Saturday, 31 August 2013

Japanese Christian events in the summer vacation

So I've been surprised to find out that once summer vacation begins, Japanese Christians become this active. Here's a snapshot of Christian happenings in the next half-month or so. Please pray that God would change lives this summer.

August 20-23: Challenge Camp.
60 students gather to be challenged to serve and to personally evangelise.

August 24: Evangelistic Bible study with Japanese contacts from Sydney.
Pray for soft hearts towards Jesus and good conversations at local fireworks afterwards.

August 27-30: Summer School.
90 students gather to hear how God "likes" them (Facebook reference).
Praying for Yoichi from Chuo University to be saved, and for 10+ others who don’t yet know Jesus.

September 3: Excursion to trick art museum with the Tama area Christians.
Pray for good relationships that will flow into our monthly prayer gatherings for campuses in the Tama area.

September 9-11: Chuo University camp.
In addition to the Christians who will be in attendance, continue to pray for Yoichi.

September 13-14: Block leaders camp.
Pray that the leaders will refreshed to serve in Semester 2, which will begin in the following month.

The above prayer requests are actually from Naomi Smith, an Australian whom I first met at a Japanese church in Sydney and is currently a staff worker with Japanese university Christian group KGK. The most notable point is, we both came from Sydney to Japan around the same time, we are both here for God's mission, and we are both in the same area! I am honoured to support her in prayer as she gets busy on field in this time. She will be giving numerous talks, seminars and training sessions. I hope you'll join me in supporting her too :)


I won't be directly involved in any events like these this summer vacation. One because I kind of overbooked this vacation before I knew it, and two because I'm not formally a university student yet. But looking forward to getting involved next year! Pray I will be an encouragement within the Christian community.

Friday, 30 August 2013

Shizuoka Homestay - Kakegawa city

***Warning, long post!***

This post is an account of my experiences on the Shizuoka homestay. Indeed this post is long, because the stay was long, and the things we did are many. Even if no one reads this post, it was worth writing up to preserve the memories for the future. Feel free to read some, and skip the rest. I have the theme for each day's activities in the subheadings to try and be helpful.

Schedule for the week. To view full size, right click and select "open in new window/tab".

Day 1: Saturday - arrival
10 foreign students, including me, arrived in Kakegawa city, Shizuoka prefecture in the early afternoon. We came from various universities across Japan, the more common ones being Tokyo University, Osaka University, and of course, TUFS. There were masters students, undergrads, scholarship recipients, full fee paying, the whole smorgasboard. The nationalities represented included Singaporean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese, Mongolian, Hungarian, Nepalese, and Australian (guess who that was). We were briefed on the next 9 days, and met our homestay families. Each student was assigned a different homestay family.

I was taken in by an elderly couple, who had apparently been receiving homestay students like me for the past 25 years! They've been very generous in enabling foreigners to experience authentic Japanese life in their home.

A complimentary bottle of Kakegawa Tea to welcome us.

Annual local Kakegawa summer festival.

Day 2: Sunday - mountain sights and official welcome party
In the morning, my homestay mum and dad took me for a drive into a nearby mountain range. We checked out the numerous hydroelectric dam systems built into the river that flowed down the centre of the mountain range, as well as a wine cellar set up in a cave/tunnel built a long time ago (from memory, I was told it was around the Kamakura period).


The Akiba dam, one of many we came across driving up the mountain.


  
We also had a quick stopover to admire the beach views, since Kakegawa faces the ocean to the south. It was quite breathtaking. The beach itself wasn't as good as Australia, but I gotta admit, standing so high above the sand was a rare occasion.



In the evening, we attended the official welcome party. Both students and homestay families gave brief speeches. I tried to crack a joke during mine using my poor incoherent Japanese, and from the (lack of) reaction of the crowd, clearly my language failed me. Fortunately there were plenty of people giving speeches before and after me to cover my shame.


There was lots of food, and I definitely didn't hold back on the plates and plates of sushi.


Day 3: Monday - A look around Kakegawa city
We were told very clearly from the first day that this homestay was not to be treated as a sightseeing trip, but that we were here to engage with Japanese culture and to gain a better understanding of Japanese people. It confused me why, then, the program contained so many aspects of a guided tour. I'm not complaining though, cause we got to see some pretty special stuff even normal sightseers wouldn't get to see.



