The World Campus - Japan program

Interview with Meredith Bradshaw, World Campus International alum

GO: Why did you decide to volunteer with World Campus International in Japan?

Meredith : I decided to go with WCI because it fit my time constraints and it fit my budget. I was only able to do one summer excursion due to the fact that I had a summer job AND I couldn't commit enough time to do an entire semester abroad. The way that WCI was set out, the description of the activities and level of immersion that we were to have, and the language level (which for me at the time was about a second year student) all fit with what I wanted/needed at the time.

GO: Describe your day to day activities as a volunteer.

Meredith: My main job was mostly just enjoying the time, representing myself as a country (aka being USA), and using my talents to benefit those around me/thank those that were so gracious to open their hearts and homes to me.

List of things I did:
Played Taiko Drums
Helped out with Handicapped individuals in a rest home playing games and musical instruments
Made soba noodles
Played traditional Japanese card games
Made crepes for my family and had WONDERFUL japanese food every evening
Got to see a movie in Japanese (sadly no subtitles)
went shopping in a HUGE mall
Rode the Shinkansen
Visited the Pokemon Store
Went to a festival at my "little sister's" school
Helped clean the house and visit/walk around town
Flew kites with kids in the park
Visited shrines and watched a rain-dance festival
Played the Shamisen with a professional artisan
Wrote Calligraphy with a small-town master
Learned Karate (and failed)

GO: How has this experience helped you grow personally and professionally?

Meredith: I went during the summer of 2010 when I was simultaneously working at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg with the animal department. I have a bachelor's in Zoology and I'm working on a Science Education masters, so I can't really tell you WHERE Japan would fit into any of that, but it seemed like a good opportunity at the time. I'd always been fascinated with the language, the culture, music, and the beauty of the country, so I was dying to visit.

It positively impacted the way I interacted with others, my loyalty and understanding of customs and common interactions, and gave me a new appreciation for the somewhat testy but always important relationships that people from differing religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds encounter. I still try to keep in touch with my two homestay families and receive letters every now and then for holidays. It really is amazing how closely we can be connected despite how far away we are from one-another. That was particularly true when the Tsunami came back in 2011. Both of my families were safe and I feel even more personally connected with those that were effected.

Interview with Jotter Verhaeghe, World Campus International alum

GO: Tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to volunteer with World Campus International in Japan.

Jotter: My name is Jotter Verhaeghe. I’m a 24 year old male from Belgium. I currently live in Fukuoka, Japan and I’m studying a masters in Social studies at Kyushu University. In 2008, (already 4 years ago, gosh), I participated in the spring program of World Campus.

Before I applied to the World Campus program, I was studying Asian cultures and languages at Ghent University, mainly about Japan, but I had never visited the country before. I really wanted to go, but I wanted more than just travel. I looked at some exchange programs, but they were either too expensive or impossible or I didn’t have the right academic background. In the end, I heard about WCI and just seeing their website, I was already sold. They also did a presentation at my University later, but by then I was already in the system and in the pipeline for a program. I raised some funds, managed to get the fees and off I was.

GO: Describe your day to day activities as a volunteer.

Jotter: I’ll write it in a day schedule type shape. The weekly schedule has three types of days: free days on which you can do whatever pleases you, host family days on which your host family takes you somewhere and program days. I’ll write mainly about the program days.

7:00-7:30 Waking up on a futon or in a bed. Either an alarm clock, a host parent calling your name or some excited host family’s kids jumping on top of you and yelling: “wake up sleepy head foreigner.”
7:35: Breakfast: either traditional Japanese with fish and rice and miso soup or sunny side up and some toast or whatever your host family mom thinks you will like.
7:45: Take a quick shower (or bath last night means it is okay to just freshen up at the sink)
7:55: Your host family takes you to the program place, or you are put on a train or a bus hoping you’ll get off at the right place.
8:15-30: The other people gather and we discuss the day’s plan and last night experiences and do some bonding activities.
9:00 Morning activity: this can be either in a group or in small groups and one or more of the following things:

