My KICL Summer (Summer Program in Kyoto, Japan)

2014年2月7日金曜日

English Summer Course

t f B! P L
There’s something about summer. It smells different, the colors are always brighter and the smiles bigger. Like many people in the world, I get the itch to travel or do something different for myself in summer. And, last year, I decided I would journey to central Japan to get my Japanese in gear, all while immersed in Kyoto, the Mecca of Japanese history.

I poked around the internet for a few days until I finally came across KICL and the summer intensive Japanese program they offer. This program is open to study abroad students, people who want to learn Japanese and explore Kansai, and occasionally some expats living in Japan who need a boost for their Japanese. I was the latter. I’d already been living in Japan for two years and despite being to Kyoto before, KICL made a good case for a unique study experience and a Kyoto I hadn’t yet met. So, I packed my suitcase and off I went.
Honestly, it’s hard to pack four weeks’ worth of study and experience into one blog post. And if I say one thing, many of my classmates would offer a different opinion. In fact, that was the theme of our class, “finding my Kyoto.” Aside from grammar lessons, we were encouraged every day to go out into Kyoto and find something that interested us about Kyoto, Japan or Japanese people. I chose Japanese dialects as my interest. Since I live in an entirely different region of Japan, I became so aware of how different everyone speaks across the nation, and how much that communicates regional history that might fall under the radar of many history books.  A great source of information was the Japanese university students at the cultural exchange parties KICL organized for us. I learned so much from them.

Often we were asked to report our findings to the class the next day so our classmates could benefit from our experiences, and so we could shape our education to the things in which we were interested.  Naturally we worked in grammar and kanji around this, but the beating heart of the summer course was Japanese culture.

 Finally our exploration and research of Kyoto we did on a daily basis culminated into a report and presentation on the last day of class. Some might read this and find the idea of a presentation daunting, but there was really no pressure. The teachers guided us through the writing process and gently corrected mistakes. There was no pressure. Most importantly, it was really exciting to listen to everyone’s research and realize how much tangible progress everyone made in only four weeks.

Aside from class, the summer program was structured to leave afternoons and weekends open to either participate in the school organized trips, study (ok, not all the time), spend time with your host family, or go out and do something else that caught your fancy. I think one experience that every single student at KICL had was the matsuri/festival (arguably the most popular word in Japan). Which matsuri everyone went to, well, that was up to them. 

During Japanese summer, especially in Kyoto, matsuri are happening almost every day! My personal favorite was the Fushimi Inari Main Shrine Festival (Honmiya matsuri). It occurs every year at the end of July, just after the national envy, Gion Matsuri, ends in mid-July. During the Honmiya matsuri, lights are strung from the near 10,000 tori winding through the holy ground. After sundown, they illuminate the way in a fire-like glow all the way to the top of the mountain. Stands of festival food and summer traditional sweets line the entry to the shrine, and from time to time taiko play, people dance, and fireworks explode.  It was my favorite festival all summer.


Probably my favorite trip I took in my free time was to Amanohashidate, the bridge to heaven, located on the Sea of Japan two hours from Kyoto station. Amanohashidate is simply a forested sand bar that spans a small lagoon. It’s home to a small rural town and relatively small population, but every year tens of thousands of people flock here to do one thing:  to bend over and look through their legs at the land bridge from one of the mountain tops; all because a few hundred years ago, a famous author wrote it looked like a dragon traveling to heaven and dubbed it one of the three scenic spots of Japan. (the others being Matsushima, Miyagi prefecture, and Miyajima, Hiroshima)

Wanting to check this scenic spot off my list and also out of raw curiosity as to whether or not it actually looked like a dragon, I hiked up the mountain and peered at the sand bar through my legs. As for what I saw, you’ll just have to go there and try it yourself!

As I said before, I could never cram four weeks into one blog post. There’s just too much. And in cruel paradox, four weeks really go quickly. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to my home in northern Japan, retracing the same path I’d only just taken. But it wasn’t so insignificant a time that I didn’t have a fulfilling education, or make friends I will probably keep for the rest of my life.  It wasn’t so insignificant a time that I didn’t intimately get to know a city over a thousand years in the making. In fact, now that I think back, I wasn’t sad to leave Kyoto because I came out of it with all that new knowledge, new experience and all those new friends. They’re all memories I’ll have for the rest of my life and ultimately I’m a better world citizen because of all I learned. When I left I felt like the luckiest person in the world. This is the beauty of international education.



-Allie

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