Our journey began with a face-to-face encounter with the Mayor himself at the Kakegawa City Hall, who also happened to participate in the homestay program. Slightly jealous of the girl who got to stay with the family of the mayor. She said that he was a really kind, generous guy, and from our brief meeting with him in the board room, I can see why. We spent the time hearing about what makes Kakaegawa unique, and then were allowed to ask any questions we wanted about Kakegawa. He answered our questions well. As a side note, the unique points of Kakegawa in a nutshell are tea and garbage recycling. Kakegawa is so famous for tea, they have cultivated a tea plant in the shape of the kanji for tea big enough to see from the sky. Note the size of the house beside it.

Kanji for tea, in Awagadake

Discussion room for MPs. I got to be Mr Speaker for a day (more accurately, 10 seconds) :D

Just like a well planned tour, at the peak of our curiosity at what makes Kakegawa such a national leader in waste disposal, we were taken to the garbage incineration and recycling center to see it first hand.
We saw the people employed specially to sort the incoming garbage, the cranes that could move 1t of rubbish at a time for incineration, the huge rotating drums where burnable rubbish was slowly roasted, and the end result 'slag' that would be thrown away, taking up a mere fraction of the space the original rubbish took up. Kakegawa city is apparently the lowest producer of rubbish in the whole of Japan. One of the key elements to their success is requiring every resident to write their names on their rubbish bags by law. If they don't, the rubbish can't be taken away. This would clearly make the residents a lot more attentive to what and how they are dealing with waste.



The next stop, was souvenir shopping! Well, actually it was to observe a local sweets factory producing cakes. We weren't allowed to take photos of the actual production, but it was mesmerising to watch the cooks at work. It was particularly impressive watching a senior baker make a quality melon cake in record time. At the end of the tour, we were even given a souvenir gift bag. Many of us additionally bought some gifts to bring back to our homestay families and other friends.

   

In our initial plan, we were going to the seaside, but the weather was dreary so we went to visit a decomissioned nuclear power plant instead.



It had been refurbished into a museum for nuclear power production. Examining the models for the retaining walls, cooling mechanisms, and sturdy drums, and watching the mini-presentations demonstrating how nuclear power plants functioned, it honestly seemed quite legit. What drew my attention in particular was the depth to which they buried the foundation for the retention wall facing the sea, and the number of layers built into it, and how high up above ground it reached. This theoretical model certainly seemed effective in guarding against tsunamis up to 22m high, which sounds like a good safety measure (for comparison, the March 2011 tsunami was 14 metres tall). But the question that still remains is, if they are so apparently safe, why the strong opposition? Obviously a 5.7 m high retention wall won't keep out a 14 m wave, an issue pointed out to TEPCO well before the earthquake hit, but would a 22m high wall have withstood this same tsunami, after being shaken by the same magnitude earthquake? According to earthquake statistics reported by the locals in Kakegawa, we may not have to wait so long for a real tsunami to give us the answer.

After the power plant visit, we were shown around the melon farm owned by one of the volunteer organisers of this homestay program. He had 9 greenhouses constructed, each housing about 100 melon plants each. Melons are a delicacy in Japan, and he was growing the top dollar Musk melon. He explained to us how each plant develops a number of fruit, but he only allows the single best fruit on each plant to mature. That equates to 100 melons per greenhouse per harvest, and 3.5 harvests a year (after maintaining constant conditions all years round in the greenhouse) means 9 x 100 x 3.5 = 3,150. Assuming they are all top quality melons, he can get about \3000 per melon. You do the maths.

He explained to us that a good quality musk melon was to have green flesh, and an even, well-developed net patten on the outside. Poor timing of harvest leads to white flesh melons, and though taste wise you can barely tell the difference, buyer psychology apparently causes a sharp drop in price if the flesh is not green. Same goes for the netting - no connection to taste, but I suppose you don't want to give an ordinary-looking melon as a souvenir. These are the kinds of melons you'll find in department stores, and Ginza, wrapped up all nicely.

Department store premium musk melon, photo courtesy of a friend

It didn't occur to me at the time to take a photo of it, so unfortunately, no melon farm pictures. But here's a plate of the same melons, generously provided from his melon farm at our last communal dinner :)



Day 4: Tuesday - visiting relatives
I spent this day with my homestay dad. We went to visit his younger brother, who lived in a nearby town. Amazingly, he had deep interests in Japanese martial arts, and he happened to know a lot about the history of Aikido! We initially only intended to make a brief stopover, but we ended up talking for a large chunk of the day. At the end, he copied some TV programs talking about Aikido that he'd recorded some time ago, to give to me. I've already watched disc 1 of 3, and it's reinvigorated my passion to keep practicing Aikido for many years to come. Looking forward to viewing the remaining two discs.

