This note is about my experience at YMCA Kobe, Japan. Since my undergraduate, I have been involved in the community services within my capacity – in PA, UB, HI etc. I want to continue my involvement and do something good for society, in which I am living at the time. Doing so it helps me to understand more about this society.
I contacted Kobe city branch of YMCA Japan. Luckily, I was asked to attend their meeting in the early January 2010. There I met Ms. Nagai who was in charge of many activities.
First YMCA meeting
It was a big meeting, sort of conference. Most of men and women dressed in suit. Speakers spoke with confidence and appeared sharp. It reminded me of a formal meeting where everyone showed best of their support with acclamation. Presentations were the reporting of annual activities. Kenji, whom I was introduced at first, translated main context of each meeting. Following this meeting, small groups were formed to discuss some topics. I followed Kenji, who happened to lead one group talking about how to engage actively young people in social activities. Language barrier was hard for me and I mainly observed others spoke. With temptation, I talked about my opinion. And, everyone shared their views and one took notes. Honestly, I do not know if those ideas were conceptualized into an actual work afterwards.
Peace My Land(planning 90%; doing 10%)
After that meeting, I joined the International Volunteer Group. This group seemed to be flexible and people join by interest and disappear. At first meeting, members included Cedric, a Singaporean, Kenji and 6 other Japanese. All members of this group were 20 something.
First task was to plan a daylong activity for kids. Because all discussions were in Japanese, I was just there to sit and to observe how group discussion takes place. Towards the end of meetings, Kenji or Cedric translated to me. It was decided to name it as Peace My Land. An idea was to introduce about the continent America to kids.
Following that meeting, some 12 small group meetings were held to plan this activity. Here it looked like, perhaps one can think of it as Japanese way?: When one is talking everyone listens to in agreement( gently noting their heads and making facial expressions that say “YES or INDEED”), a talker says words in slow but clear way and mostly nod when sentence is over. Then use hands to express and always keep smiles up. I never noticed a sign of disagreement. Everyone adds a tiny to one’s idea so it constructs to a course of thing to do.
In the last week of February 2009, we finally had the activity. It was for 6 kids around age of 10. Two were boys and four girls. We made a room an airplane; chairs are airplane seats. There was a pilot who announced stops and all kids were issued a mock passport and visa. That password contained simple information about the person and a sheet for each stop where they need to find out an answer. There were four stops: Hawai’i, Alaska, Haiti, and Brazil. All were presentation style, one of us ( the group) would lead or talk about the stop. I talked about Hawai’i and sang along a simple song (Chika chika), Kenji made a story about inuit boy and girl in Alaska– basically boy grows up to be a hunter and girl goes to school and became a politician – no idea how Kenji came up that story. Then someone brought a Haitian – seriously a guy from Haiti came He was a student in some university near Kobe. So he talked about Haiti’s food, clothes etc. Then someone talked about Brazil on how it is famous for football. Then all kids gathered together to draw on a huge A1 paper and it was a nice mix of what they saw. That was it. I was impressed with well disciplined manners of Japanese kids. They did everything instructor said and completed whatever was told to do.
Donation for Haiti
Another reason to choose Haiti was that a tragic event of earth quake devastated the country. It appeared a global action to extend hands to people of Haiti. As soon as I heard YMCA’s street donation, I volunteered for a day. I asked one of volunteer to write down a simple sentence asking people donate money for Haiti victims. He wrote “...YMCA desu. Haichi no jishin Bokin katudou onegaishimasu...” I iteratively cried it aloud on street without hesitation because I knew I was doing right thing. Some people turned up and looked at me with a strange face, I smiled and kept screaming. We managed to gather loads of money for Haiti people.
...cease...
After that I kept going to those small meetings for International Volunteer Group until middle May. We would always meet for an event scheduling for a few months ahead. Because I did not know Japanese, I was just there mostly observing how they interact.
In early March Cedric told me that he quit the group and meeting. I never had chance to ask his reasons until May. So I took time to meet him. He quit because Ms. Nagai was asking his legal permit and asked him to change his status. Cedric was a student but was working part time. So I learned Ms. Nagai was very strict about Japanese regulations and care about foreigners if they follow it right. Lately, she would come to meetings and always speaks in Japanese even though she knows I understand nothing. Generally she was acting bit cold to me – I can see. In the later meetings Kenji stopped translating to me, I did not bother to ask as well.
Building up these things and going to meetings that I don’t understand and know I can not contribute my ideas, I found it tedious. Since then it seems that I no longer find any time for volunteering at YMCA Kobe.
