Month: July 2018

Last Saturday, 07/21, marks the somewhat middle of our LSA+ program! On that day, all the students and the most the homestay families got together at La Paz's second floor Balcone, バルコーネ, (one of KUIS's cafes) in the morning.

A little less of than half of the students on the LSA+ switched host families on 07/21, as some students have a different host family for the second half of the program. This is partially because many families want to host Dartmouth students, but there are only 12 students. In those cases, both of the homestay families came to the party and tables were very lively.

Before we started, there were snacks/chocolates and drinks, and people just chatted while we waited for everybody to arrive and settle in. After everyone arrived, people passed out materials to do chigiri e, and we all started cutting and ripping. There were three chigri e sensei that walked around to help us out. Chigiri means to shred or tear, and e means picture. Chigiri e includes pasting washi paper on a background, to make a sort of collage art. For more information on chigiri e, visit this website.

While there was a stencil we were supposed to cut out and use, many of the Dartmouth students did not follow the template and made their own designs, or edited the template design. American individualism! However, a Dartmouth student did mention to me that since everyone else was changing up the design, she felt compelled to do so as well.

I ended up making my own design because I thought that was more fun, but my homestay mother followed the template and hers looked beautiful. She is very good with her hands and is detail-oriented, and has even arranged flowers in a hotel in London before!

After doing the chigiri e, we had a buffet style lunch with kara-age, small sandwiches, and even taco salad (and regular salad). There was even tiny pieces of cake for desert! It was delicious.

After lunch, the homestay agency and Dorsey-sensei gave speeches, and those who were switching homestay families said good-bye to their first-half homestay families. It may have been good-bye in words, but the students tell me that they are still in contact with those families. I still meet up with my homestay mother from two years ago (when I did the LSA+ as a student)!

The little boy from Revant's first-half family actually followed him and second-half homestay family back home - with the second-half homestay family's permission, of course. He stayed there for a day because he didn't want to leave Revant.

Homestays are one of the special parts of the Japan LSA+, and we are extremely grateful towards the families who put in the time and effort to host Dartmouth students. My homestay family this year and two years ago were integral to my LSA+ experience; and they both helped facilitate my settling into the LSA+ program and Japanese college life. Although it sounds cheesy, I will always remember their kindness and the happy feelings that stemmed from our conversations together.

On 海の日, 07/16, we took a Dartmouth-funded trip to Tokyo DisneySea! Tokyo Disney has two parks - DisneyLand and DisneySea. The LSA+ students this year chose DisneySea unanimously. DisneySea tends to be more popular among adults compared to Land, as it has rollercoasters and serves alcohol. However, we still saw many small children there. While there are also Disney-based attractions in the United States, DisneySea and Land are a bit different and reveal parts of Japan's culture. For more information, I would recommend the reading that the DA from two years ago recommended called "Bwana Mickey': Constructing cultural consumption at Tokyo Disneyland".

All the Dartmouth students except one, who took advantage of the three-day weekend to visit relatives in Korea, went to Disney Sea. Another Dartmouth '21 who studied Japanese at Dartmouth and is spending the summer in Japan but not on the LSA+, Maxine, joined us, making us a group of 12. We met at 9:30am at Maihama station, and once we all arrived, we took a picture of our tickets and entered the park.

The first thing we did was get fast-pass tickets for Tower of Terror. Fast-passes work a little different in Tokyo Disney. For one, you do not pay extra money for it. Instead, you scan your ticket and get a pass for a ride with an hour time slot you can line up in a much shorter line. You can only get a fast-pass around once every 2 or 3 hours. Once we got fast-passes, we split up to look around shops near the entrance, and some of us ate lunch. After eating, we caught the end of the  Disney's special summer event show - "Disney Pirates Summer."

Afterwards, it was a scramble to get headgear (cute ears! bows!), as well as fast passes for the rides Raging Spirits and Temple of the Crystal Skull. We wandered around the whole park between 1pm and 5pm, taking plenty of drink breaks (on Dartmouth) and stopping in gift shops with AC. I found it interesting that while water was not a given at every drink cart, tea was. We also lined up for rides with shorter wait times like Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Jasmine's Flying Carpets. There were many couples in the line with us.

We tended to have no idea what rides were like until we rode them. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a shock - a fun one, and Aquatopia was also a fun surprise. There were two lines for the Aquatopia ride - one being a "Get Wet" one. We were unsure which one we lined up for until the ride started... and everyone walked out of the attraction looking like they fell into a pool. It was very fun though, and the sun dried us off quickly.

