Interacting with Japanese school children
These are early days still. However, I am keen to document what little progress has been made. Everything is well and truly up in the air at the moment and I am keen to bolster my confidence by documenting these small steps. In the event this project does come to fruition it would be great to reflect on the journey.
So what has happened? Conversations mainly. With some very interesting people. The sort who grasp the fundamentals of the breath-awareness programme. Now if I may temporarily digress into hyperbole. I get a sense that these people also appreciate the aspiration that guides the project. 50 Schools in Japan will be a tremendous opportunity to realize my work in a meaningful context – to enable children to become more aware of themselves and to recognize and handle stress and anxiety.
Coming back to the point – what have these conversations been about? A number of different things, from addressing the practical aspects of returning to Japan and convincing 50 schools to participate, to fine-tuning the nature of the workshops so that they adhere to the cultural sensitivities.
A breath-awareness workshop in England differs tremendously from a workshop in Japan. Both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. While working with native english speakers offers much more flexibility, working with the Japanese allows me to use more abstract references when it comes to themes such as reflection and self-awareness. However, I have to be very careful.
Let me explain the configuration in which the previous Japanese workshops took place. Rather than deliver instructions in broken and confused Japanese (not to mention the problem with accents), I worked with a native speaker who translated my instructions in real-time. As the nature of the audience (young children, teenagers, some office workers, teachers) varied, there was a lot of improvisation to adapt these instructions. The only thing I had to be mindful of was to convey the message as simply as possible so that it could be translated quickly in real time. However, conveying abstract references in simple english isn’t the easiest tasks. And often, during the most intense moments of the workshop I came up with gems which elicited the ‘raised eyebrow’ reaction from my translator. To her credit, she never lost her composure and after a split second, came up with an appropriate explanation in Japanese.
Almost everyone I have spoken to so far has generously offered their help and some have already agreed to step in as advisors to guide the programme’s development. This makes me very hopeful. There is a very long way to go but as I said earlier, at this stage these small steps are hopefully seeding momentum for future strides. Over the next few weeks as these relationships take on a more formal hue, I will be happy to introduce these people along with their fascinating professional profiles through this blog.
By regularly posting entries, I hope I am creating a digital footprint that might catch the attention of potential collaborators. To the readers, if you know of someone who might be interested, may I request you to forward this post to them. If you would like to write to me to find out more about the breath-awareness workshops you can contact me at abhay dot adhikari at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.
