Photos by Elizabeth Grieve (Lewis & Clark College), Student Correspondent for CET Japan, Fall 2023
At Osaka Gakuin University, there’s a club that practices and teaches sadō, or the Japanese tea ceremony. Here’s Olivia and Uchimura-San, part of the CET staff, practicing and teaching how to fold the towel during the ceremony, respectively.
As part of the CET program, we also went to a space with cats that need socialization! A lot of cat cafes are kind of unethical, but this one is all cats rescued off the streets who are looking to be adopted into new homes. They were all so cute, nice, and friendly. I definitely want to go back. We gave them food and then played with them for a while. One of them… Valerie-chan… even decided to chill on my lap for a while—definitely a recommended and healing experience.
The second and third-level Japanese classes went to experience Rakugo, the Japanese art of comic storytelling. Our Rakugo teacher told two funny stories, one in Japanese and one in English; it was so impressive that she could empathically convey the voices and mannerisms of different characters!
I went with some OGU students to the mountains of Kansai… it was about a 40-minute drive; luckily, Yuuta was nice enough to drive us. The other two who went were Ai and Seth, and I had a ton of fun with them and used a lot of Japanese. The mountain is named Hoshino Blanco; the autumn foliage was so pretty! Osaka is a bit devoid of parks, so it was a much-needed break in nature (even if the hike up was a little intense) and fresh air!
Coming down to the mountain we wanted to go to a shrine, so we walked to the Imafune Shrine not far away. It was beautiful, full of deteriorating structures and moss-covered stone. We were also curious about a gate apparently leading into the giant, protruding rocks that are next to the shrine and discovered that there is a hike through the cavernous and slightly damp path through the epic stones. Actually, one of the largest stones there is deified and is the object of worship for the shrine.
So, obviously, we did the stone hike. I don’t have pictures because we had to sign a waiver and hand over all our belongings to make sure nothing fell in the chasms between rocks. There was lots of rock climbing and ducking in cramped spaces. I really enjoyed the challenge and atmosphere of various other tiny red gates tucked between dark and stone. I would really recommend it for dexterous, adventurous people who are looking for a short but exciting hike.
The I-chat at Osaka Gakuin University held an event in which OGU students were supposed to guess the English names of Pokémon, and the English-speaking students were supposed to guess the Japanese names. I personally knew the Japanese names for both Magikarp and Snorlax because I’m a massively embarrassing nerd, but it was interesting hearing the explanations for each one.
Magikarp’s Japanese name is コイキング or KoiKing and is pretty self-explanatory, Koi being a type of fish (called Carp in the U.S. but also Koi) and King referring to Magikarp’s little golden crown. Snorlax in English is obviously a combination of Snore and Relax. Snorlax was inspired by a Game Freak employee Koji Nishino in appearance and in name. Snorlax’s Japanese name カビゴン or Kabigon is based on the rumor that Nishino would eat things even if they were moldy; thus the Japanese word for mold (kabi) being used.