JICE participants get a guided tour around Seika’s campus.
Of the many awesome places we visited over the course of the week, Kyoto Seika University was one of the highlights of our Kyoto visit.
A legitimate post-secondary institution based in Kyoto’s Sakyo ward, you will find many international students –including Canadians — attending classes alongside Japanese students. There are faculties for learning the traditional Japanese arts like painting, ceramics, and printmaking. Then there’s the faculty of manga(!) that educates students in the art of cartoons, comics, manga production, gag manga, character design, and animation.
Interestingly, about 2000 out of the 3000 students are women. In addition to that, the school’s population is a diverse mix of international students and local students. The university’s president herself was a famous mangaka for Boy’s Love and science fiction comics.
Cool fact # 3: The forest grounds around Seika’s campus is home to deer, tanuki and peacocks — all of which double as models and inspiration for the art students.
Printmaking classroom and student work space.
JICE was awesome enough to organize a meet up with several Seika students and let us learn a bit about their interests and their work. None of us really knew how to speak Japanese — sob — and most of the Japanese students weren’t fluent in English. But through team effort, we somehow managed to communicate with each other using a mixture of both languages.
We met some really interesting students — one studying the humanities, another in design, and another, cartoon art. I was especially impressed by the amazingly gorgeous work of Ayuri-san, our table-mate.
We were given a guided campus tour afterwards to give us a taste of the impressive facilities and manga library resources. We got to see some of the student manga projects and prints and art store.
Food For Thought
What you can get for under 800 yen at Seika’s shokudo.
What is one of Japan’s best kept secrets? Their low meal prices, especially for university students — take note, UBC! In Tokyo and Kyoto, a decent sized ramen, curry on rice, Japanese breakfast set, and convenience store bento — Japanese 7-11 food puts North America to shame — can cost you around 500 – 800 yen ($6 – $9 CAD). At Seika, you could get a main dish of croquette curry or ramen with 4-5 side dishes for under 800 yen. At UBC food services, that gets you a mediocre chicken wrap.
At Seika, the shokudo, or cafeteria system, runs like a quick, well-oiled machine. Students line up drive-through style and choose from the large selection of side dishes. Prices are listed for each item on a paper card. For hot food, students order from large menu signs at a window, and food is ready in seconds. After that, they line up to pay at one of several cash register lanes.
My takeaway from this? North American students are seriously missing out on affordable, filling, AND delicious food!
Joey Go 