City Life, City Theme Activities, Tama City

Spreading Our World Campus

August 25, 2018 Thomas Greve

Daniel studying an edo period book on horticulture in Keisen university

I woke up at about 7:30 this morning to eat a bowl of oatmeal with yogurt and grapes with my host mother, Tomi, and brother, Hotaru (A meal pretty typical for me in America). However, it would differ when I left with my mother to the Keisen University in rainy weather due to a typhoon approaching.

We were told the day prior that this was an all-female Christian university where we would get to meet with the students, learn some history about their school, and discuss world topics. I have to admit, it was actually pretty fun! We had around six or seven students from the university who joined us during the day there and show us around.

We first went to the chapel and learn the history of the school along with a beautiful piece played by an organ player at the school (I still can’t believe she said she spends up to eight hours practicing before a performance!) Afterwards, we went to the university’s library where they had a dedicated memorial to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They kept many books and articles showcasing the first-hand experience the victims had.

Even by the time it was 11:00, the rain was still trickling outside. That didn’t stop us from being shown the herb garden the university tends to. They even made herbal water from the garden for us to drink while we discussed world affairs with the students. Even though all of us in World Campus Japan comes from different countries, us and the students all had meaningful discussions on our views of immigration, global warming, taxes, and what it means to have world peace.

I believe we ate lunch at around 12:00 in the university’s cafeteria with the other students. I just ordered a bowl of miso soup. After getting to talk to the students a bit more, we headed to the Nagayama Community Center where we would be showing Tama what it means to be a part of World Campus Japan.

For about two and a half hours, World Campus members from their respective countries made a presentation from the day before showing the great things from their countries that they wanted others to know about. Locals from Tama were invited to come to the center to view our presentations and learn more about all of our countries. With my partner, Sydney, we wanted to show how large the United States truly is and how diverse the culture is when it comes to its food, climate, and sports. We were also chosen as one of the four countries to do a dance for the locals (The others being Finland, Netherlands, and Norway). This turned out to be a cultural lesson for me too as we decided to do the chicken dance which I haven’t done in years! Thankfully, the dance is fairly simple.

Unfortunately, Sydney had become ill over the past few days and had to rest today. In other words, I and two of the Japanese students got on stage in the spotlight and taught an audience of about 100 adults and children how to shake their feathers and dance like a chicken (It looks better in person, I promise).

Although the event was long, I got to talk with so many locals and learn more about their life and their experience with America. Even better, I felt good being able to share my culture with so many locals. I can just feel that all of us today made an impact on the community with the event.

Once we wrapped up our end-of-the-day discussion at 17:00, my mother and brother came to pick me up. I got to meet some of my brother’s friends (Who all happen to be 7 years old) and we went back to our apartment. We ate a kind of curry with mushrooms and rice, beef, grapes, and corn. My brother was dying to play the Wii with me after I promised to play earlier. If there’s one thing my brother has taught me, it’s that I should really try to get better at skiing in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. I still have no clue how he had more than double my score.

We finished the night with my dad getting home and joining in on the game. I’m going to bed earlier since tomorrow is the Arigato Event and I want to have enough energy to dance for my host family. I had never done a presentation like the one today before, but I have to say that I’m glad I did. Maybe we even encouraged people to apply for World Campus to Norway and Finland!

Daniel Busch (The United States of America)

City Life, City Theme Activities, Tama City

Host family day in Tama

August 20, 2018 Thomas Greve

Hello everyone,

Today was the last host family day. This host family also used to be the host family of another Dutch person. They said they were hoping for another anime fan and that is what they got. They also suggested going to a place that anime fans like. So warning the rest of this blog will be about anime stuff.

I was very tired from the other days, so I was happy I could sleep until 8 o’clock today. After that I ate some toast for breakfast. This family likes Western style cooking a lot and has Western breakfast almost every day and Western style dinner three or four times a week. As we had already gone to Akihabara on our personal day we decided to go to Ikebukuro. I chose this location not only because there is anime stuff, but there was also a non-anime related place that I wanted to visit since I was very young, the planetarium in Sunshine City. I always wanted to see a planetarium and the last time I was in Tokyo, three years ago, the place was closed, so I was happy that I could go this time.

