It's been a rainy, rainy week here in Nagoya. I love the rain and it's a blessing because it looks like the hot weather is finally gone for good! It was a rough couple of weeks temperature wise when I first got here. Everyone at the youth center is busy prepping for the bazar that St. Stephan’s is hosting this weekend as a fundraiser. The money is going to help fund different ministries, particularly the school for Filipino students where I teach on Fridays.
On a related note, two weeks ago was the 10th anniversary of the Filipino Migrant Center in Nagoya, Japan. It was a great all-day event. We ate delicious Filipino food, watched Filipino dance and heard a panel talk about the day's topic, "Migrants' Contribution in Realization of Social Integration: Towards the Next Decade". It was interesting to hear what each speaker had to say about the topic. There are relatively few foreigners living in Japan, especially when compared with my hometown of Boston, MA. It is difficult for migrants to get settled here when they don't share a common language or culture with their new communities. This is where the work of the FMC comes in. They provide resources and support to Filipino Migrants as well as cultural events and community. Another resource the FMC provides is translation. Japan has a confusing trash collection system. Where I live trash must be divided into Burnable, Recyclable Plastic, Non-Burnable, and Bottles, Cans and Recycled paper. It’s a better system for the planet, but it’s still sometimes confusing to me and I have instructions in English! The fliers which describe how to sort your garbage were not available in Tagalong which you can imagine would be a problem. The FMC provides translation of this information as well as other pamphlets that contain important information for living in Japan. I was so glad to be a part of the FMC’s 10th anniversary. One of the best parts was seeing some of my students perform a dance at the end of the day. They had been practicing so hard for weeks and did a really great job!
As far as language goes, I’ve had some success this week! This morning I was able to have an actual conversation entirely in Japanese! Granted, it was with a two-year old, but hey—you’ve got to start somewhere right?! I also find that I understand more and more when someone else is speaking. When I first came to Japan I had difficulty distinguishing between words and even understanding words I did know. Now I’m usually able to get the meaning from context and pick out words I don’t know from those I do. Slowly but surely progress is being made!
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