Heartwarming wedding party

This was my last volunteer job for the year 2012 and it was a very worthy one.

One day in spring I got an e-mail from a Japanese woman in Australia.  She was looking for a volunteer interpreter for her Australian husband and his family. They were going to have a wedding party in her home city, Nagoya in December.

On that day I met her for the first time, she introduced me to her husband, and to his family.

When she wrote me the first mail, she mentioned that her husband desperately needed an interpreter sitting next to him at the main table during the whole party.  I wrote back to her that it would not be a good idea.  I was pretty sure people would love to see only the happy couple at the main table. A presence of an interpreter may distract the attention. More than anything else, she could be a best interpreter for her husband.  Yet my idea was not accepted.  Her husband explained to me that they would like to spend much time talking and sharing with their relatives and friends and not for themselves.  So their guests found an interpreter sitting next to a bridegroom on the party day.  My colleague then interpreted for his mother and brother at a table of both families.

The whole party was just heartwarming. Although the bride planned everything in detail beforehand, there were some surprises which she never knew of ----such as a speech of her father and a lively entertainment by her ex-colleagues of flight attendants. Welcoming surprises brought them lots of laughter and happy tears as well.

As for my job, most of the time, I translated by whispering to him. Sometimes I just refrained from interpreting on the spot because I wanted him to feel the atmosphere first.  I did so, for instance, when the bride's uncle chanted a Japanese traditional poem. I explained its meaning after his performance.  He made some questions about Japanese culture and this gave me a chance to talk to them about our traditions. 

My role was more than interpreting.  It was challenging for me.  I felt very much thankful that they gave me an opportunity to have a wonderful experience.

Discussion with Guest-speakers

Well, I wrote this post halfway last month.

My days were quite hectic with different activities.

One of these I write here is actually dated back in Nov.  So what? 

Will you forget about a time gap in a story?

I just begin from where I stopped last time.

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At last my busy week was over. I almost forgot this is the last day of the week, Saturday!

Today I went to the study meeting for volunteer interpreters. Actually we had a special event called the International Exchange Meeting. 　We invited two guest-speakers who talked about what they wanted us Japanese to learn about their countries.
A German lady guest talked about production and handling of garbage and cash/cashless payments.  A woman from China talked about one child policy and dangerous food.
Then we had a very good discussion pointing out some crucial aspects to understand the situation and compare with the situation in Japan. The main purpose of this meeting was the active participation of everyone in the discussion.  By asking and answering questions from each stance of three different countries, it was really an enlightening discussion that we enjoyed after all.

Well maybe I'd better update my blog about the discussion today some time soon-----hopefully. It was indeed good to learn something new from someone in a different country.

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?  
Last year it was just six months after 3.11 Tohoku disaster when Katy Morrison  and Jamie Lafferty started traveling across Japan from north to south for 100 days. 

While traveling, they posted great articles and amazing pictures every day in their blog so as to say Japan is as beautiful as ever and this report helped a lot to support the recovery of tourism to Japan.

Today their blog  was released as a digital book titled "Smiles of Japan"  and it is just free.

Why don't you get this now and read it. No matter whether you are from Japan or from abroad you'll be fascinated with their experiences.

The book is available from URL below:

http://travelvolunteer.net/book01/pageview/pageview.html

Just let me add one thing. 

 It was such a rewarding experience for me that I accompanied them when they visited Aichi Prefecture in Oct. last year.

A notepad in my bag

I feel so bad about my recent absence from updating my blog.  I haven't given up on it, though.  I just didn't have enough time to write. Well, that's an excuse.

This year　I've made up my mind to spend more time as a volunteer guide interpreter rather than that of a language interpreter in English.  It seems to me that there is more opportunity to act as an guide since recently we  don't have big international events such as the Expo or the international conferences in Nagoya that many volunteer interpreters used to make the best of their language ability during the past few years.
One difference between an interpreter and a guide is the latter can talk and explain with her own words and idea ,while the former  is required to translate what other speaks. Both are challenging and on a volunteer base I really like doing both.