Another thing we did was looking for a new backpack. As we have a pretty tight schedule I thought that I didn’t need a lot of extra space, but everyone was so nice and gave me so many presents that I didn’t have enough space in my backpack anymore. At the Uniqlo I found a nice backpack for not too much money. After that it was time to go to the planetarium. The show we saw was in English called: Fantasy railroad in the stars. I can only understand a bit of Japanese, so I think I understood the base of the story, but the details were too difficult, so I might have some misunderstandings about to the story. The story was about a boy that traveled through the galaxy with a girl and they learn about the stars during their travels. It was a very beautiful show and I am happy to have fulfilled this childhood dream of mine.

After that my host sister wanted to show me a place where she sometimes goes: a butler café. It was a lot of fun, but also very awkward for me. It looks and feels so formal, but it isn’t. I ate some pasta as they only had Western food. After that we did some manga shopping. I bought two manga today. I want to improve my Japanese reading and manga are easier than normal books and I just like manga.

In the evening we ate chicken with onion, salad, pumpkin and onigiri. They always eat so much for every meal I can’t get used to it, but it tastes so good. We also had a good talk about the cultural differences in our countries.

Today was a very fun day. I hope the rest of the rest of the week will be like this too.

Cheyenne Rizzo (The Netherlands)

Abiko City, City Life, City Theme Activities

A japanese culture day – chadō and shodō

August 18, 2018 Thomas Greve

Group picture with the Calligraphy Club of Chuo Gakuin University in Abiko

When I woke up today, I felt like laying in a sauna. I think it was about 40 degrees Celsius in my room, although it was only 7 am. Atsui desu! In the kitchen, there was already a nice breakfast waiting for me. My host Mom made it for me. She is so kind. It is always fun to talk to her; she hardly speaks English and I don’t understand Japanese, so we lead our conversations with a lot of gestures and simple words; the best way to get to know a new language, I guess.

Later, we drove to Chuo Gakuin University. We were going to experience a traditional tea ceremony, chadō, and discover Japanese calligraphy, shodō. After everyone from the group had arrived, we took a seat in a large room where the students and teachers received us affectionately; they were happy to meet us. In front of us, a young woman, wearing a Yukata, made one cup of matcha tea. During the procedure, she used different utensils and every single movement was perfectly practiced. She seemed to be in her own world; looking at her was calming. I didn’t expect it to be so accurate and it was really admirable. After that, we could try it. Somehow, I was a bit nervous because even the cups are held in a special way! But the students helped us.

We also got to know origami and folded some pretty cranes. While eating lunch, we became acquainted with the university students and their teachers. It was really interesting to learn about the way they live in Japan and about their studies. After lunch, the shodō students showed us a presentation where they were writing on a huge piece of paper. It nearly looked like a dance which was quite impressive. We were involved too and could write on a fan. Shodō is a peaceful and comforting activity; I think everyone had fun!

Later on, we interacted with the students while playing games and drinking tea, which was actually Cola. And this is, in my opinion, one of the best things of World Campus Japan: you meet people from all over the world. You make new friends and enjoy great moments with them! During my short time here in Japan, I got to know so many nice people; it‘s amazing! I spent the rest of the day with my host family. In the evening, we watched anime together, exchanged knowledge about our cultures and laughed a lot!

That day, I made numerous great experiences. And imagine, it was only one day out of 3 weeks, where I‘ll discover this amazing country.

Melina Schmit (Luxembourg)

City Life, City Theme Activities, Mito City

A rainy day and a potluck party

August 17, 2018 Thomas Greve

Group picture with the host families in Mito

Woke up at 6:30 am as usual when my host mom knocked on the door. This morning however, the plans had been cancelled due to potential heavy rains and so I could sleep in. As much as I was disappointed about not going to the Kairokuen, I was quite tired and happy to sleep for a few more hours.

