2021 Activity Report

June Activity Report

30 June 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

In June, the university's final exams are almost over, and it's almost the beginning of summer vacation just because there's another exam. At the beginning of June, I helped other teachers with their oral tests, but after that, I was able to relax.

In June, Covid-19-related regulations in the Netherlands were loosened further, and social activities began to be conducted almost normally. The city is already overflowing with people, and the only difference in the city landscape from before Covid-19 is that people wear masks where they are required to, like public transportation.

There was a question in the oral exam to explain about "recent surprises", and one student said he was surprised to find the vaccination process was faster than he had expected. Except for the elderly and people with chronic diseases such as asthma, younger people are in the later group.

Nevertheless, vaccination is expected to be completed in July. Indeed, if you think about it, the Netherlands was behind other European countries in the start of vaccination. Early in Europe, vaccination had already begun by the end of December last year, but the Netherlands started cautiously only in January. So the citizens expected that it would take more time to vaccinate the public at large.

I’m in my 30s, and in the middle of June, I finally received a vaccination envelope. In the Netherlands, most administrative procedures can be easily done online using a number called BSN (Burgerservicenummer), which is the same as Citizen service number in Japan, but according to the information, vaccination can also be done online easily. However, as I expected, when I went to the reservation page, the first vaccination was scheduled to be given in late June, and the second vaccination was scheduled to be given in July. I will return home after my term at Leiden University ends this month, so I did not make a reservation. I heard that there was a trick to try out a different zip code from the area where I live and find a schedule that I can take it quickly, but of course I didn't do that. But I also heard that there are some Japanese returnees who decided to hit once and then hit the second time in Japan.　

This time I will finish my stay in Leiden. The relationship with the students was less than usual due to Covid-19, but there were some students who gave me a farewell email and presents. At the end of the conversation club for graduate students, we met outside and had a meal. I heard that the students who participated in it are going to study in Japan, and it is uncertain whether they can finally go because of Covid-19. I sincerely hope they will go to Japan.

This month's conversation club for graduate students was the last time for me. The theme was the heaviest war reparations between the Netherlands and Japan. Japan has problems with reparations for South Korea, but the Netherlands has problems with reparations for the Indonesian War of Independence. One of the students made the astute point that how much compensation is reasonable for someone whose father was murdered in front of him or her, and whether there is an answer to that question. There were many interesting opinions such as not only the exchange of reparations between governments but also the necessity of direct reparations for victims.

This is the last time, so let's do a summary. As I work as a Japanese teacher, I meet many foreign people speaking Japanese fluently. But when I think about it again, they've all made tremendous efforts to get to that point. I think the reason they can make such an effort is because they have fun when they use a new language. I have heard a student said to himself that Japanese classes are went by so fast, and I was impressed that he liked Japanese so much. It's a little surprising that studying Japanese is so interesting for a native speaker. When I meet my colleague's teacher, he talks about how students are serious and diligent, even though their lives may be boring due to Covid-19. I also felt that it was valuable and energizing for me to spend my two years at Leiden University to see them really enjoy learning new things.

May Activity Report

31 May 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

May was the month of the final exam. On the Hague campus where I am in charge, there were tests of Japanese-1 and Japanese-3, and each test took all day. I've already taken the online test for the third time, so I'm used to it. Personally, I think online is less stressful for students. This time, the performance was quite good, especially for the Japanese3 students, as it was the last comprehensive class that included Japanese conversation.

May is also a month of considerable deregulation of Covid-19. The curfew had already been lifted at the end of April, and cafes were allowed to open their terraces from 12:00 to 18:00, and non-essential stores were also allowed to open until 20:00. This has changed the landscape of the town considerably. There were some news of cafe owners complaining that they could not make money from 12:00 to 18:00, but on the whole, they seemed to welcome the new step of deregulation. It is no longer unusual to see a full terrace on a sunny day, partly because on May 19 it was extended from 18 o'clock to 20 o'clock. Because of the backlash from the past, the town seems even more vibrant than before Covid-19. More deregulation will be announced at the end of May, with more restaurants opening and museums opening on June 5, giving more freedom for the summer.

This month's conversation course for third-year students was only one for holidays and exams. And the semester is over, so this is the last one. The content was "Explaining my country" and listening and reading.

"Explaining my country" was an exercise in which students were asked to briefly explain Dutch culture and customs in a minute or two. First of all, as a model, we checked the explanation about Dutch culture (mainly food culture) and customs on Meiji Food's website for children. There was a drink called Karnemelk, which I didn't know. It’s a kind of buttermilk, and some students said it tastes good, while others said it tastes bad.