Afterwards, some people had a snack while more and more students acquired Disney headgear. We wandered freely, planning to meet up at 6:15pm for the Tower of Terror ride. One student bought a Danish pastry, and was about to eat it when the wind blew it on the ground. However, a worker nearby saw and got her a new one for free! I am always impressed and touched by the hospitality of workers at Disney. The cleaners there would nod or say hello, and the shopkeepers were very friendly.

Afterwards, everyone decided to go on the Tower of Terror except Maxine. I might have hyped it up a bit, as I couldn't remember much from two years ago except that there was a scary backstory, but the ride itself was not that scary. However, a student criticized the backstory for exploiting native cultures as a fear tactic, and suddenly it was not that scary anymore. People still seemed to enjoy the ride though.

We went on one more ride afterwards, and by then it was 8pm, so we stuck around for the fireworks show they play every night. It was my first-time seeing it, and the Dartmouth students seemed pretty excited.

We went for dinner in a mall nearby Maihama station and finished around 10pm, right as the food court there was closing. Everybody went home tired... right before a big test on Tuesday. (Majority chose to have DisneySea on Monday instead of Sunday though, because it was predicted to be very crowded on the Sunday before Umi no Hi.)

Today the Dartmouth students had their second unit test. Afterwards, they went to Dorsey-sensei's class, and after that... we all went to Sushiro, a kaitenzushi (conveyer-belt sushi) place for lunch!

It was only about a 15 minute walk from the school, though Dorsey-sensei and Victor got there first because they rode their bikes.

When everyone got there, it was very crowded, but we only had to wait 10-15 minutes to seat all 13 of us. (Since Kaitenzushi places are not built to seat a group of 13 people, we separated into 3 groups.) The sushi there was delicious and very cheap! The cheapest nigiri only cost 100 yen. Everybody ate a lot since it was Dartmouthの奢り again. We even had a competition of which table could eat the most plates of food!

Although it was a sushi place, many people also ordered karaage, fried squid, and various deserts - one table also ordered ramen. I had a strawberry crepe cake with ice cream, and it was delicious! In the end, everybody left with a full belly.

07.06.16 – 07.08.16

Overview

Last weekend, Dartmouth students visited Nihonmatsu-shi in Fukushima. Nihonmatsu is Hanover's sister city, and it is also home to Kan'ichi Asakawa (朝河 貫一). Asakawa-sensei was the first Japanese person, by birth and citizenship, to study and graduate with a BA from Dartmouth College (class of 1899). He went on to get a Ph.D. from Yale University studying history. In addition to becoming a professor at Yale University, Asakawa-sensei was an advocate for peaceful US-Japan relationships, speaking out against the growth of militarism in Japan.

Dartmouth students visit Nihonmatsu every year to pay respects to Asakawa-sensei, and we are thankful that the citizens and mayor of Nihonmatsu give us such a warm welcome. We even have the opportunity to do a two-night homestay!

07/06 (Friday)

We met bright and early at 7:30am at Tokyo station to catch the shinkansen from Tokyo station to Koriyama Station in Fukushima, where we were greeted by officials from Nihonmatsu’s city hall. From there, we took a bus to Asaka History Museum, which is part of Asaka High School. This was the school Asakawa-sensei graduated from. The staff of the museum led us on a tour, showing us the well preserved schoolhouse and explaining Asakawa-sensei's history to us. In high school (junior high school in the old Japanese system), Asakawa-sensei would eat the pages of an English dictionary as he memorized the words. Once he finished the dictionary, he buried the cover under a cherry blossom tree, now called "Asakawa Zakura." We got to see that cherry blossom tree and took a picture with it.

After visiting Asakawa-sensei's Alma matter, we went to Adachi High School and received a warm welcome from the teacher and students. (My home-stay sister, Mei, was there!) We ate a bento box with the students, and then had the opportunity to try doing calligraphy. The students wrote beautiful kanji, and we tried to copy them. We also had the chance to watch the kendo club and try the sport out ourselves.

Afterwards, we said good-bye to the Adachi High School students and got on the bus to go to city hall. We were greeted by many officials clapping as we walked off the bus, and then by the mayor when we went up to the city council's top floor conference room. There, the mayor give us an overview of Nihonmatsu - its sights and history, and welcomed us to the city. Each Dartmouth student also gave a self-introduction, using as much keigo as they could. After meeting the mayor, we took a photo together, and then visited the grave of Asakawa-sensei and his wife to pay our respects.