At 9 I got dressed and had breakfast with my host family. My host mother made a really tasty breakfast with eggs bacon and edamame and my favourite, curry bread.

After we had put away the dishes, we all headed to the Kokusai kouryo to meet with all the other families. On the way we noticed that it actually had barely rained. When we arrived, I quickly joined the other World Campus Japan members for a quick meeting before us all having fun playing games and singing silly songs with the families as well as enjoying the delicious food people brought for the potluck party!

I spent most of the time with my family, but especially with my host dad. We talked about a lot of things together including the education and a little bit about his trip to my country when he was younger.

After clean up, my family decided to still quickly take me to the Kairakuen, but now it was actually raining and very badly… Instead we decided to go visit the Kodokan, an important school where clansmen and their sons had gone to school to learn everything from mathematics to martial arts. The building was quite old but extremely beautiful. Because of the heavy rain, the garden surrounding the traditional Japanese building looked stunning and made the whole area seem like a movie set for a historical movie.

My host family also translated and explained all the panels that were only written in Japanese for me. When we left, the rain was much worse. After a short run in the rain, we made a quick stop at the shopping centre where we picked up some ingredients for dinner which was curry!

After we cooked together and ate, we watched a few game shows on TV together before finally going to bed early. The next day was Host family day, and we planned to leave as soon as possible the next morning and also hoped for no rain.

Sonja van Lier (Switzerland)

City Life, Isehara City

Thank you Isehara: Final goodbye of session 2 with a bang (of taiko drums)

August 6, 2018 Thomas Greve

I woke up this morning at 7 AM. As usual, I took my clothes I had prepared the night before and went downstairs to greet my family. Afterwards, I took a shower, where I was surprised to see that there was no hot water. So an awkward moment arose as I had to ask my host sister to turn on the hot water. She came in to help while I was standing in the corner butt naked. After finally being able to take a shower and get dressed, I headed to the living room, where breakfast was waiting for me.

At 9 AM, the participants, including me, had our daily morning meeting. After the meeting we went to a room where a lot of taiko drums were spread around the room. A Japanese man greeted us and invited us to take seat next to a drum on tatami mat. He showed us how to use the drumsticks and taught us a very easy rhythm that we played together. And that was how our taiko lesson started. After a while we all got the hang of the piece we would play at the Arigato Event that would take place later that day. The taiko teacher taught us a few more songs that were more difficult, so difficult that I couldn’t do it properly. At 11.30 the taiko session was over and we moved on to the next activity, which was cooking.

We met up with many elderly people with cute aprons and were also asked to wear an apron and a bandana. Although it was a cooking class, we didn’t actually cook. We made our own wagashi, Japanese sweets, that are eaten during a tea ceremony. The chef demonstrated how to make two different sweets and we made them to the best of our ability. I thought it was easy at first because the chef made them without any effort but I was wrong. Mine turned out pretty bad. Some were so ugly that I couldn’t say that I was proud with what I had made. I wish to try it again in the future.

After we were done, the cute ladies in cute aprons prepared us curry that was delicious. We and the Japanese people sat down and ate our bellies full. We could eat our own wagashi as dessert, or we had the choice to keep them for later. After that we had our session wrap up. We talked about our favorite moments and wrote a review about World Campus. I also received a very official World Campus International Certificate of Completion, which I’m actually very happy about.

Later we had the rehearsal for the Arigato Event. Even though we had done it many times before, there were still some minor changes. I already knew what was going on so it was a bit repetitive. Finally, at 6 PM, it was time for the show our families had been waiting, and it was a great success!! The families brought food so we could have a potluck party afterwards. However, we also had our taiko performance after the potluck party. After that it was one last group picture and the day was over. Finally, at home another participant, Jules, joined my family for fireworks. A perfect finish for the day!

Sarah Lennaux (Belgium)