The Last Week

The last couple of days have been amazing in Tokyo... beyond just going out, I've gotten to talk to so many people (both interns and students) even more, making me realize how much I will miss Ashinaga when I leave to go to China and back to America. I remember my biggest regret when I was studying abroad in Beijing was worrying too much, working too hard, and not enjoying every single moment. Instead of anticipating what to do next, I have recently been letting life in Tokyo and in the Kokorujuku just sink in... and it's been great. So note to self: Always YOLO! ;) I am learning so much from talking to the students and the interns (which warrants another post (probably will get emotional) later on).

Today, we had a conference regarding Ashinaga's 100 year education vision and the mission to end poverty. We separated into groups with Tokyo University students and made recommendations for Ashinaga's mission plan. The president judged our responses... and we got 2nd place!

The conference was really good and made me think a lot about my desire to help impoverished societies through education. But at the same time, I became a little bit concerned with Ashinaga's ambition and lack of focus... I felt like by focusing on orphans in Uganda, the original focus of taking care of the orphans in Japan became less of a focal point. I fully support Ashinaga's desire to expand internationally, but I really think that the goals need to be localized first before they become globalized... we'll see what'll happen. I'll try to keep that in mind... to have a "minimum viable product" :].

Again, I'm truly grateful I decided to spend another summer doing something related to education and service. Trust me, it gets really hard to pursue that when you're surrounded by people who work at banks, consulting firms, tech places, etc. But I'm learning more and more about managing non-profits and social entrepreneur and can't wait to start my own project.

Brief recaps:
Thursday - went to a wonderful nomihoudai (all you can drink) in Shinjuku with Ryan (high school friend). IT WAS A FUN ALL NIGHTER. We went to Shibuya afterwards.

Friday - International potluck. Made a lot of awesome desserts!!!

Saturday - We all went out to watch fireworks but the weather was so bad that it was raining like CRAZY. It was still fun.... though. We also spent the whole night at different clubs.

Sunday - Conference and skipped out on all you can drink!

The Visionary

I guess the reason I'm writing these blog posts is to record my thoughts and to practice my writing... so bear with me. I will try to make them as insightful and interesting as possible. Until I get better at writing and formulating my thoughts, however, I guess this is mostly for myself. Hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to give more valuable input to blog followers :]

So I guess I have one month to catch up, which I'll gradually try to do with these blog posts.

Today, we listened to the president of Ashinaga give a speech regarding the 100-year plan in Africa as well as his general vision for Ashinaga. To summarize, the main goal of this organization is to end poverty. For the whole world. Yes, it's a broad goal (and quite ambitious), but they're currently focusing via improving education for the most underprivileged group of students. The 100-year plan basically means that they'll take the "brightest" students from all over Africa, bring them to the top university, and then, these students will bring back what they learned in these universities to their country. 100 years of this, then poverty is gone.... according to them.

It's quite interesting to have such a vision. When somebody asked Tamai how he dealt with criticism, he simply responded that nobody has ever criticized him. It makes me wonder if a leader of an organization (the visionary) is always so separated from the logistical aspects of an organization... and kind of floating on the cloud of his vision. They say you need a vision when you start an organization, but being too much a visionary may blind yourself from criticizing yourself and thinking about the basis of your organization. I'm more a technical person, so when I hear "100 year plan" or "ending poverty" I want to know what will happen in the next months, next year, the five year plan, etc. I want to know what they mean by "expanding internationally" and "spreading the Ashinaga vision." Does that simply mean letting everybody know about the organization or building more rainbow houses across the world? Five years from now, for example, if they want to expand in the US, does that mean they want a headquarter in the US? For what purpose? For another avenue to raise awareness and fundraise internationally? If so, how?

As much as I applaud him for being so dedicated to this vision and raising $1 billion dollars to give financial support to orphans all over the world (and the opportunity to go to college), I've always been prone to ask: what could I have done better. When I think $1 billion, I don't just applaud the amount of money Ashinaga has raised. I think: how could this organization used the $1 billion more effectively? How can Ashinaga send 100,000 orphans to college rather than 90,000? ... and to even micromanage a bit more, how can Ashinaga set the basis for a successful English Summer Program for next year?