We spent the remainder of the day preparing for the big day tomorrow…

Day 5: Wednesday - climbing Mt Fuji!
This was the big event! We climbed My Fuji - and I made it to the top! :D

I woke up at 2:30 am to get ready in time to board the bus departing Kakegawa City Hall at 4:30. We began climbing at 8:30, and I reached the top at 12:30 - a four hour climb. It was pretty fast, but I was beaten by the Hungarian  guy (first) and the Nepalese guy (second) :P

warm up stretches
view from base camp (5th Checkpoint)
Yay reached first (sixth) checkpoint!
Seventh checkpoint
We're above the clouds!
Look how steep this slope is
Eighth Checkpoint
Ninth checkpoint... yessss almost there!
AND WE HAVE REACHED CHECKPOINT... nine and a half...? o.0
Finally reached the top@
What the crater of dormant volcano Mt Fuji looks like today

However, I held the record time for the descent - a mere two hours. We were required to begin descending at 1:30 pm in order to make it back home in time, so we all roughly started descending at the same time, though I hung back a little bit with those who'd just reached the top before the cutoff and were recuperating. On the way down, I overtook everyone and made it there first :D

We got back after 10pm, and we were all ready for a good rest. Good night :)

Day 6: Thursday - tea factory visit
So after a good sleep-in recovering from the full on day yesterday, we visited one of the factories in Kakegawa that sorts and packages tea leaves. I learned a lot about tea this day.

One main thing I learned was the five main characteristics of tea - translated into English, they are roughly sweetness, bitterness, fragrance, colour, shape. This factory specialises in blending tea leaves grown in different areas of Kakegawa. Some areas might produce leaves particularly excelling in fragrance, others in colour, and others in shape. Producing the right mix for customers is their job.

Another thing I learned was the difference between maccha (Eng: green tea) and sencha (Eng: green tea). 抹茶 (maccha) is powdered green tea, and it is added diretly to hot (or cold) water, mixed and drunk as is. 煎茶 (sencha) is green tea leaves, and is placed in a tea strainer, over which boiling water is poured, and served from a teapot. In Japan, exclusively maccha is used for tea ceremonies. Within households, the two are drunk interchangeably.



Check out the temperature differences... The left is the storage room. The right is the roasting machine.

Finished bags of tea

Day 7: Friday - Kakegawa castle
Today we visited Kakegawa castle. The grounds was bigger than I expected! The castle itself was so-so, and now looks nothing like it would have used to on the inside, since it's been turned into a museum. Having said that, the view from the highest room in the castle is still good though. You can imagine how far they would have been able to survey back then. The north end also had a great view, but the staircase hand rail prevented me from taking a good photo. All in all, a good cultural experience and insight.



Also, check out this souvenir I bought! I've wanted one for so long. Know what it is?

   


It's an umbrella! Since I saw a friend in Australia carry it around, I've always wanted one too. I've deliberately refrained from buying an umbrella until I could get my hands on this. Looking forward to getting stopped by the police on the street when I'm carrying this around.




The shop where I found the samurai sword umbrella was actually exhibiting tradtional Japanese wartime culture of all sorts. There were numerous armour sets like this lined up, but each had a different colour scheme and a different ornament on the front of the helmet. Japanese soldiers of that time fought very differently to the covert military style of today. They would have considered camouflage pattern to be cowardly, instead letting the enemy know loud and clear that they are here as a worthy contender. One set of armour even had a huge target painted on the breastplate, as if to say "hit me if you can!". Fascinating difference in perspective.

Day 8: Saturday - Dipping into Japanese culture
This was our final formal day of planned activities in our homestay.

The first stop was to meet some Japanese kids at a cultural exchange event held at the library. We introduced each other, played some interactive quizzes together, and divided into tables to fold origami. Japanese kids are so cute. But they're apparently getting more and more misbehaved each year. This was the first year in which a kid poured I think it was juice on one of the foreign students' heads (in a naughty but playful way). The organisers unanimously agreed that this crossed the line of inappropriate conduct. Changing culture, maybe?
No photos of the children for privacy reasons, but here are the boxes our table made.


