This morning Shoko woke me up with a huge breakfast! Then Ms. Ayonara
picked me up and we headed to the Tombow Uniform Company. 83% of
Japanese high school use school uniforms, so uniform companies do well
in Japan. Tombow has a very large market share, supplying uniforms to
over 7000 high schools.
School uniforms date back hundreds of
years in Japan, so the company had a museum that the group had the
chance to look through. After touring the museum we had a chance to walk
through the factory. The process of cutting the fabric is almost
completely automated as not to waste extra fabric. It is necessary to
keep costs low, because it is almost impossible to send the work
overseas due to the timeline of the uniform business. Tombow only wastes
16% of the fabric.
After
Tombow, Stapp took us to Konan High School. Here we practiced Kendo and
learned how to play the Koto. I wasn’t so much a fan of Kendo. I wasn’t
coordinated enough to scream and hit and run all at the same time.
However I still put on the gear and participated. After practice they
let us hold a real katana.
Next
we played the koto, a stringed harp-like instrument. I found it easy to
pick up because the strings were tuned to be a scale. It was easy to
adapt my knowledge from the violin to a new set of strings.
Since
Ms. Ayonara was taking Madison and I home we got to stay longer at
school and watch her teach the Japanese tea ceremony to high school
students. Ms. Ayonara is a tea ceremony master, which is basically a
professional level status. The precision that goes into the ceremony was
fascinating.
When
I got home I was so tired, but it was dinnertime so I rallied. Miyu
(Shoko’s daughter) and Miyu’s boyfriend also ate with us. They all look
much younger than I would have guessed. Dinner was AMAZNG! We each got
an entire plate of shabu shabu meat that we got to cook and the salad
was so good. The conversation was also nice. I went to bed exhausted
but not before I had a chance to skype with Kyle and update the blog. I
forgot how nice it is to sleep in a real house.
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Read more from Stephanie at http://stephsadventuresabroad.tumblr.com/
Find out more about the U of A International Business in Japan program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/wcobjapan
