Human Library @Global TC Day Part 2

This is Part 2 of the Human Library @Global TC Day event report. (For Part 1, please go to this entry.)

★What was the event like?

Since I was a “book” at our last Human Library event in March, it was my first time to facilitate this time. Thus, I noticed how both the “readers” and “books” seemed to be listening to each other very attentively.

In organizing this event, my co-hosts and I really tried to ensure a safe space for the “books” to share their personal stories, so we set up some ground rules for having a dialogue (which we called “Terms and Conditions” of the Human Library). I won’t go into the details of the rules here, but the main basic rule was: “Do not intentionally hurt the books in any way (physically, verbally, etc.).”

Through observing and facilitating the dialogue sessions, I felt that setting this ground rule may have made both speakers and listeners become more aware of listening carefully to each other. In order not to hurt someone intentionally, you need to be careful with what you say and how you say it, and in order to do this, you really need to listen and understand what the speaker is telling you in the first place.

Although we had a 15-minute break in between each dialogue session, the dialogues kept going and I had to force most groups to stop and make their move to the next “book” (Sorry I had to interrupt everyone!). So as you can imagine, the three rounds of dialogues seemed to fly by.

At the end of our dialogue sessions, we had a surprise drum performance by one of our “books,” Ryota Kataoka. Ryota graduated from the Social Services Department at Sophia University and studied Developmental Disabilities as a non-degree student at Teachers College in New York. He is now a professional wadaiko (Japanese drum) drummer, and he had agreed to do a performance using his 団扇太鼓(uchiwa daiko) for this event. Uchiwa means “fan” in Japanese, and the uchiwa daiko looks exactly like a fan. Ryota explained to us that it was originally used in Buddhist rituals at temples.

(As a side note, Ryota's experience of completely losing his eyesight at age ten seemed really similar to my experience of moving to the U.S. at seven years old. I could totally relate to him as he explained how it was a "loss of his world" and playing the Japanese drum helped him regain his sense of existence and connection with the world. I hope to explore this point more here in my future posts...)

You can check out a part of Ryota's performance in the following video:

If you'd like to learn more about Ryota, please also check out his webpage (in Japanese)!

Finally, here are some comments from our feedback survey:

・I think we had an engaging discussion today about TCKs. I learned from others’ experiences as “returnees (kikokushijo)” and I’d like to apply these knowledges from now on at my workplace and social settings.

・It was a refreshing experience for me to meet other people with similar experiences, such as cultural identity, social/language barriers.

・I learned that we each have different experiences and stories to tell and by opening up about them we can change people’s perspectives and prejudices, and at the same time, we can think deeply about ourselves. [my translation]

・I thought is a great opportunity for everyone to have a dialogue with people who are both similar and different from you. [my translation]

・I was happy to be able to talk to “books”I wouldn’t be able to encounter in my daily life. I felt grateful for this chance to be able to ask questions to them. [my translation]

・I was able to understand individual issues deeply and also relate to them by listening to each book's experience in person. [my translation]

・I had never really had interest in what other people think and what kind of lives they led, but each dialogue was truly interesting. [my translation]

・I thought the fact that there is a place like this is wonderful. [my translation]

・I am now convinced that our society will be better. [my translation]

I felt relieved reading these comments, as I thought they really showed the depth at which the dialogues were held. In organizing this event and any other events I have done concerning TCKs, I have always tried to be careful in the message that we convey. Oftentimes, when we talk about challenging stereotypes, we tend to give out the message that we are “victims.” Yet, victimizing ourselves is far from what I want to achieve. I do NOT even want to give out the message that we are different and people should understand and accept us for who we are.

Instead, what I hoped to achieve through the dialogues was building relationships where we can openly and safely talk about our differences, find new perspectives on how we see the world and learn from each other’s views. In this way, I hoped that this would generate win-win relationships where the “books” and “readers” both take away something new. Reading these comments made me feel that we may have been able to achieve this to some extent.

Thank you again to everyone who participated, and a big thank you to Teachers College Columbia University Alumni Association (both in NY and Japan) and Sophia University for co-hosting!