We participated in a tea ceremony, where we sat traditional Japanese style, causing me to lose feeling in my legs and spending several minutes learning how to stand again afterward. But all in all it was nice. It was more of a demonstration rather than a participation though, and I didn't really learn much about history, culture, or such. I'll do some additional reading some other time.




At the same temple where we attended the tea ceremony, I had my first experience of participating in Zen meditation (座禅). Purely as an experience, it was enjoyable. It involved sitting still and emptying your mind of absolutely everything. That means being distracted by others is a fail, listening to surrounding noises is a fail, and even telling yourself to think about nothing is a fail. The monk first got us to try sitting like that for three minutes, and reflect on what it's like. I don't think I quite succeeded in thinking about nothing. At the end, it felt about three minutes to me, I don’t know if that was a good or a bad thing that was aware though. Then we tried it again, and he didn't tell us how long it would be this time. I got a bit sleepy this second time, not doing anything eheh. We apparently sat there for 10 minutes, though it didn't feel that long. I don’t think I did, but maybe I did fall asleep.

I wondered about the religious significance in participating in Zen meditation. We learned in Japanese history in the previous semester that there exists both "salvation by works" style Buddhist teaching, and "salvation by faith" style Buddhist teaching. Around the Kamakura period when emperors held national political power, there was much concern about how one could attain salvation when they died, which led to rapid propagation and diversification of Buddhist teachings. One prominent figure on the "salvation by works" side of Buddhism came up with Zen Buddhism, within which Zen meditation constitutes a pillar in training the mind and soul to open up and overcome darkness and obstruction, or something like that. I'm not an expert in Buddhism, which is precisely why I want to understand it a bit better. I reckon an important step in sharing Jesus with Japan is to understand Japan first, and within that, I want to get to know their Buddhism a bit better.

Water patterns drawn on sand, with rocks to represent islands. An iconic garden design of traditional Japanese yards. This one at the temple we visited.

So after a mental relaxation, we engaged in some physical relaxation at the Daito Onsen Seatopia. For obvious reasons, I didn't take photos in the onsen (hot springs).

Day 9: Sunday - Quality family time
I inquired with my homestay family whether there was a church nearby, but they said there wasn't. I later found out that there was a Baptist church 30 minutes' drive away, but I guess they weren't interested.

What we did instead was after a slow relaxed start to the day, we drove to a genuine traditional Japanese kimono shop. Their collection of kimonos was extensive. Though I still don't know why we went there since they didn't buy any kimonos (I suspect at least part of the reason was for my benefit), it was an insightful experience.



The elderly shopkeeper had knowledge about kimonos as extensive as his stock, and he demonstrated it by whipping out a catalogue magazine and pointing out the made-in-China kimonos and the made-in-Japan kimonos, just by their appearance and design. It's a bit difficult to explain his reasoning here without either writing a fat paragraph or pointing it out on an actual kimono, but in a nutshell the amount of material used per kimono is vastly different. 5m of cloth is used to make a counterfeit kimono, whilst 12m of cloth is used for a genuine one. Furthermore, in comparing the glittery kimonos, generally speaking the more elaborately and painstakingly embellished it appears, the greater likelihood it's genuine.
But the greatest difference of all, is this:

On genuine kimonos, the brand of their maker is printed on the inside, like this. To counterfeit a kimono, is easy profits. To copy the brand, is asking for big trouble. So if you're looking for the genuine thing, just check for this mark on the inside. If you're prepared to pay seven times more, that is, haha. An interesting observation the store owner made was that kimonos worn by presenters on TV have made the gradual change from genuine Japanese to counterfeit Chinese, probably because of both price and accessibility. However, some probably rent genuine kimonos when they need to wear one. Apparently just 20 years ago, there was no such thing as counterfeit kimonos.




We spent the afternoon at the Omaezaki city summer festival. There were lots of people, lots of kimonos (probably fake), and lots of food, drink and toy stalls. The entertainment on stage kept us company until the main event - fireworks!



Day 10: Monday - goodbye, Kakegawa!
It was a sad and emotional goodbye, to leave the families who had shown such hospitality, and whom we'd gotten to know so well. I certainly have enjoyed the slice of Japan we experienced in Kakegawa, and am deeply grateful to the elderly couple who took such great care of me, in stuffing me with peaches like this, one after another:



This post has got to take the cake for longest blog post to date. Quite ironic, after promising not to write another long post again. Sorry ._.

Be on the look out for the account of my successive holiday adventure, teaching English to junior high school students at a summer camp :)
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