Japanese Ceramics Cultural Project As I mentioned in previous blogs, part of my internship was completing a cultural project - studying some aspect of Japanese culture that interests me - which for me was focused on Japanese ceramics.  I ended up making pottery in a little studio near my first host family's house for the first 5 months of my internship. This was a little difficult because the two old men who owned the studio, though they were really nice, didn't speak any English and I hardly spoke any Japanese at that point, so my way of learning was kind of like "metakatsu", by just watching what they did and repeating it (and relying a little on my previous knowledge of ceramics as well).  Here is a brief overview of the process and some of the things I made: My instructor centering the clay on the potter's wheel Making a bowl on the wheel Dipping the fired pottery in glaze Glazed pottery before the final firing My vases af...

Intern Graduation On Monday Tino and I graduated from the internship program. I can't believe it's almost time for me to go home; these last few months have gone by so fast! Tino and I wearing Japanese Kimono and Yukata. For our graduation, we had a ceremony at the LEX headquarters and all our host families and lots of Hippo friends and staff attended. We both talked about our experiences this year in Japan, our time with our host families and friends, Hippo, and our learning process and discoveries in Japanese. I also shared a little bit about my cultural project, which was Japanese ceramics. We both talked for about 40 minutes, all in Japanese! Part of my presentation about the pottery I made in Japan as part of my cultural project. When I first arrived llast year in September and had to introduce myself at a Hippo's 30th Anniversary event, I was was nervous because I couldn't speak Japanese at all and practiced over and over in order to be able to say...

Thoughts on the Underlying Structure of Language I have been busy in the last few weeks working on checking and editing the English translation of a book by LEX, that they are planning to publish in English in the coming year. This type of checking takes a lot of time, as a group of 5 or 6 people meet and read through the entire document line by line, checking the original Japanese against the translation to make sure the meaning that is conveyed in the translated version is as close as possible to the original. Some times a question about one line can lead to a half-hour discussion about the meaning or connotations of words or phrases in the different languages and the larger ideas that surround the sentence. Even though it takes a long time, I think it's really interesting work because it makes you think a lot about the subtleties of language. A lot of times there are words or phrases that cannot be directly translated or even that express ideas that don't really exis...

Goodbye To My Second Host Family Yesterday I changed host families for the third time, which will be my last host family while I'm in Japan. I was really sad to leave my previous host family because I had just gotten to know them very well and really enjoyed staying with them, but before we were able to do a lot of things together before I left. My host sister Maron-chan and I went shopping in  Harajuku  together, which we had been planning to do for a long time since she likes going there, but hadn't found the time. The other day she had a day off from school though, so we were finally able to go. Harajuku is a trendy shopping area for young people and very Nihon-poi (Japanese taste). Maron-chan said that the best thing to eat there is tapioca juice (I've seen it called bubble tea in the U.S.), so one of our missions was to find it. My host mom joined us later and we went to a place with  プリクラ  ("puricura", a Japanese-icized version of Print Club), or p...

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 ...

Golden Week! Last week was Golden Week in Japan, when everyone has vacation, and a lot of people travel. It was a really fun week. My host family went to Thailand for a few days, so I stayed with two other families during that time and went to a Hippo camp in Chiba, where I also got to go to the ocean for first time in Japan and a pick your own, all-you-can-eat strawberry patch, which was great! I also spent some time with my host family in the area near where we live and went to a really nice Japanese garden with a huge koi pond, where we fed bread to them. I would recommend all these things to someone visiting Japan. At the beach with my host sister for the day, Belle Kujukuri beach in Chiba My host brother for the day, K, with a shell All-you-can-eat strawberry patch! With sweetened condensed milk :) Belle Making curry rice for dinner at a Hippo camp in Chiba A beautiful Japanese garden near where we live Koi My host si...

Life at home in Edogawa-ku This is where I live now, in Edogawa-ku, with my second host family. They are a lot of fun! View from our apartment building View from the train station Sometimes in the evening I watch T.V. with my host mom. One of the shows she likes to watch is CSI (dubbed in Japanese, so it's always a challenge for me to figure out how they solve everything), which is funny because my mom in Wisconsin also loves that show and we used to watch it together a lot. When I went to Mexico, my host mom Martha, also liked CSI and we would watch it together in Spanish. It's funny the things you find that are the same all over the world! My host dad is a manager for a big Japanese department store (and one of his hobbies is running marathons!) He works late a lot of the time, but when he comes home everyone talks and when he has days off, everyone does things together, like attend different Hippo events. Sometimes he brings little gifts home with him too. ...