Nihon Buyo (Ali) This last Sunday I had the opportunity to see a Nihon Buyo performance near my host families house. A hippo member had given me a ticket after hearing that I wanted to study the dance. I had a really wonderful time and am very thankful for the opportunity.  It is difficult to describe Nihon Buyo when there is no western style dance that I can easily compare it with. Movements are minimal, precise, and few, graceful yet brisk. Sometimes these motions are emphasized by props, such as fans, umbrellas, flowers, and sashes. If I had to compare it, it would be to a mime, body builder, and sales person.  As a mime tells a story through movements, a body builder shows of his strength and skill through poses, and a sales person positions their body to highlight and display a product, in Nihon Buyo each movement is deliberate to show off skill, emphasize a prop, and to tell the story. Each dance tells a different story and every movement in the dan...

Group Fellow Meetings - Omar Hello! Usually on Mondays there is a Group Fellow meeting that is held in the Youth Olympic Center near Shibuya. First I guess I should explain what a group fellow is. To put it in simple terms, a Fellow is a leader of a hippo "family." On these Mondays the Group Fellow members and do a special meeting where they can get information from the LEX Headquarters and they can also listen to special presentations. I had the chance once to speak and introduce myself in front of all the fellows once. Today I am going to talk about a special guest that we had from South Korea, Mr. Min Byeong Gyu. He and his wife helped a lot with the hippo branch in South Korea so he came to Japan as a special guest and spoke to us. It was a bit difficult for me to understand because of the language gap but I did not need words or a language to understand his passion. When Mr. Min Byeong Gyu was younger he would perform and sing opera in front of many people. H...

Elementary School (Ali) This last Friday, I went to my first elementary school for work. The school was located in Tsukuba. It took an hour and a half train ride and a 20-minute car ride to get there. The area reminded me of my hometown of Walla Walla, as it had many fields and the buildings were not jam-packed along tiny streets. It was relaxing to get away from the business of the city a bit. This elementary school was very small, about 25 students per class level with grades one through six. Despite begin a small country school, the building and gym were very nice. We were there as a cultural presentation. Like American children, Japanese children don't have many opportunities to be introduced to foreign cultures and languages. This festival (the equivalent of an American school assembly) is ideally supposed to give these elementary school students some exposure. We taught them greetings in Korean, English, Italian, Spanish, Hindi, and French.  We sang BINGO, playe...