couldn’t leave the City of Toyota without visiting… “Toyota!” Even though we couldn’t visit the cars factory itself, we got to see the Toyota Museum of Technology.

Now, you’re imagining a boring museum, full of old cars and stuff like that, right?

Wrong! The Toyota museum was surprisingly fun! In Techno-land, for example, you could do and try all kind of experiences, so that you could learn about physics forces that they use all the time to produce cars. And for those who love robots, they had one that would play musical instruments! We posted a picture a few days ago with a caption “Future”, check it out!

And, obviously, for those who love cars, they had one part where they would explain how things are done in Toyota factory. So, even though we couldn’t get to see the real factory, we understood the whole process.

We sure had a good time, hanging in the museum! The fact that the Nagoya college students were with us, giving us some explanations sometimes, made it a really good day!

(Ana Margarida – Portugal)

Thomas Greve — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:07:05 +0000

Night Art

Thomas Greve — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:07:58 +0000

Sometimes in World Campus – Japan we feel that we learn everything there is to learn, in one day, and on that same moment, we change gears and we start learning about something totally new and excited. Just like it happened on this afternoon.

After picking weeds out of the rice fields and learning about a local currency we were about to set up a complete set of beautiful lanterns along the streets of Asuke to then join a night festival that they prepare every year. The lanterns were made out of rice paper and bamboo, painted by the locals with beautiful different colors and decorations.

Not only did we set up all the lanterns, we also had a great time with our host families, enjoying the view of the town of Asuke by night, shopping in little traditional stores, new ones very modern, and great bakeries that sale very famous pastries, etc.

There was something for everyone in the family. We certainly enjoyed our time, while walking along the streets of this very cute little town close to the City of Toyota.

Thomas Greve — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:07:38 +0000

Omusubi Currency

Thomas Greve — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:45:53 +0000

As you can read on the articles before this one, the World Campus – Japan participants went to Asuke, a small village located about 45 minutes away from the City of Toyota.
There we went to pick up weeds from the rice fields for a morning to help the rice farmers. In return, the rice farmers gave us Omusubi Currency as a payment for our work.

Omusubi Currency is a type of currency that was put into the rice market just a few months ago by locals from Asuke. 1 Omosubi = 75 grams of rice. It’s a little complicated, hard to understand and even harder to explain, but the main idea is to have the local people use this currency in the local stores and businesses to keep the income coming for the local rice farmers. The rice the farmers in this area grow is organic, so, no substances added to it. Which makes it better and more worth than the rice you buy at the supermarket anywhere.

Usually you, as an outsider can’t get Omusubi Currency, you have to work in the area, even if is just for a temporary work, to earn Omusubi Currency, then you can use them in the area.

We might agree or not with the idea of having a separate currency in a small area of the country but the locals are doing something to not only help their communities but also to make the organic rice business grow.

Thomas Greve — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:07:48 +0000

Frogs, flies, spiders and worms

Thomas Greve — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:07:45 +0000

When that morning we heard we were going to the community of Asuke to pick up weeds from the rice fields, it sounded like a cool experience but doing it was a complete whole new deal. Not only did we put our feet with just sox in the mud and picked up weeds from the rice fields, we also discovered a complete new world of flying, swimming and jumping bugs we had never seen before. Anywhere from frogs to flies to spiders to worms. They were all there, waiting for us to put our hands in the mud to jump, swim or fly either away or towards us.

The truth is, even though it wasn’t that pretty we had a great time going through the experience together. This was for sure a lifetime experience, not only coming to Japan but putting our feet in the mud, dealing with the bugs and doing it all with a bunch of friends from all over the world. Where else can you do something like that? where else can you get to experience this kind of things.

World Campus – Japan is THE unique access to Japan. Today more than ever, it teaches us to appreciate how comfortable we are at home and how to appreciate other people’s work.