• Practice for an event you will perform at
• Study about our countries
• Visit a martial arts Dojo and practice
• Japanese tea ceremony
• Make soba at a shop
• Visit a museum (peace museum, anthropological museum, …) or a company (beer, noodles, broadcasting,…)

12:30 Lunch: Either with a local community or a lunch box or a cold platter or the program provides funds and tells you where you can find restaurants and you can choose yourself.
13:30 Afternoon activity:

• Visit an elementary school and tell kids about your country and they’ll teach you about their culture, play dodgeball with Japanese children
• Visit a Japanese sword smith
• Visit a temple or a shrine and talk with a monk or priest
• Talk with a survivor of the atomic bombing in the second world war
• Participate in a cultural event and stand on a stage in front of a hundred people *gasp*
• Do some activities with elderly or handicapped people
• Learn Japanese (or English if you are Japanese)
• Visit a Japanese castle or a hospital

18:30 Picked up by host family or take the train or bus back.
17:00 Dinner with your host family or possible a party with your host family or a barbeque or you’ll go out to eat or you’ll play games until very late or just talk and then it is almost 23:30 before you know it.
22:30 or later: take a bath or shower and/or go to bed. Sleep like an Ox.

GO: How has this experience helped you grow personally and professionally?

Jotter: The program has impacted my future in many ways:

• As a person, I have grown stronger and have become a leader, who is more extrovert and who isn’t afraid to tackle problems, especially in regard to cultures.
• As a friend, I have made so many friends all over the world and of course all over Japan. I have visited many of them after the program and a couple also visited my country and stayed at my house. One of the friends who stayed at my house half a year after the program then became my girlfriend and now my fiancée.
• As an Asian studies scholar: The program gave me the experience and the confidence to get a scholarship and continue my studies in Japan. I didn’t so much study Japanese through the program as I was able to apply the Japanese I had already learned and practice it in diverse environments.

Interview with Sean Cullen, World Campus International alum

GO: Why did you decide to volunteer with World Campus International in Japan?

Sean: Back in 2007, I had some major unresolved personal issues at home, had just been suspended from my lifeguarding job for absenteeism, and was completing my CÉGEP (a post-secondary 2-year program prior to university). I did not like who I was becoming and was looking to get some perspective. Somehow, I stumbled upon the WCI program. At first, it seemed outrageous; I was completely clueless about the Japanese culture. Progressively though, the idea of meeting and sharing with a bunch of gutsy young people from all over the world seduced me.

GO: Describe your day to day activities as a volunteer.

Sean: One of the great things of the WCI program was that every day felt different. First, I wasn’t 100% a volunteer, but a participant. Due to the shear complexity and importance of Japanese culture in daily living, a lot of the program was devoted to explore and understand its various aspects. Considering that 98.5% of the population is ethnic Japanese, one part of our job was to act as ambassadors for our respective countries and more generally for all foreigners. This reality permeated throughout the rest of the program and allowed us to have a special access lots of things.

In the first weeks, it was all about Japanese classes, mindset preparation (team building activities, presentation of the various psychological events that would occur while abroad, mechanisms to deal with it, etc.) and the preparation of a thank you event that would be produced in each city we would travel to. Then, we discovered the Japanese school system (from kindergarden to university), the various issues kids, parents, and professors are facing, and were put in charge of classes for a few days. We scratched the surface of the Japanese corporate world through corporate visits of established institutions such as Asahi Breweries, Mazda and Toyota and newer companies such as Miracle 3 Corp. and others. During these visits, the normal facilities tour was always improved upon with direct management interaction and founding family / founder interaction. Another part of it was interacting with survivors. From atomic bomb survivors to Minamata disease survivors, while passing by natural handicap survivors and Storks Cradle, we met them and exchanged with them. We exchanged with various religious and traditional institutions, politicians, and the people during festivities and through host-family living.

GO: What made this volunteer abroad experience unique and special?

