All the meeting attendees in the chapel of Seisen Ryo.
Like I said before, KEEP is big into Environmental Education. They have huge programs for families to come and learn about the animals in the area, visit the farm, learn about where there food comes from and how to eat healthier and just get an overall outdoor experience that is rare in the very industrialized Japan. Even the nursery school, St. John's, is well known for its outdoor based curriculum. As you can see it is one of KEEP's big initiative to bring nature appreciation to the people of Japan. This year celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Environmental Education program at KEEP. The four ideals that KEEP was founded on are food, health, faith and hope for youth with environmental education and international outreach added in the 80s. To celebrate, KEEP held a ceremony at the Nature Center here in Kiyosato. It was attended by many local dignitaries as well as former employees of the various environmental education programs. It was a reunion of sorts. I went with my boss, Okemoto-san, for the opening of the ceremonies and then we left them to continue their programming. They were also putting on a larger celebration in Tokyo at Rikkyo University because of their ties to the university and the many supporters of KEEP now living in Tokyo as well so a few representatives from the embassy could join. Jennifer, who had extended her stay beyond just the board meeting, and I rode the three hours to Tokyo with the rest of the group from the Environmental Education department. Once there, everything was put into overdrive. The whole room was transformed into a place to put on their event for the guests coming. There was a presentation on the history of the Environmental Education program and what they hope for the future before there was a breakout session to brainstorm ideas on where people see the program moving in the future and what do they think needs to be done to ensure it continues to grow. After all the formality, there was the obligatory party afterwards that was so very Japanese. There was a speech made by the president of Rikkyo University to introduce the man that would give the toast (KANPAI!). There was beer and wine stationed all around the room so everyone had a glass, or two in my and many others case, because the toasts kept coming! After that was eating and networking on speed. You have not networked in the business world until you have networked in Japan. Maybe it was just because Jennifer and I were quite recognizable, but every time I turned around there was another person wanting to talk to us and trade business cards. Not that I am complaining because I met some really interesting people. I met a man that works for the World Wildlife Foundation of Japan, a man that works for the Ministry of Agriculture, a woman that puts on agricultural events for Suntory, a man that works for the Scout Association of Japan (the Boys Scouts he told us) and even a guy that is working on a "mammalian genome project." I only remember all this because I can look back at all the business cards I received. Now let me pause here and explain about how business cards work in Japan. There is a certain way to trade them and receive them. When you give yours out, make sure your name is facing the receiver and you are holding it with both hands and then receive their card with both hands as well. Business cards aren't something that are meant to be thrown in a pocket either, they are to be examined and put away nicely. There is a whole market for office supplies that revolve around this ritual. I can honestly say I now have a case for my personal business cards as well as a book for all the business cards from other I have accumulated. It is definitely a habit that I'm bringing home with me. I joked about this, but I can totally see why the Pokemon trading cards caught on, it's like trading business cards for kids!
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| The Nature Center at KEEP where they kicked off the festivities. |
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| The room being set for all the guests. |
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| Jennifer and I were among the guests of honor. |
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| Brainstorming session. |
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| Exploring Rikkyo-or St. Paul's-University with Kuroda-san who is a prominent man both at KEEP as a board member and the University. |
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| The on campus chapel at Rikkyo's--it was founded as an Anglican University. |
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| The chapel felt a lot like home for some reason...must be the big choir balcony. |
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Party after the event-Kanpai!
After the event, I stayed with Jennifer at a friend of hers' house, the Meshinos. The funny thing is, I met one of their daughters, Sara, already in Chicago when I met with Jennifer back in November, so it was neat to stay with them and have them show me around Tokyo the next day. They were the nicest people ever, taking a stranger in and feeding them and letting them stay the night! We talked a lot over breakfast about the places to go and what I needed to check out and how much the enjoy going to KEEP and so on. I was to catch a train around five, so we decided going to the Asakusa temple in the middle of Tokyo would be the easiest and most interesting thing to do with so little time. We walked through the temple and ate street food and just people watched--Tokyo has the absolute BEST people watching outside of US theme parks!
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| The Meshino house...the garage is underneath! |
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| The sakuras had started to bloom--I don't know how they are after the snow. |
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| The gate to the Asakusa Buddhist Temple. |
The entrance to the temple--the smoke is where you are supposed to cleanse yourself before you go in. There are also fountains on either side to continue cleansing before you go in.
Some beautiful person in front of the temple.
Getting my fortune in front of the temple
I wasn't very happy with my fortune, so...
...I tied it up and left it with the others that people didn't like.
Leading up to the temple was wall to wall people--with shops on either side.
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| Jennifer and Kanae, my guides for the day |
Driving to the train station I got to see the iconic Sky Tree.
