Hippo Events This Week
This last week there have been lots of Hippo workshops and koen-kais (events where Hippo members talk about what Hippo is and their experiences in order to introduce Hippo to new people and attract new members). My host mom is a Hippo fellow so she has been very busy preparing for the koen-kais. Almost everyone in the club participates in these events as well and there is a lot of practice beforehand to make sure everything runs smoothly. At first I thought they were preparing for only for one event, but actually there are 14 of them in this month, just for our area. I was amazed at how many flyers and posters they printed and posted all over advertising the events; it was a lot of work!
There was also a workshop for the university student's Hippo club where some of the members who are studying physics shared with the rest of the group what they were learning about Einstein's Theory of Relavity from the books they are reading. I'm not exactly sure how it relates to language, but it was interesting to see what they were learning. There is another project in the Daigakuse (university students) club called the Onsen (voice) Project. The people working on the project have recorded native speakers of different languages saying a simple phrase, for example, "I want to go to America", or "Quiero ir a Mexico". Then they have Hippo members listen to this phrase once and try to repeat exactly what they heard. After, they have a native speaker of that language listen to and evalute how well each person repeated the phrase (based on how close it sounds to that of a native speaker). I think the hypothesis is that Hippo members who have been in Hippo for a long time are better at mimicing the sounds of different languages.
I also went to an after-school program to help with a Hippo program for them. I showed them photos of my family and life in Wisconsin and talked a little bit about the U.S. Then we all played Hippo games (variations of Rock, Paper, Scissors from different countries) and practiced greetings in different languages. The kids were all really cute!
In the office, we had a baracon (meeting with Mr. Sakakibara, the founder of Hippo and other Hippo members) to discuss Mr. Sakakibara's book, which has been translated into English and is now being translated to Spanish. Usually these meetings are conducted all in Japanese, since we are in Japan, but this time we tried to talk as much as possible using only English and Spanish. Of course, this was very easy for me, because I understand these two languages the best, but even all the Hippo members who came who might have only understood a little of the English and Spanish said it was really interesting and they enjoyed having a chance to hear these languages being spoken. I thought it was interesting, since it seems impossible to have a real discussion when not everyone can understand and communicate at the same level, but I think one of the great things about the people in Hippo is that they have an open mind and even if they don't understand most of what is going on, this doesn't bother them at all. I have to say this was really frustrating for me in the beginning, not being able to understand any of the conversations going on around me in Japanese, but I think I have learned to be a lot more patient and accept the fact that even though at first I won't be able to understand everything, as time goes on I will be able to understand more and more and the important thing is to only focus on what I can do. When it's still sometimes hard to not be able to understand everything completely, I just think about how much more I can understand now than when I first arrived in Japan, which was pretty much nothing at all, so I have learned a lot!
There was also a workshop for the university student's Hippo club where some of the members who are studying physics shared with the rest of the group what they were learning about Einstein's Theory of Relavity from the books they are reading. I'm not exactly sure how it relates to language, but it was interesting to see what they were learning. There is another project in the Daigakuse (university students) club called the Onsen (voice) Project. The people working on the project have recorded native speakers of different languages saying a simple phrase, for example, "I want to go to America", or "Quiero ir a Mexico". Then they have Hippo members listen to this phrase once and try to repeat exactly what they heard. After, they have a native speaker of that language listen to and evalute how well each person repeated the phrase (based on how close it sounds to that of a native speaker). I think the hypothesis is that Hippo members who have been in Hippo for a long time are better at mimicing the sounds of different languages.
I also went to an after-school program to help with a Hippo program for them. I showed them photos of my family and life in Wisconsin and talked a little bit about the U.S. Then we all played Hippo games (variations of Rock, Paper, Scissors from different countries) and practiced greetings in different languages. The kids were all really cute!
In the office, we had a baracon (meeting with Mr. Sakakibara, the founder of Hippo and other Hippo members) to discuss Mr. Sakakibara's book, which has been translated into English and is now being translated to Spanish. Usually these meetings are conducted all in Japanese, since we are in Japan, but this time we tried to talk as much as possible using only English and Spanish. Of course, this was very easy for me, because I understand these two languages the best, but even all the Hippo members who came who might have only understood a little of the English and Spanish said it was really interesting and they enjoyed having a chance to hear these languages being spoken. I thought it was interesting, since it seems impossible to have a real discussion when not everyone can understand and communicate at the same level, but I think one of the great things about the people in Hippo is that they have an open mind and even if they don't understand most of what is going on, this doesn't bother them at all. I have to say this was really frustrating for me in the beginning, not being able to understand any of the conversations going on around me in Japanese, but I think I have learned to be a lot more patient and accept the fact that even though at first I won't be able to understand everything, as time goes on I will be able to understand more and more and the important thing is to only focus on what I can do. When it's still sometimes hard to not be able to understand everything completely, I just think about how much more I can understand now than when I first arrived in Japan, which was pretty much nothing at all, so I have learned a lot!
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