Arggghh my eyes! aka I'm so going to burn in hell for this post.....

Cosplay ("costume play") ===> interactions of "cosplay" behaviour form a subculture centered on dresing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, video games, and les commonly, fantasy movies, Jpop/JRock, Visual Kei , fantasy music stories (e.g. stories by the band Sound Horizon), novels and anything in the real world being unique and dramatic (or their more anthropomorphic form). ~ paraphrased from Wikipedia

Cosplays, like Hollywood movies, can turn out pretty well or pretty AWFUL. This typically happens when one attempts crossdressing. I suppose women dressed as men aren't as offensive (unless they bare their chests). When men dress as women, however.....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...........I apologize if you're extremely grossed out by this but it goes to prove that some men should just stay being men. Know what I mean? The first two isn't that bad since they're covered up. A Sailormoon with a moustache cracks me up. The last image, however, is the infamous 'FayeMan,' who has no qualms showing off his hairy belly, buttcheeks and front...eh bulge (*censored*).

Ewwwwwww...........

************************JAPAN MISSION TRIP************************

Assuming no one was scared off by the images above, I shall continue to share how the rest of the mission trip went. This post will focus on the university students, namely those from Waseda and Rikkyo University. We had different approaches for both sites.

~Waseda University~

The local bus has a very cute animal mascot wearing the graduate gown painted on it.

The approach here was getting to know students at Waseda through English conversational sessions during lunch. It is over here that I met Chuuya-san, one of our team's regular contacts.

I think we all had a good time conversing with each other. =)

Look, I'm not a fan of stereotyping but I do believe in 'tendencies.' In manga, it's common for characters from the West of Japan (Osaka is popularly coined) to display friendly and expressive personalities. Chuuya-san reflected his background alright. Very easy-going, chatty and warm, I enjoyed my conversations with him. He exchanged his mugshot with one of our gals without hesitation. We were the most amused when we drilled him about the main differences he observed between Osaka and Tokyo: The schoolgirl skirts are shorter in Tokyo. LOL

I must add that this 'tendency' was also observed among my Japanese colleagues. When I visited Tokyo for a business trip, I could easily tell whether a colleague is from the West or not based on their mannerism. Seriously. They're the ones who talk slightly louder, tell jokes & stories and happily engage in any type of conversation.

Nakatsu (HanaKimi) played by Jiro in the Taiwanese live-action drama version is the perfect character used to stereotype folks from Osaka. (Imagesource = Honestly can't remember...^^;;;)

I like them. I want to visit Osaka.

Moving on, I also chatted with Takayuki-san. He was more quiet than the others but we connected through music. He was pleasantly surprised that I am an avid listener of Porno Graffitti, Asian Kungfu Generation and L'Arc-en-Ciel. On the flipside, he listened to Oasis and eh....was it Meatloaf? XD

I didn't talk to Haruna-san and Wakaki-san as much although the latter used to live in the UK for some time. We all joke about him being one of Raion-sama's long lost brother.

It's the hair, brotha'.

As a whole, the university setting is similar to what I would have read about in the manga. I could just imagine myself as a new university student: Just moved to a new location, no longer wearing a school uniform and being filled with many aspirations.


~Rikkyo University~


The approach here was street evangelism. That's right. Evangelism. *gasp* It's the 'E' word. Do you really mean that we're supposed to walk up to these students, strike up a conversation and casually invite them to our Singapore night? You make it sound so simple?!!!

Entrance to Rikkyo: Nice greenery and buildings - it has that 'Harvard' feel. XD

Actually, it was pretty simple. We had a survey form, which we used to ask students what they thought about their culture and whether they were interested in learning about other cultures (namely ours hahaha).

Everyone walked into the campus and prayed before moving out in teams. My team was CyclistD and JL. Our first encounter was an Indonesian woman. Wow, that blows my mind. Honestly, I never expected that. She's pretty amazing; she easily switched from Indonesian --> English --> Japanese as smoothly as Danone's Cream Yogurt. Very friendly, she was happy to meet fellow Christians in this new location she's just moved to. =D

Next, we dropped by two young men who didn't seem too comfortable speaking English so that brought JL to the Japanese-speaking test. Personally, I think she did great as we managed to converse with these guys for roughly 15 minutes. Both of them are studying law and are first year students. While we struggled with them in Japanese, they didn't seem uncomfortable with our presence and cheerfully sat through the translations. XD;;; Ahahaha....this is when I wish I knew more Japanese. *mallets self*

This was us, the team sitting down at the campus site but just imagine Rikkyo students doing the same all over the place too.

Finally, we found time for one young lady, Chisato-san. If I'm not mistaken, she's studying International Business and she displayed interest in other cultures. In our conversation, she went in-depth on a Fair Trade Law Agreement (Oro!!! I'm totally ignorant of this type of stuff) and she was completely happy with her culture (in our survey, we asked what she liked or didn't like about the Japan culture). I wished we could have chatted more but she had to rush off to her next class.

What I remember the most from this visit is this strong feeling I had upon entering the university scene. Class had just ended and huge waves of students spilled out unto the campus. I had this overflowing feeling in my heart - There are so many students to share about the word of Christ! What would happen if they knew? How would they react?

I didn't take a good shot of the huge wave of students but this was outside the gate.

This place also reminded me of my university years. I used to be in an international student Christian fellowship where graduate students from all over the world got together and fellowship. I remember that experience to this day - that beautiful feeling of sharing the same faith despite differing backgrounds and birth heritages.

I now know that I definitely feel more comfortable in university settings. Students and university staff are there to learn - hungry for knowledge and open to new ideas. I personally love using university grounds to exchange knowledge and experiences because I remember how university changed me dramatically. JL commented that our team had very positive responses and that we should be thankful. That's interesting - how are the negative responses like?

OK, strictly speaking, there wasn't anything evangelistic. I mean, none of us jumped right ahead into sharing about Christ and God's Plan for Salvation. It's all about relationships, which I will explain a little bit more in future posts.

Anyway, after these university visits, I told Kathy (the American missionary) that I've at least, confirmed one thing: The target group I have a passion for sharing the Good News with are the older youths and young adults.

Next: More student encounters .....dun dun dun