Meeting Mayor Matsumoto in Omura was such a great chance to learn about the inside view of what is going on in Omura and what are some of the future plans for the city.
We had a great conversation with Mr. Matsumoto and talked about how much we were enjoying Omura and letting him know he is the Mayor of a great city! He said they are currently working on partnering with sister cities around the world and because we represent 8 different countries we had some great ideas to help make that happen in our home towns.
We thank Mr. Matsumoto very much for spending the morning with us and we hope the best for Omura!
(Brandon Serna – External Relations Manager for Summer ‘11 Road Team)
This week we had the opportunity to visit the Shorinji Kempo dojo here in Omura and learn the world practiced martial art Shorinji Kempo. We first had the chance to learn the history, culture, and reason for the martial art. The Sensei’s (teacher) that was speaking is now a 8th degree black belt in Shorinji Kempo. It was great to hear the story of why Shorinji Kempo was created because it’s a great way to feel more connected to why we were learning the moves. Shorinji Kempo is a young Japanese martial art compared to some of the others. In 1947 Doshin So founded Shorinji Kempo in the town of Tadotsu, Kagawa prefecture.
Doshin’s motivation for creating Shorinji Kempo was to bring the spirit of Japan back up after World War II. During that time in Japan the rules of society, the economy, and people’s hearts were in turmoil. Doshin So’s then awakened to the knowledge that “all things depend on the quality of the people who stand in the positions of influence.” He considered that to build a peaceful world “there is no other way than to cultivate, in as many people as possible, deeply rooted compassion, great courage, and a strong sense of justice.” This is just a small portion of Doshin So’s Philosophy to the martial art and Shorinji Kempo is now taught in over 34 countries worldwide and is growing fast.
So after the verbal briefing now was the time to learn first hand some Shorinji Kempo technics (all are self defense based). At first seeing the groups of kids anywhere from 6 to 13 years olds that we’ll be sparing with I thought this shouldn’t hurt too much, about 10 seconds later I was on the group quite in pain and might have lost my confidence. Luckily I looked around and almost all of us from World Campus Japan were in the same position. It was great to learn the technic from the kids because of their great spirits and patience with teaching us. Not to mention getting thrown around by a boy half my size was very enlightening. It was a day filled with fun, learning, and much soreness afterwards.
(Brandon Serna – External Relations Manager for Summer ‘11 Road Team)
Hot summer day in Abiko Japan. The day of Kappa Festival right by the Abiko Train Station. This day was one of the last days of the World Campus – Japan Summer 2010 Tour and it was as busy or more busy than the first day.
Before i go into telling you what we did that day I have to explain what the Kappa Festival is right? or at least explain what a Kappa is, so here is the explanation: Kappa is a water creature, it looks like a very interesting combination of a frog with a chicken pick and a plate on his head.
The Kappa Festival has become one of the most important celebrations of the City of Abiko, they have everything from music performances which we were part of, food everywhere, there is of course a parade which we participated in and then it ends with a very cultural celebration at a park with bamboo candles everywhere, which we had the opportunity to help set up.
So, as you read, the Kappa Festival is just a celebration of life. World Campus – Japan participants not only had the chance to participate in it as a performers but we also helped with all the set up of the festival.
It was a great experience to see how people work all year long to plan this day, they also work really hard on the day of the festival to make sure everything happens as planned.
People ate, enjoyed each other’s company and celebrated the Kappa with a great Abiko spirit, which is now more than ever, a very international spirit.
This was forsure a very cultural learning day in World Campus – Japan. We went from rehearsing our on performance for the Kappa Festival (which we will talk about on the next few posts) to learning a very traditional dance to hula classes. But the highlight of the day was… The Tea Ceremony!
For those of you that never heard about this Ceremony, here is a little explanation about it:
“The tea ceremony is a very special event in Japanese culture. The host spends days going over every detail to make sure that the ceremony will be perfect. There are various styles of tea ceremonies and it is recognized that every human encounter is a singular occasion that will never recur again in exactly the same way, and so every aspect of the tea ceremony is savored. The ceremony takes place in a room called the chashitsu. This room is designed and designated only for this ceremony”
The participants of World Campus – Japan had the opportunity to dress up with yukatas and learn about this very traditional way of serving tea that goes above and behond warming up the water and adding tea.
The Earth seems like such a large place, will we ever have too many people for Earth to produce the things we need to survive? How about the plants and animals that live here? Is there enough for all of us? How much of the Earth is actually available to produce the food we need and to clean up our wastes? What’s your guess; 100% of the surface, 50%, less?
Using an apple to represent the Earth; cut the Earth into four pieces. Now throw out three of the pieces that represent the oceans. Oceans make up 75% of the Earth’s surface area.
Slice the remaining piece of Earth in half and throw out one piece representing lands, such as deserts, that are inhospitable.
Slice whats left into four sections and throw out three of them. These represent areas that are too cold, too steep, or too rocky to produce food.
Peel the skin off of the remaining slice of the apple ad keep it, throw out the rest. This small amount of skin represents the Earth’s crust, the area that has enough topsoil to produce the food on which we all depend.
The Earth doesn’t seem quite as big anymore does it? Natural resources are limited and must be used wisely so that all of us can live on this small piece of Earth.
For more information on this subject go to:
http://www.easternct.edu/sustainenergy/education/documents/FootprintCommittmentandCalculator.pdf
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World Campus International, Inc.
Tokyo Station
Dai 2 Ebisu Heights #101
4-17-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0013
Japan
Osaka Station
#202 MY-Edobori,
1-25-31 Edobori, Nishi-Ku, Osaka 550-0002
Japan
To Contact Us in Japanese:
Phone: Japan
+81 3 3473 1120
Fax: +81 3 5546 1746
Email: hyasui@worldcampus.org
To Contact Us in English:
Phone: USA
+1 303 495 2078
Phone: Japan
+81 80 6978 4321
Fax: +81 3 5475 5842
Email: bhufford@worldcampus.org
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