Carleton Linguistics in Kyoto

We’ve now (April 8) been in Kyoto for about a week and a...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 06:27:00 -0400

We’ve now (April 8) been in Kyoto for about a week and a half. Classes are underway, and the students are settling into the dorm near the Doshisha campus. I’ve been spectacularly busy these days, but I promise to try to take more pictures for this blog in the future.

Today, spring finally arrived in Kyoto, a little late. The cherry blossoms are out, and the city feels very festive. We had a opening banquet last Wednesday, featuring a number of important guests. We were welcomed by a vice-president of the University, and the director of the International Center. The main business of the dinner was for our students to meet the Doshisha Peers, the 24 Doshisha University students we have selected to be a part of our program. I was too busy at the banquet to take pictures, but I think lots of other people did and I will post them here as soon as they send them to me.

Before we left Tokyo for Kyoto, we had a banquet at a restaurant...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 06:15:36 -0400

Before we left Tokyo for Kyoto, we had a banquet at a restaurant with the orientation faculty, plus Abe-sensei from Kyoritsu Women’s University and a few of her students. When we return to Tokyo in May, we will meet Abe-sensei’s students and they will accompany us (in small groups of Carleton and Kyoritsu students) to the famous Yasukuni Shrine and the adjacent war museum.

Pictured here are Aly Wisekal, Lisa Taxier, Charlie Bentley, Jojo Schmidt in back. In front we have Kyung Soo Liu, Kelsey Klug, two Kyoritsu students, and Bill Vang.

Anna Callahan. Matt Rathkey, Will Johnston and Lauren Chow were also at the banquet but I didn’t get a picture of them.

Back row: Deborah Shapiro, Emily Manahan, Matt Zekowski, Jillian...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 06:03:16 -0400

Back row: Deborah Shapiro, Emily Manahan, Matt Zekowski, Jillian Mattern, Iwanaga-sensei.

Front row: Two students from Abe-sensei’s class, Marika Xydes, Andrew Peters, Evan Leibowitz.

Aly Wisekal almost did not make it to the orientation banquet,...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:54:30 -0400

Aly Wisekal almost did not make it to the orientation banquet, because she badly twisted her ankle on the way to the restaurant. But thanks to some quick thinking by Jojo Schmidt, Sakai-sensei, Lisa Taxier, Marika Xydes, and Shirasaka-sensei, we are able to procure a cold pack and wrap, and we were also able to commandeer a wheel chair. No problem getting Aly to the dinner, especially with Tokyo’s legendary taxis.

Anna Callahan, Aly Wisekal, Lisa Taxier, Charlie Bentley, and...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:13:28 -0400

Anna Callahan, Aly Wisekal, Lisa Taxier, Charlie Bentley, and Andrew Peters in front of casks of sake donated to the Meiji Jingu Shrine.

Finally, after two and a half years of planning and...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:52:15 -0400

Finally, after two and a half years of planning and negotiations, the Carleton Linguistics in Kyoto off-campus studies seminar began on March 26, 2012. We’re now at our three-day orientation program in Tokyo. On our first outing as a group, we visited the Meiji Shrine, a beautiful Shinto shrine surrounded by a large, wonderful park. Here we are near the entrance.

Evan Leibowitz, Kelsey Klug, and Anna Callahan ritually...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:47:05 -0400

Evan Leibowitz, Kelsey Klug, and Anna Callahan ritually cleansing themselves before entering the Meiji Shrine.

My work here, for now, is done. I’ve finished my classes...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:59:00 -0400

My work here, for now, is done. I’ve finished my classes at Doshisha, and the grades are in. I’ve said my good-bye’s to my friends.

The Carleton Linguistics in Kyoto Off-Campus Studies Seminar is ready. We have good accommodations, both here in Kyoto and when we’re on the road. We have great faculty. We have a plan with many interesting events, but I think not too many. We have enthusiastic Doshisha Peers.

This afternoon I will take the shinkansen to Tokyo for a little R&R before returning to Minnesota on Saturday, July 30th. I’ve been away for four months, and I’ll be happy to get home.

The picture above is of a little shrine in the street next to my apartment. Someone closes it every night, and opens it in the morning. It’s well-maintained, and I’ve seen people stop to pray there. I have found it very charming. Probably each of the objects has some significance, but it is all rather mysterious to me.

I learned a lot this trip, but there’s still a great deal I don’t know, so I’ll want to come back to this fascinating place to learn more . Our seminar arrives in Japan on March 26, 2012.

Signing off from Kyoto. Sayonara.