Ever since I have more chances to guide visitors from abroad as a volunteer,  I have one addition in terms of the items in my bag.  I always keep a little notepad in my bag to write down some  information for them.  It may not be something new at all for those experienced guides.   Well it  occurs  to me more often when I am not in charge of guiding but at some other occasions such as when I just walk across the tickets machines at a local train or subway station,  I run into a foreign visitor at a loss. Most of the times, he/she is in trouble figuring out the way  to their destination. So I jotted down the directions on a notepad page and hand it out to them. It is interesting but I am often asked to write down the names of the stations, the buildings or even some sentences using the Japanese letters such as "この電車は刈谷駅で止まりますか？　Does this train make a stop at Karia station?"
This happened one day.  The young man from Christchurch who landed on Japan for the first time in his life asked me to do this. He explained that he was going to show this piece of paper  to anyone on a platform so that he would not take a wrong train.   "Ah, that is smart," I thought.
Since then I have a small note pad with me in my bag.  Just a piece of note can be a help.
At the same time, however, I have to keep it in mind that a foreigner in trouble is not necessarily a tourist but a resident and he/she speaks Japanese so well.

Challenge or Torture

Today's blog is about one of my unfavorite topics. "Evaluation." What evaluation am I talking about? It's about the proficiency of English as a foreign language.

I'll tell you the conclusion first. I had two kinds of language certificate examinations in summer and in autumn. It was my New Year resolution. One was the EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency and the other was The TOEIC test (Test of English for International Communication). Well the evaluation from the exams were like as follows: I was certified as a holder "pre-1st Grade"(second highest level) from EIKEN and as a holder of 895 scores out of 1,000 from TOEIC. Whew, I did better than I expected. EIKEN is my second and TOEIC my first trial.

These tests are very distinguished ones and performed widely throughout the country. Every year, millions of people mostly students, businessmen and other English learners take either of these tests for getting an admission for a higher education or their own evaluation or better job positions.

In fact, I took my first EIKEN way back when I was a freshman at high school. It was school compulsory. Yap, it's a long time ago! I haven’t had it since then. As for TOEIC. Since it had not been launched yet in my school days, I had never had it before and had not paid too much attention to it. I impudently didn't like the idea. I didn't like taking these kinds of exams and hated that my language ability was judged by scores. I think at that time I was slightly offensive against language proficiency judged by scores. Maybe I was young.

On the other hand, our society gradually had been active in the international world. English language had been required as a communication tool in various fields. With a huge population of studious English learners, these test results became an objective gauge that the learners themselves as well as the third parties could locate one's ability in the whole group. In short, it is that there are too many people with too many levels of English language ability.

That was the reason for my trial. My life for these years became more involved with English language. Being a member of a volunteer interpreter, I had to keep up with my English and to improve it. Sometimes the results of these tests are prerequisite for a requested job. Although I didn't like the score-oriented idea, I knew I was in a situation that I had to know my ability in a huge population of English learners.
I thought studying for the exams basically should be fun to me. Now I think I am quite in it as long as I enjoy studying English. Maybe I'll try out for better results next year. It's "a challenge" not "a torture." anymore.

Finally some of my friends who are professional and qualified interpreters/translators, tour guides, and language teachers eventually gave me a push to make one step forward. Otherwise, I don't think I accomplished my New Year resolution.

all the images above are from:
TOEIC http://www.toeic.or.jp/toeic_en/index.html
EIKEN http://stepeiken.org/

They are going to make it SOON !

One day this past July, I was on the Net browsing to seek for any chances as a volunteer interpreter. I typed out "volunteer" in a search text box and hit an “Enter.” Well that was when I came across with an amazing “Travel Volunteer Project.” I signed up then and there for a supporter in Aichi.

(for those who missed my previous post about this project, please have a look at here.)