I thought it was funny to say that my train was leaving from Platform 9 3/4--the Harry Potter nerd in me.
Jennifer snapped one last shot from our time together--me with my train that would take me the three hours back to Kiyosato
After my little side trip, it was back to work as usual. My next placement was at the nursery school, St. John's. The first two days I was there, I started in the morning with the one to two year olds. It was nice because they don't know how to speak Japanese, I don't know how to speak Japanese--it worked. That is until they brought a book over and I started making up my own story in English and they just looked at me and walked away. I would have lunch with the little ones and then head over to the three to six year old room. The next three days after that, I was strictly with the older kids. I had a lot of fun with them because I was like the new toy, all the kids wanted to play with me and show me around. I took to drawing pictures and labeling them in English for them and then they would tell me what it was in Japanese. Surprisingly, I learned a lot of words from them this way and practiced with them because right now I am at about the same level of learning Japanese as a four year old. One kid knew a lot of English, so I brought a few English books from the library that he and I practiced with in the morning before class started. While it boosted my ego in all of them wanting to play with me at once, my ego was crushed at lunch time when they would say something to me and then laugh because I didn't understand. I don't care what anyone says--there is a hierarchy to where you sit at lunch at any age, anywhere in the world. Like I said forever ago, at the beginning of this post, St. John's is well known in the area for its curriculum focused on outdoor activity. Every single day these kids were outside either playing on the playground, taking hikes to the different locations at KEEP or having their "forest hike" day. I was thoroughly unprepared for this and the cold, me being an indoor animal and all. I'm not kidding, these kids are tough. The only time I saw a kid cry was when he threw himself down a hill body sledding and face planted at the bottom. This amount of outdoor activity would be unheard of in the US. American schools would have called the dreaded "indoor recess" with the amount of snow we have here. Another observation I made was that these kids are fearless when it comes to nature and I think that is a by-product of the outdoor program. They were very observant when it came to leaves and tracks and most had picked up walking sticks by the end of the hikes. I think it is something that is really lost with kids these days in the age of the internet. Putting the whole being cold the entire time aside, these kids were a blast and taught me so much. I want to go back throughout the year and practice my Japanese with them.
Mimi--my friend the whole week with one of my labeled masterpieces.
Snack time around the campfire when it was actually warm one day.
My friend with really good English on the tractor at the Farm Shop store--the original John Deere family were big benefactors of KEEP.
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Senseis on the seesaw--catchy
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| Nature hike to the forest campsite. |
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| The forest campsite on my last day. |
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| Kids lighting the campfire--I wasn't kidding when I said they were fearless. Don't worry there is a teacher right there behind that blue arm. |
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| Playing on the frozen stream to get ice for the ice sculpting. |
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| Teacher with a blow torch and knives to create shapes in the ice chunks from the stream. |
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| Snack time over the campfire--mochi (pounded rice cakes), sweet red bean soup, popcorn and warm milk |
The last placement I've had has been at the Shizen Gakko, which is the Nature Discovery Center. I like to think of it as a sleep away camp for families. It is a facility that houses families like a hotel, but puts on nature programs around KEEP. It is a way for families to get away and spend time with each other in an environment that they might not be used to, like one family I talked to that lives down south along the coast. They do nature hikes and the such. One program that I did get to participate in was the building of かまくら, or kamakura, which are Japanese style igloos. The instructors took the parents to build these while the kids did another activity and came back to play later. I don't have much more detail on the programs because I was in the kitchen most all of the time I was there. These families not only stay here, but there is an industrial sized kitchen that serves them meals on site, too. It was just like back in college during my food prep labs, cutting and washing vegetables, dredging foods, and even making those fun rice shapes called onigiri. I also helped serving one afternoon at lunch as well. Most of the dinners they wanted me sitting with the families and interacting with the kids which was a lot of fun. I like to say that I can now tell people I've worked under a Japanese chef and she was much nicer and way less frightening than any American one I've worked under. One day, I got to participate in a program that the kitchen put on for the parents. A woman came in who was an expert at making Yamanashi prefecture's well known dish, ほうとう, which is hōtō. It is a noodle dish and we learned how to make those noodles. It was an unexpected little treat when I thought I would just be preparing food for dinner. What I really enjoyed about this time I had here was during the staff meal times we all got to just sit and talk. One lady, Yuko, and I had a great time trying to use our limited Japanese and English to converse with each other, but as I am finding with a lot of people here, she knew a lot more English than she thought she did. That's been my favorite part about being here, the getting to see people open up to me and use the English they didn't think they knew and watching them get excited and gain confidence. It helps a lot to have a dictionary on hand of course, but that's half the fun. Having pictures of family and friends and my dog on my phone is an easy conversation starter, too. I was supposed to do a second week in the kitchen at the Shizen Gakko, but because of the heavy snow storm they cancelled all of the programming.