I've been in the Netherlands for almost two years now and have reconfirmed that there are still many things I don't know even in my daily life. I drank Karnemelk right away, and I found it very delicious. I heard it’s good for intestinal health.

For the listening part, we listened to a part of Haruki Murakami's radio show. In the section on answering listener questions, I created a question about his answer to the topic "What kind of music would you like to see played at your funeral?

I used Haruki Murakami's radio for my reading lesson as well. I asked them to read some of what he said on the radio and answer the questions. The topic was about Haruki’s brief reflection on the fact that Ray Charles, a black man who grew up in poverty, was blind and suffers from racism, has rarely sung protest song. Based on this content, we discussed at the end whether art should be directly related to social issues. Students were interested in art and culture, so it was good to deal with this kind of content at the end.

There were two conversation clubs for graduate students this month, and I participated in both. The first topic was agriculture in Holland and Japan, and the second topic was young-carer.

As for agriculture, it seems that the population of farmers in the Netherlands is not aging as much as Japan, but what I heard from the students is that there is an image of elderly people in agriculture in the Netherlands. What was interesting was that in Japan, the low food self-sufficiency rate was acknowledged in schools, but even though the grain self-sufficiency rate in the Netherlands was as low as 10%, these problems seem to be rarely addressed. There seems to be an idea that it is enough to supply food within the EU, and the self-sufficiency rate of food in one's own country does not seem to be much talked about.

In the "young-carer" session, we talked about the topic of young-carers, which has become a hot topic in Japan and has been featured on TV, but what about in the Netherlands, and whether or not it is normal for children to care for their parents. While the United Kingdom is known for its progressive approach to the issue of young carers, it seemed to be an issue that has not yet received much recognition in the Netherlands, with few opportunities to address it. When asked if they thought it was natural for a child to care for a parent, most of the participating Dutch students answered that it was not natural, but that they could understand the emotional desire to nurse.

The students gave me many interesting opinions this month. I look forward to next month.

April Activity Report

30 April 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

April was a month with many holidays. First, Friday of the 2nd was a holiday at Good Friday, Sunday of the 4th and Monday of the 5th were Easter holidays, and the beginning of April had many holidays. And at the end of April, the 27th was a holiday called "King's Day".

King's Day is a holiday to celebrate the birthday of the king of the Netherlands, and many cities would be filled with people wearing orange, the symbol of the royal family (The Orange-Nassau), if it weren't for the coronavirus. However, this year, as in the previous year, no large-scale events were held. Even so, when I went outside on the day, I often saw people dressed in orange and wearing orange decorations moving around to some house party. As an outsider, I thought, "What's the fun of dressing like that?" but I found my T-shirt was also bright orange while I was running. I didn't choose that on purpose.

There were many events like that, and April was the second half of the semester, and students were getting even busier with their studies, so unfortunately we didn't have a conversation club for graduate students this month. We had already decided what literature I would read about agriculture in Japan and the Netherlands, but many people were too busy to attend on that day, and the timing was bad because the club day had just hit King's Day. The Japanese and Dutch agriculture will be carried over in May.

The conversation course for third-year students at Leiden Campus was less than usual, only twice this month. It coincided with a national holiday, and there was a day when I gave up opening it because there were too few participants. It seems that everyone is busy at the end of the semester.

Even so, they were all active in using Japanese in the two sessions. We practiced casual speech this month. When we reviewed the rules of casual speech, some people have forgotten about it because they don't usually use it even though they studied it a long time ago. As they usually watch Japanese programs, they seemed familiar to listening to Japanese speech.

As a kind of casual speech, I also mentioned Kansai dialect. I showed them a script by a comedian called Jyaru Jyaru about a student who uses too casual language during a part-time job interview. Of course it is difficult because they speak fast in Kansai dialect, but students enjoyed watching the video. Based on the script, we practiced changing the Kansai dialect into a casual speech in the standard language. While everyone said it was difficult, they had a good grasp of the content. While I was teaching this class, I realized once again that it is very difficult to explain each meaning of postpositional particle of Kansai dialect, even though Japanese people can understand and imitate it. Ending particles are not found in other languages, and they are unnecessary in writing or in formal situations, so I think it is difficult to study them. As a teacher, the meaning is almost the same even without such a thing, so it sometimes seems like a troublesome and indifferent existence. At least when they heard it, I was teaching it, thinking it would be good if they could acquire passive knowledge.

That's all for this month. See you next week.