Hi ! This is Yuya of Borderless House, and I am in charge of this blog .
Today’s story is about high school student who come to Borderless House for class trips.
The main mission of this trip is to break down the unconcern to society.
We held this trip with Ridilover, a general incorporated foundation who held a lot of study tour business to high school students and adults.
This time, 30 students from Hiroshima and Nagasaki came to Borderless House and we did 2 study tours.
I am going to explain the Nagasaki student trip.
Borderless House become a destination of school trip !? ~ We have thought about multiculturalism~
Why we have to do some experience of social challenges in a share house?
think some people have this question in mind.
Borderless house is a place in which ” Youth people from everywhere in world live together and experience different cultures together“.
and our goal is to make a society which ” regardless the country you came from, everyone is respecting multiculturalism.”
“Do you want to try to hold a study tour about multiculturalism at a sharehouse ?”
It was a 2-hour tour.
During the tour, we have first a discussion and a workshop about “multiculturalism in Japan” with our foreigners tenants.
First, let look at the house ! The first time to enter in a share house!
For highschool student who is living with their parents, sharehouse is an unknown area.
They all know about it because of TV but they don’t know about life in it. So, we invite them to have a house tour at the beginning.
We calculate the interior of the house to be able to promote communication.
For example, in Hounancho house, you have to pass over the living room to get access to your room. So people interact naturally in the house and greeting like “welcome back” or “I am back!” happen.
and by making an atmosphere that communication is usual, the interaction between Japanese tenants and foreign tenants become easier.
When we are explaining the concept and the interior, some students said that they wanted to live in this house.If you are planning to move to Tokyo or Kansai area, we are welcome to receive you!We are waiting for you !
What are you going to bring to a deserted island ? Let have a international communicatio by workshop
After the house tour, let have a workshop.
Before the study tour, we have asked our student to prepare some answers
The question was: think about every contact you have with foreigners.
The answers of highschool students were: the shopman of a convenience store, exchange student, teacher of ELT, tourist, etc…
If we put attention, foreigners are everywhere in our life.
However, when we ask them if they talk to them, most students say no.
We have asked them the reasons. They cannot talk about the language or they don’t have the opportunity to meet them.
But the main reason is that they feel scary to not be able to understand each other by not having the same values.
But do you think the way to think is going to differ from the country you have born?
We cannot understand each other if we don’t talk the same language?
As a student do not have interaction with foreigners, it is not easy to have an answer to this question. So, we invite some tenants of Borderless House to create interaction.
The theme of the workshop is easy.
If you have to go to a deserted island, and you can bring 3 items, what are you going to bring?
Have a talk with your team and decide it!
All our tenants were people who just have come to Japan and everyone can speak only English or another language.
In the beginning, the student has some difficulties to tell the name of the item they want to bring. But they start to communicate by easy word, some imitation and by drawing.
By seeing the effort of our high school students, our tenant did also some effort to communicate by using easy English word or the Japanese word they know
In the beginning, they were a distance between tenants and students.
However, after they have finished the workshop, they were all became friendly.
” It was not easy to tell the item or group our idea. but everyone was so kind that I wanted to talk to them more.”
We could get some good comment from highschool student.
Neighbor from foreign country is grworing up ! Do you want to know more about each other ?
In 2018, 31million people come to Japan. And in 2020, the year of Olympics, we expect that more than 40 million people are going to visit Japan.
In addition, they are 26.3 million of people living in Japan, which mean 1/50 of people in Japan are foreigners.
And because of the aging population, Japan is planning to recruit 30 thousand to 14.5million of foreigners to fill the lack of workforce in the domain of nursing care and healthcare.
Interaction between foreigners is important for Japan and the Japanese people.
However, governmental support in the domain of language and public administration are not in good condition yet. So for foreigners, it is not easy to live in Japan.
In our usual life, it is difficult to find an opportunity to meet and make foreign friends.
I am too bad to make a wall because of the country or difference od culture even if we are living in the same country.
They are not people from a different country, we are and they are our neighbors
We want to make our city, and our country better all together
This is how Borderless House think about coexistence.
They are no wall of language. The most important think is the sentiment that you want to tell to this person.
” When I sit down on the train, nobody wants to sit next to me.”
“When I go to Udon or Soba restaurant, the staff serve me some spoon and fork instead of the chopstick.”
” I can speak a little bit of Japanese. However, even I ask the road in Japanese, they just say: sorry I don’t speak English and avoid us.”
These are the answers to our tenants when we ask them if they have ever experienced prejudice in Japan.
” I think the Japanese are very kind and friendly, and Japan is an interesting country easy to live in. You know, we really like to live in Japan and we really want to interact more with Japanese.
About the chopstick, I think it is the kindness of the staff, so I feel happy.
I really want to communicate more, Like that, we can understand more each other. “
After they listen to the voice of our tenants during the workshop, students left us these comments ( image ).
When we live in Japan, we are not trying to avoid or foreigners.
I think, our shyness and our over-kindness keep away from foreigners and the distance between us has increased.
Thanks to this tour, we had this feeling to be able to create more opportunity to meet people from diffenrent background.
What is the multiculturalism that Borderless House want to spread to the society?
Borderless house has started 12 years before.
At this time, the number of foreigners was not like today. And many problems like people could not borrow a room or get some social security. In the hospital, as they were not a translator, it was not easy to get good healthcare.
In addition, because we have different culture, we believe in a different religion, we talk different languages, they were many Japanese who have a prejudice toward foreigners.
We wanted to change this society, we wanted to take all the distance and the misunderstanding between Japanese and foreigners. This is why in order to know each other, we have started an international interacting share house business.
Since we have started the business, the number of foreigners has increased and Japanese society became more globalized.
In our sharehouse, we have some trouble between tenants because of language or culture.
but by having a face to face communication and the action to try to solve the problem with patience, lead us to find new values.
And coexistence between people who have different backgrounds is not as difficult as you think. Just small respect for people who have different backgrounds and enjoy differences is needed.
We think this is the way to our ideal multicultural society
Borderless house will continue to try to create a multiculturalist society!
This study tour help to our high school students to understand and experience multiculturalism.
In 2020, we are going to try to hold 10 study tours with Ridilover, and we will continue to tell about multiculturalism, understanding different cultures and diversity to the society.
We are also doing a lecture and discourse about how multiculturalism is appearing from Borderless House. or how Japanese and foreigners can live together in the future?
We are looking forward to be able to meet you soon !
The second cuisine is Cold miso soup.