It was really fortunate that the Project team gave me an opportunity to support Katy and Jamie when they got to Aichi as their 20th destination. One thing which impressed me was, well, it must be a very obvious matter for them, but for me, it was their resolution to this project.

I took them to the Toyota Automobile Company on Oct.25, the first day in Aichi. As soon as we were ready to start exploring the exhibition floor, they stopped for the discussion and they quickly walked in the different directions with each camera. Soon they were busy moving around, taking pictures, reading panels and taking notes one after another. Sometimes I lost either of them from my sight. For them this project was not just a lucky pleasure sightseeing but a mission to report for bringing back the tourism after March11 disaster in Tohoku.

The great part of this project is that a selected Travel Volunteer is supposed to appeal to the world every day by way of all kinds of SNS such as a Blog, Facebook and Twitter to introduce what they see. Apparently they came to learn Japan is much bigger than expected from north to south and safe enough to explore the land. Since Jamie is a professional writer and Katy a professional photographer, I see their spirit of the journalists in all over their posts. The posts are very enlightening, informative, well researched. Being sprinkled with his specific way of looking at things, his journals are quite interesting for the Japanese readers as well in terms of learning how the first-time visitors to Japan see our country. And look at Katy’s photos! Always beautiful and stunning! She marvelously sends us her message as well.

I'm sure their Blog will make a very special guide book of Japan!

Last week, they reached to the southernmost destination, Okinawa. Now they’re heading back toward their starting point, Kanazawa. They only have 6 prefectures left as of now. It will be a great moment of the accomplishment for the Project Team not to mention Katy & Jamie. All of the Japanese private/public supporters who participated in this project will surely be overjoyed with this moment, too.

Time flies. Who did ever believe that the “Travel Volunteer” makes a journey to all of the Japanese 47 prefectures in 100 days?

Well, they are going to make it SOON!

Travel Volunteer Project

I was going to talk about them before they visited Aichi but I didn't make it. In fact I wrote halfway and saved it. So let me start from the very beginning.

Travel Volunteer Project! What is all about? What is Travel Volunteers then? Well, I need to start the explanation from the March 11th disaster by a huge earthquake and tsunami and damaged nuclear plants. This news of huge tragedy was so quickly reported all over the world and people in the world were just shocked to see how the nature could be fatal to man and his world. In fact every TV news kept sending the awful scenes how the tsunami attacked the towns and cities in Tohoku and eventually it swallowed up 20 thousand people and still many missing even now.
Due to the world TV news, many people in the world just believed the tsunami swept away all over our land and in fact some overseas TV and newspapers reported as if it were the end of Japan. This brought a confusion among world travelers that Japan was not a safe country to visit anymore. Many trips were canceled one after another even in the area far away from the devastated regions. During the spring which was the high season for sight seeing in Japan, the numbers of the visitors from abroad were dropped sharply. English speaking guides whom I know were shocked to know every request for guiding were all canceled.
The tour industry faced the fatal damage although of all the land, west part of Japan was nothing affected and nothing happened and remained just the same as it was as usual.
In order to prove it and bring many foreign visitors back to Japan, one travel company called Magellan Resorts in the city of Kanazawa launched "Travel Volunteer Project." Please check their project website to know more about it here.

It was in July that I have known of this project and right on the spot, I applied for a volunteer supporter to guide the elected travel volunteer when he/she visited Aichi.
There were 1897 applicants for Travel volunteer from 85 countries and eventually the couple of Katy and Jamie, a photographer and a writer from England won this tremendous opportunity to visit all of 47 prefectures in Japan while updating their blogs and photos outwards telling many parts of Japan aren't changed and the many parts of our country are as beautiful and safe as they are always.

So their journey started on Sept.15. Yes it's almost 2 months have passed since then. Time flies. Now how many prefectures they have visited by now? Here is a map.



Yes, while I stayed away from blogging, Katy and Jamie came to Aichi and I had such a great opportunity to accompany them on Oct. 25.
I'll talk about it next.
At the same time please follow their great blog with fascinating stories and beautiful photos. You'll love it.

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