All these technical things, Tamai has no responsibility for. He is the visionary. Hopefully on Sunday we can talk to the new supervisor for the English program to propose a new basis for the English program and potentially an international tsudoi in America. I would also love to hear how they want to expand to the US and what we, as interns, and soon to be "Ashinaga alumni" can do to help.

Welcome Back!

Didn't think I needed to blog if I didn't have anything to say. I didn't wanted to bore readers with just daily accounts of what I did, but I realized that there has been such an experience. There's definitely so much to talk about. I promise after the meeting with Tamai and Okazaki, I'll brief up my experience in Ashinaga... in good ol' Hino City in Tokyo!

Time to Yolo!

Day 5 cont'd: It was a crazy day and a night out with all the interns. We went karaoke-ing and drank a lot with everybody.

Day 6: Couldn't fully participate in Ajizai :( Was very sad about that.

Day 7: Finally had a good productive meeting. Motivated to do more.

Day 8: Visited Tokyo Agricultural university

Day 9: Taught, ate, now working. Need to start running.

The Best Way to Learn

Besides coming to Japan and trying to improve my Japanese, one of my main motivations for interning at Ashinaga this summer was to learn. My aspirations of being involved with academia strongly exemplifies my love of learning and teaching, but the kind of learning I wanted to take away from this summer is a bit different. I wanted to learn the in's and out's of organizing a group of people for a common cause. I wanted to learn how to teach. I wanted to learn how to communicate. But I realized this kind of learning doesn't need specific goals, because what I ended up learning the last couple of days was unexpected and valuable: I just learned about other peoples' lives.

Cultural interaction really accentuates how different the world really is. Not only have I been able to talk to Japanese students, but also international students from Afghanistan, Somalia, Brazil, Indonesia, etc. Often times, we take for granted the power of cultural interaction, which seems to be overshadowed by the daunting field of international relations dictated by the politics of the leaders. But yesterday evening, by just talking to a student from Afghanistan about democracy and its relation to Islam, I realized that before supporting the process of democratization in the Middle East, I simply needed to learn more. So I'm currently re-evaluating my views of democracy especially in conjunction with the class I took regarding International Relations between the US and East Asia with Thomas Christensen. It seems like this realization might be useless in resolving conflict between the Middle East and the US, but pursuing this method of learning should be an imperative aspect in international relations. It reminded me of the FACES program in Stanford and the idea of bringing in university students from China and the United States to discuss about US-China relations.

In the beginning of the internship, I was bit anxious to get started in learning the operations of a nonprofit organization and really work. But, I realized another valuable method of learning is by simply talking to the students here. I'll try to keep this in mind throughout the whole summer... I bet I'll learn loads of new stuff with this mindset :].


Here's a recap of what I did:

Day 4:

We visited the headquarters around Shinjuku station with the new interns. It was so small, but most of the workers were away on a business trip... I really wanted to meet Mr. Tamai but he was also away. They took us to an interesting shrine which had a methodical way of 1) cleaning hands and 2) praying.

Yummy Fast Food Curry

 The most eventful thing was our Welcome Party! It was amazing... delicious food and lots of booze ;). Sukiyaki was so yummy!

Day 5: It's the weekend so not much has happened. I took a run with a student and practiced a bit of my Japanese. We talked about a lot of differences between the United States and Japan. I'm getting ready to head out to explore Central Tokyo!

最初の日

It's already the 3rd official day of my internship and so much has happened. But I'll try to keep it short with only the juicy things ;). Starting tomorrow, I'll have more of a theme for each post!

Day 1: Arriving at Narita Airport

The airplane ride passed by quickly (even though it was around 14 hours)... especially with some good old Canadian beer on Air Canada.

