During my 10th-grade expedition trip to Hiroshima, our group was given an opportunity for a guest speaker that had survived the nuclear blast from the “Little Boy” bomb or the first strategically deployed atom bomb by the United States, during the final days of World War 2 which had killed many thousands of citizens and soldiers. As most people know, Hiroshima being the place of the blast, one of our learning focus in this expedition was to understand the history of Japanese militarism and its effect and aftermath of the nuclear explosion. Thus our supervisors had organized a valuable opportunity to invite a guest speaker with the first-hand experience. Initially, the speaker was planned to have a translator that was fluent enough in English for non-Japanese speakers to understand. This was not the case, however, and thus we students (Specifically Japanese students) had to translate instead. Since we were informed, prior to our expedition, I began to practice beforehand with translation work, through viewing interviews of bomb survivors and summarising their information through writing in English.

During the night when the guest speaker arrived our teacher decided to have two Japanese students translate at the same time to avoid a particular student doing the majority of the translation, and rotating with another partner. The first pair included me and another, in translating. While having some practice, I immediately faced a challenge, while listening I was conflicted to whether using first or third person expression to represent the speaker’s information. If I were to adopt the first person, the speaker’s experience, I believe, could have been effective, but the potential of exaggeration. On the other hand, the third person, while easier to translate while listening in my mind, may decrease and leave out some crucial details. In the end for practicality, I chose the third person to translate for my non-Japanese speaking peers and teacher.

While our group rotated several times in translating, my teacher eventually chose me to do the rest of the translation, due to my high fluency in Japanese as well as prior knowledge in the history of world war 2 and Japanese militarism. Although the increased work was not hard or stressing for me, since Japanese is considered to be a complex language with words or phrases including several different definitions, I had to carefully choose the right English word to accurately portray the provided information and even give the audience a clear image. These experience of solving challenges had made me reflect on how an individual, bilingual like me, while fluent in two languages, may struggle to effectively translate a language to one another without missing or diminishing the original message.

This experience of translating from an individual who had lived during a difficult past, was a privilege for me, not only to gain first-hand knowledge of an important history but also reflect the difficulty and strategy of processing a message from a particular language to one another.

Since from last year, I’ve been involved with the YIS Model United Nations group, which was my first opportunity and experience in engaging the current global issues with other students in high school as an official task. The first global topic I encountered, was the ethnic cleansing in the Rohingya region of Myanmar, nuclear possession by “rogue states” (North Korea, Iran etc.) and subnational groups, and the collaboration of establishing a permanent colony on Mars. The activity I have mainly done so far in regards to this issue is formulating a position paper of a country that is actively in part. The countries I chose were Myanmar and Pakistan. Going through this process of public presentation, I was able to further gain knowledge of the diverse perception of delegates (students) towards the selected issue.

While this was my first ever experience in being a representative of a nation, unlike other nations, both Myanmar and Pakistan which I delegated were considered to be aggressors and belligerents towards the featured topic. This factor made me aware of my choice of language in my presentation. During the process of forming a position paper, I was very anxious about supporting nations with decision and actions that went against my political beliefs towards the featured topics. However, in order to accurately delegate these countries, I’ve tried to represent their position as much as possible. Reflecting and understanding the connection to real-life actions of nations that wish to hide or cover their “potential wrongful” action by the international community. Particularly regarding a topic that may involve innocent lives being affected or maybe lost.

During my involvement in the second semester of 11th grade in the Model United Nations group, we shifted our topic, to a new current global issue in which I discussed and listened. The new topic specifically was regarding the preservation or abolishment of the death penalty as well as, Human trafficking. The country which I delegated with a partner was Russia and the activities that I have participated in, as usual, was formulating a position paper for statement towards the entire group. These continuous activities further supported me the skills of public presentation, and able to acquire insight into different perspectives of each nation. Another activity that I did was creating a resolution, where nations from various countries with a similar perception of the topic, that helped with my discussion and being open-minded. Furthermore, we’ve as a group listened to a presentation of public speaking.

Once again, similar to the 1st semester I was the representative of a nation that was considered corrupt or ineffective in solving towards an issue addressed. Therefore, in order to promote my countries stance as well as the willingness of international cooperation, I was careful once again with the diction and tone within position papers, and appeal as if we were supporters of international stability.

As continuing my involvement in MUN towards my final year in high school, I have been involved in helping younger students to develop their skills in representing their chosen or designated nation effectively towards a large audience, and I would like to provide some of my knowledge to them, as well as continuing to discuss challenging topic.

(Me presenting in KMUN)

GCD: Artistic Expression: Little Shop of Horrors

Last year, I was involved in the high school production. And this was my first time taking part in theatrical performances outside of official classes. This year we have been working on a classic musical show called “Little Shop of Horrors”. The process I’ve gone through was focused in practicing dancing movements as well as rehearsing songs. In terms of my initial strength, I realized myself as a competent dancer. During practices, I was able to follow and execute the complex movements, and I barely struggle to understand it. However, there were moments I realized my tempo, rhythm, and timing are sometimes inconsistent, understanding areas of improvement.

As for my challenge which I had for a part, I’ve chosen a character to perform that has to sing a short solo part in one of the songs. Now while this wasn’t the first time singing for me, it was my first to practice singing with myself. In which the challenges I’ve faced was to control my tone and knowing timing to match the song. I still need to practice this in order to acquire these new skills. Furthermore, for both task, I transferred my past skill and knowledge from my current class, especially from theatre such as the techniques in projecting my voice and effectively using my body coordination. Overall this practice and application of previous skills allowed me to produce satisfying performance, which further allowed me to gain confidence to perform challenging roles in the future.

One of the most valuable experiences throughout the process of this musical was the collaboration between students who most were below our grade, but also senior students. Which means I’ve never collaborated with most of them, and because of significant difference in the schedule, it was a challenge to have a rehearsal where every single cast were present. Due to this, there was a lack of knowledge in the songs or choreography by several students, which made me anxious in our final performance. However, during the performance day, we were able to perform and impress many audiences including myself as a performer, reflecting the result of perfect collaboration. Overall, while there may have been certain conflicts, I was proud to individually collaborate with other students, and even had the valuable conversation to know each other better.

(Little Shop of Horror Performance)