Doshisha University has two campuses. One of them, the one we...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:39:14 -0400

Doshisha University has two campuses. One of them, the one we will be connected to, is in central Kyoto. It is called the Imadegawa campus, after the street that is one of its borders. Imadegawa is primarily for third and fourth year students. The other campus, Kyotanabe, is quite a ways south of Kyoto proper. It takes a little over an hour to get there by train. We wanted to recruit some first and second year students from the Kyotanabe campus, since next year they will be second and third year students, and may have somewhat more flexible schedules than the fourth year students, who come next April will be looking for jobs.

This is a picture of the Doshisha Peers from the Imadegawa campus. They are a terrific group, lively, enthusiastic, and eager to meet Carleton students next spring.

The Doshisha Peers from the Kyotanabe campus. You will notice...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:29:00 -0400

The Doshisha Peers from the Kyotanabe campus. You will notice probably that they are all women. We had about 60 people come to the information session at the Kyotanabe campus, and all but one of them were female. For a program like this we expect that fewer men will be interested for a variety of reasons, but I don’t quite understand why we were so far out of balance at Kyotanabe this year.

Anyway, the Peers we got from Kyotanabe are terrific. Everyone is looking forward to the start of the seminar, now just a short eight months from now.

Motoko Tabuchi and Mai Inoue, from the International Center at...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:22:53 -0400

Motoko Tabuchi and Mai Inoue, from the International Center at Doshisha University. They are the principle Doshisha representatives in charge of helping us with our seminar. They did a great job helping me recruit and select the Doshisha Peers

Professor Chris Davis, a recent UMass Ph.D, has joined our...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:13:00 -0400

Professor Chris Davis, a recent UMass Ph.D, has joined our faculty. He will teach the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics part of the Structure of Japanese course. Chris is in Japan doing research on the Ryukyu languages, generally considered to be in the same family as Japanese. His dissertation is on sentence final particles in Japanese, and he’ll discuss this very interesting topic in some of his lectures.

Professor Hikaru Fujii (Doshisha University) is a specialist on...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:52:46 -0400

Professor Hikaru Fujii (Doshisha University) is a specialist on the contemporary American novel, but for us he’s our expert on Japanese baseball. He will give us a lecture on the nature of Japanese baseball, focusing especially on the amazing national high school baseball tournament, and what all of this tells us about the nature of Japanese society.

Professor Takayuki Katsuyama (Doshisha University) is a...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:49:00 -0400

Professor Takayuki Katsuyama (Doshisha University) is a Shakespeare specialist. He will give us a lecture on how the great director Akira Kurasawa handled the Japanese version of Macbeth in his film “Throne of Blood”.

Professor Catherine Ludvik from Kyoto Sangyo University will...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:46:50 -0400

Professor Catherine Ludvik from Kyoto Sangyo University will give two lectures for us, one on Mt. Hiei and the Enryakuji Temple (and Buddhism in Japan in general) and another one on the Aoi Matsuri (and Shinto in general). The Aoi Matsuri is one of the great festivals in Kyoto, and next year it will be on May 15th. We’ll go, with the Doshisha Peers.

Professor Ludvik is Canadian, but she has lived in Kyoto for 14 years. She mentioned to me that she is a vegetarian, and will be happy to give some good advice to vegetarians in our group. (She’s enthusiastic about the food in Kyoto.)

Last week I visited the “monthly mansion” to which...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:33:00 -0400

Last week I visited the “monthly mansion” to which we will be moving in mid-May, where Mr. Tsuji and Mr. Hamada wait to welcome us. A “mansion” in Japan is an apartment building, so we will have rooms in a mansion that rents them by the month.

Our mansion is in a great location. It is just a block south of the Nijojo-mae subway station, and from there of course it is connected to everything. If you want to find it on a map, Nijojo-mae is the stop for Nijo Castle (Nijojo just means Nijo Castle, and ‘mae’ means ‘in front of’), a favorite tourist destination.

I thought the rooms were pretty nice. They all have small kitchens and bathrooms. There are three kinds of rooms: basic, Japanese, and Asian. There aren’t enough rooms of any one type for all of us, so we’ll have to divide them up in some way. The Japanese and Asian rooms also have their own washing machines. The basic rooms have a common laundry room. All rooms have internet connections.

The only thing I didn’t like about this place was that there is no good common space for people to hang out, but I guess we’ll live with that.

This is a “basic style” room

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:24:50 -0400

This is a “basic style” room

This is a “Japanese style” room.

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:24:06 -0400

This is a “Japanese style” room.

Photo

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:23:07 -0400

Photo

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:22:34 -0400