We then walked to the reception area, where we rested for a while before meeting the middle school students who will be visiting Dartmouth, Yale, and NYC in late July. They showed us the games they were going to present in the United States, and then we got to speak with them in small groups. Afterwards, we changed out of our sweaty clothes to get ready to meet our homestay families and eat dinner with them.

Before eating a wonderful buffet dinner with our homestay families, the mayor of Nihonmatsu and Dorsey-sensei gave inspiring speeches. After the reception and food, we went home with our respective homestay families.

That night, I really bonded with one of my homestay sisters over manga. We had read a lot of the same things, and both loved the manga series Kamisama Hajimemashita and Akatsuki no Yona! She even gave me some of the Akatsuki no Yona merchandise she got from buying magazines. I feel really lucky to have met her.

07/07 (Saturday, 七夕)

On Saturday, everyone spent the day with their homestay families.

My homestay family took me to Furusato Mura, where we looked around a museum and made uchiwa from washi paper. We also bought some of Fukushima's speciality snacks. It was a lot of fun! Afterwards, we went and met up with Autumn's homestay family and had nagashi somen. We also wrote our wishes on tanzaku and hung them on bamboo to celebrate Tanabata. My homestay sisters showed off their amazing singing voices, and we also partook in a Japanese tea ceremony. The green tea and snacks were delicious!

After, we went shopping and then we went home. I took a nap before we all started making gyoza (pot stickers) together. After eating dinner, we went outside and did senko hanabi as well as other types of specialty fireworks. It was so much fun, and definitely an unforgettable two days.

07/08 (Sunday)

We spent one more morning with our host families, and then all the Dartmouth students met at Nihonmatsu Station. The homestay families came with us to the station, then all the way to the platform, where they watched us board the train and waved good-bye. The good memories we made over the weekend made it very difficult to leave.

We got to Tokyo by lunch, and some of us walked around Tokyo before going back to our Chiba homestays. A student even went and got a haircut in Tokyo!

Although it was just for a weekend, we were all touched by the kindness and hospitality of the Nihonmatsu citizens, especially our host families. We hope to continue this relationship between Nihonmatsu and Hanover that Asakawa-sensei has started, as well as strengthen the one between US and Japan.

Today we had the opportunity to meet with Yan Fan, the CTO of Code Chrysalis and a Dartmouth '12! She came to KUIS all the way from Shinjuku to speak with us about entrepreneurship in Japan. Yan shared with us her experiences after Dartmouth, from finance to coding, and how she ended up starting Code Chrysalis, a coding bootcamp in Japan. Code Chrysalis was established only a year ago, but the company was already featured in The Japan Times and Reuters. Yan emphasized the importance of resourcefulness and leadership in entrepreneurship. Nate Neumann, a Dartmouth '20, is currently interning there.

We also had Q+A, where Yan gave recommendations of what to do in Tokyo, answered questions about her experience in Japan, and more. Afterwards we all took a picture! Some of us even added her on Facebook or gave her a business card.

We look forward to seeing her in the future and at least one more time at an alumni reunion in Japan before the LSA+ ends.

____

On a slightly different note, Nihonmatsu is tomorrow, and the weather predicts rain. However, my host mother gave me a teru teru bozu, so that means it will be sunny this weekend! ....right?

Today, on the fourth of July, the Dartmouth students took their first big test! Coincidently, July 4th is also the date CALYX invited us to go to eat okonomiyaki and monjayaki. After the test and Dorsey-sensei's class, all the Dartmouth students (and I) met up with three students from CALYX - Chiho, Yurina, and Yuuki. We walked together to Makuhari, and they led us to a place called Okonomiyaki Kaede (お好み焼き 楓).

It was a hot walk, but the food was worth it! We had okonomiyaki, monjayaki, and yakisoba. (Dartmouthのおごり！)

The people who ran and worked at the shop were also very nice. They gave us the ingredients, and then explained to us how to make the food. When we were stuck at times, they helped us cook. Also, they made sure we always had water! - important, since it was very hot.

One of the girls in CALYX, Yurina, was amazing at making okonomiyaki. We were all really surprised at how good she was. It turned out she used to work at an okonomiyaki restaurant!  As Kenny Nguyen '21 said, "she was a BOSS".

Afterwards, most of us had dessert. (Thank you, Dartmouth!) We ended up running the store out of chocolate parfaits. It was a fun and delicious time, and we were really grateful that the students in CALYX introduced us to this place and ate with us. We can't wait to hang out with them more!

But first, Nihonmatsu this weekend...