Packing light was a great idea. With only one carry-on size luggage and one backpack, I quickly bought the Airport Limousine ticket to Seisekisakuragaoka station (wow, what a hard word to say) and waited in the Wi-Fi friendly lounge in the airport:

It was so humid:

After the two hour ride, I finally got to Ashinaga and was quickly introduced to the other interns from Oxford and one girl from a college in South Carolina. So here's what Ashinaga is about: it's a non-profit organization that provides educational and emotional support to orphans (in the Japanese sense) which means a child who has last either or both parents or has a parent with a disability. It started when the founder, Mr. Tamai lost his mother from a traffic accident and was dissatisfied by the lack of compensation the government provided. Because of his loss, he wrote a thesis regarding this which quickly led to the discussion of this topic. With this new-found reputation, he acquired enough fame to head-start this non-profit organization. Within the last 40 years, this organization has raised $1.4 BILLION dollars through 2 donation events and a P-Walk. Especially after the great earthquake and tsunami (which led 16,000 deaths, 3,000 missing people, and thousands of orphans), Tamai aspired to expand Ashinaga: now it is in Uganada, Tokyo, Kobe, etc. 

What I will be doing for the next two months is help other interns structure the English program and teach conversation English and the TOEIC test for the 85 university students living in Ashinaga. Moreover, we will be working with any international affairs, which includes visiting the Ashinaga Rainbow Houses in several other locations in Tokyo. In fact, tomorrow (Friday), we will be visiting the headquarters in central Tokyo. I am excited to learn more about how to start and continue a nonprofit organization especially regarding education.

Ashinaga is truly an interesting place: It seems like a utopia for kids who have suffered many losses. For example, there are various rooms for the kids to express their emotions such as the Volcano Room (which has punching bags), the Art Room, the Thinking Room, etc. Also, the facility is beautiful. The only downside is that it's one top of a huge hill which means I'll get a workout from even walking outside.

Because I was jet-lagged, I knocked out at 9:00PM.

Day 2: Teaching at Wada Middle School

The crazy thing is that to wake up, there is MUSIC that is played through the speakers to wake EVERYBODY up at 6:10AM. Everyday there is a ceremony at 6:30AM, during which the students clean the whole facility... no wonder it's so clean. Since I was already up, I began my run. You truly know a city after you've ran in it!

I'm just going to quickly sum up what happened before I write my reflection:

• Taught at Wada Middle School since they helped Ashinaga with several fundraisers.
• Bought essentials around Hino City (such as a towel!) and explored
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Never tried this flavor.. it's rare apparently!

  
  

  

  Cute alcohol

  
  

  

  The alcohol looks delicious

• Our lessons start on Thursday, so every Wednesday we organize a big evening event for the students to practice English. To conclude last week's topic of Dating, this event was called Speed Dating. The students had to use English to talk about themselves and comprehend other students' introductions. It was extremely popular especially because of the dessert that was served
                                  
  
  
  
  

  

  It was a student's 20th birthday (which is the drinking age in Japan)

• Started my first one-on-one lessons with discussion for two hours.

Day 3: Teaching 

After a nice run, I began teaching at 8:00AM until around 10:00AM. Ate at a revolving sushi place, explored Fuchu city, studied a LOT of LSAT and GRE. Today was a very quiet and we're basically preparing to go to the headquarters.

Man, I wish I could speak better Japanese... I'm definitely going to try to improve on that.

Some interesting things that I have been thinking about:

• How important is English in the international community? How important is English in Asia... in China? in Japan? Through Ashinaga, I learned more about the TOEIC, which is a test that evaluates a student's ability to speak English before entering the workforce. This is very different from the TOEFL because the test focuses on conversational and practical English. What does it tell us about the important of English since Ashinaga is investing this new program as an umbrella of educational support for these students? It kind of reminds me of China in which English is a huge factor in advancing in the workforce as well as going to a good college (for example, the English portion in the gaokao and the newly enforced 9-years compulsory English education).
• International Students in Japan. In Ashinaga, there are a couple of students from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Uganda, etc. Not only do they have to learn/improve their English, they also have to take Japanese classes. Imagine learning two languages... and unable to come home to the comfort of using your mother tongue.
• Note to future self: Always be aware/evaluate the efficiency of every aspect of your organization, especially if it is newly instated. I am hoping that I can help Ashinaga improve on the new English program since attendance has already began to slip by the 2nd week.

Tomorrow I will give an update about the headquarters and talk about the subtle differences in Japan (such as the separation of trash, toilets, the concept of rude, etc.)

Early day tomorrow! Good night!

Preparing for Japan

13 more days until I head to Tokyo for two months. In preparation, I thought it'd be clever to use my Japanese blog as my official summer blog to keep everybody updated =]