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| Parents carving out the kamakura--it was pretty sophisticated with stairs leading up to the top where there was a slide into one of the rooms. |
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| Some of the kitchen staff that I worked with every day. |
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| Suprising Yuko in the dining hall. |
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| I made about forty or so of these bentōs for families to take on their hikes for lunch. |
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| Standing next to one of the chefs I worked with all week and the hōtō lady. |
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| Rolling out the soon to be noodles. |
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| Parents cutting the noodles. |
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| Putting the noodles in to cook. |
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| Hōtō eating time! It's fun for all ages! |
Outside of work, I've been doing a little language learning on my own. Every Tuesday night, I hop in my little car and drive down the mountain into Nirasaki for a two hour Japanese class. My teacher is also a professor at a university in Kofu, the capital of the Yamanashi Prefecture we are in. The class isn't very big, but it has a nice intimate feel to it. One student is an American from Washington that teaches English at one of the nearby high schools, so his Japanese is pretty good. The other girl that comes is learning English. Those two come for the conversational part of the class, I come for the worksheets and preschool style learning, but hey, you have to start somewhere. My teacher also brings her son and his friend because she said this is the only time they'll actually work on their homework and not sit in front of the computer or TV. I was glad to hear kids are the same everywhere. It is nice because we all learn from each other in a setting that isn't work and doesn't have to be professional so we talk about innately stupid things. Of course, being the book worm that I am, I also now have two library cards. One is to the library in the Civic Center where I take the Japanese class, and the other is to the Hokuto City library, which is the one closest to me. Obviously I am not checking out War & Peace translated into Japanese or anything, I am really there to check out the kids books to practice reading the hiragana I am learning. I feel a little silly going into the kids' section with no kids, but actually it works to help practice! So far I am an expert at using さむい, or samui, which is cold, ゆき, or yuki, which is snow, and かわいい, or kawaii, which is cute. I'm a woman of many words.
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My Kumon, flashcards, workbook to trace hiragana and my book to practice writing the hiragana...I'm serious when I say I feel like a preschooler again, but I'm loving it!
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My library cards. Oh, did I also mention I am a rewards point member of the local grocery store, Ogino, now too?
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My Hokuto City library bag--FREE with membership. ALSO--big plus, they don't have library fines in Japan, you just can't use your card until you return your book. They were baffled that fines even exist. I thought one librarian was going to faint when I said I once had $116 in fines.
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I wanna say a huge thanks to my dad, or as his daughters and close personal friends of ours lovingly call him Gorilla Ken, for my first HUGE care package in Japan. Once I got here I realized I had checked and rechecked every nook and cranny in the house while packing, except the closet my Northface jacket was in. While this might not be an issue in some places what with my brand new, full length winter coat I got for Christmas, but this is Kiyosato and God and his weather demons laughed in my face. So my care package most notably contained my jacket that I now wear as one of the layers under my big coat. Also, Japan is a country of moderation when it comes to sweets and I am one that doesn't just have one sweet tooth--they're all sweet, so he sent a giant bag of Jelly Bellys, a two pound bag of Skittles and a two pound bag of Sour Patch Kids, a family size bag a M&Ms and some Valentine's candy. Ashamed? Never. So if you were thinking of sending candy in a care package, my glucose levels would appreciate it if you kept it to a minimum. I also got my Book of Common Prayer, Hymnal and Bible so now I can actually follow along in church when they're speaking in all Japanese. I know, I know. What kind of missionary am I that I left all those at home? One that's bag was already twenty two pounds overweight!
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All the way from the states in 6 days!
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I should be embarrassed, but I'm not.
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I would also like to point out that this whole process started a year ago this past weekend. Our discernment weekend where all of us YASCers met for the first time in Florida seems like just yesterday, but everyone is pretty much almost half way through their time at their placement. I know a year ago, this all seemed just a figment of our imagination, but it really happened! I like to think I made some really great friends by only leaving my comfort zone. These people made me look at myself in a whole different light and I can't thank them ALL enough. I'm so proud of each and every one of us for all that we have done since that day we met! Remember these kids?!? Also, this year's class of potential YASCers just finished up their discernment weekend yesterday. I wish all of them luck in deciding whether following in our footsteps on an amazing journey is the right choice for them!
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Our final day together at the discernment weekend. While not everyone chose the missionary path, they all contributed in some way in making this weekend a truly meaningful one. Thank you!!!
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Thanks for making it to the end on this long one, but I figured it could be a good Monday morning read on this President's Day holiday.
Until next time--
Charlotte
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