Sean: First and foremost, the people. The group of fellow travellers that I met in Japan contributed greatly in making this experience unique and priceless. We developed our own customs and language which united us and allowed us to overcome the various obstacles that were sent our way. Each of us has a story to tell, but various factors make it impossible to truly discover this story unless given a common challenge and time. Within the WCI group were fragments of the world and having the chance to hear what each had to say was truly life changing. Then there was the generous host-families who we got to adopt in our own ways, the insider access, and the overall reach of the program.

GO: How has this experience helped you grow personally and professionally?

Sean: What did I find in WCI? [Personally] Well, I met my spouse Kim, a Belgian. She is currently a permanent Canadian resident and has been living with me for 2 years, though we went back and forth for 3 years prior to that to make our long-distance relationship work. In fact, we will be travelling to Belgium to attend her sister’s wedding in June, and are planning to go visit a great Italian friend (again from WCI) who will be living in Paris. If that wasn’t enough, I managed to find the perspective I was longing for; an invaluable asset which still guides me today. Other than that, I was able to travel to Europe for very little due to my families away from home.

[Professionally] Once back from Japan, I put Robert Kibaya (WCI alumni) in contact with local friend of mine. With the help of countless volunteers, they have since created from scratch an organization called ABaCoDe, which aims to provide invaluable life skills children and young adults through sports. Kim and I both have been implicated in the organization.

Sean Cullen, 24, went to Japan from July 20, 2007 to October 17, 2007. Sean, originally from Montréal, Canada, is a Strategic Consultant for Creativee and CFA Level III Candidate.

Interview with Anders Bogsnes, World Campus International alum

GO: Why did you decide to volunteer with World Campus International in Japan?

Anders: I wanted to do something with my summer before I started school in Kyoto and stumbled across this program and was immediately interested. I mean, I get to travel across all Japan, living with local families who know the area and I even get to brush up on my Japanese before Uni? Sign me up!

GO: Describe your day to day activities as a volunteer.

Anders: The days are fairly structured, yet completely different. It's typically up at 8, breakfast, assemble at 9, morning program, lunch, evening program, maybe an hour or two off and then home, dinner, post-dinner chats with your family and usually a fairly early bedtime, since you really need to get your sleep. Twice a week was off, one personal day where you can do whatever you want, usually meet up with the other participants and go have some fun, check out that cool restaurant your "parents" told you about and in our case, lots of football (soccer)! Every day, the program was very different though, ranging from visiting survivors of the Minamata mercury poisoning disaster to helping celebrate the anniversary of the Osaka World Expo to visiting businesses and getting to talk to the executives there. Every day was something new and despite having spent some time in Japan before that, every day was something brand new. I got to sleep in an 800 year old temple!

GO: What made this volunteer abroad experience unique and special?

Anders: Definitely the unique access you get, as I talked a bit about above. As a tourist, you really only get to scratch the surface of what Japan has to offer, not to mention that most tourists are lucky to even get to see both Tokyo and Kyoto. I got to live in a bunch of different citites, meeting and talking to Japanese people and families from all walks of life, staying in everything from tiny villages with a population of around 500 to downtown Osaka, population 2.5 million. Even better, everybody you meet are really interested in getting to know you and to tell you about themselves. Even living in Japan afterwards didn't get me that kind of understanding of Japanese culture!

GO: How has this experience helped you grow personally and professionally?

Anders: It's given me the opportunity to meet a bunch of really interesting people, while really improving my understanding of Japanese culture and language. Japanese people I meet are very impressed with the breadth of knowledge I've gained about their country and is a great way to keep conversations going when I meet people travelling.

Professionally, my employers were very impressed with my diverse background, even though Japan is not directly relevant to my job, just the fact that I have done these things and thus demonstrated a willlingness to venture out into the unknown and work hard at learning new things. It's been a great personal development as well, teaching me how to cope with the stress of being abroad with a bunch of strangers for a long time in a country where I didn't speak the language fluently in a culture that was completely different from my own. In the process those strangers became awesome people who I'm always happy to see and talk to again.