Getting to Know Kyoto

KIT has been working with Kyoto City and various parties in the region to offer experiential-learning based courses to Japanese and international students since the 2005 academic year. The courses offered are ��Kyoto Cultural Administration,�� ��Kyoto Traditional Craft – Skill and Beauty,�� ��Kyoto Traditional Craft – Knowledge and Beauty,�� ��Kyoto Traditional Craft – Knowledge, Beauty, Skill,�� and ��Relativity Theory of Japanese Culture.�� They provide students opportunities to learn together in places that are not usually accessible to the public, such as Kyoto��s cultural-heritage shrines and temples, cultural-heritage excavation sites, traditional craft studios, and the Konnichian estate of the Urasenke school of tea ceremony. Students deepen their knowledge of Japanese culture by trying their hands at traditional crafts or dyeing using natural materials, as well as actually practicing tea ceremony and ikebana. These activities also serve to foster, in these students, a willingness to respect and understand other cultures.

The objective of this project is to cultivate persons who will take an active role in promoting art and culture in Japan and overseas. World Heritage Sites are ��our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations.�� UNESCO��s World Cultural Heritage List features 17 Kyoto sites. Through this project, we are cultivating global citizens who can understand the true significance of these sites and move from local to global contributions as they play an active role in the world. In November 2010, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, came to observe the project and commended it highly. Following that, a certificate of official support for the project was received from former Director of UNESCO��s World Heritage Center, Francesco Bandarin.

��Kyoto Traditional Craft

Experiencing Different Worlds

The Kyoto Institute of Technology student body is a blend of students majoring in art and design and students majoring in engineering. They include around 200 international students from 30 different countries. Despite their different backgrounds, students attending KIT possess a latent interest in the traditional culture of the ancient capital of Kyoto. This ancient city is home to many traditional craft studios and centers of traditional performing arts that have preserved Japan��s unique cultural heritage. Leveraging these unique foundations, a large number of small groups comprising students of different nationalities and majors have been formed. These groups go through the process of making things at traditional craft studios, and in the course of these activities, are able to experience the fusion of different cultures and academic fields. The program is designed so that even students who are not yet proficient in Japanese do not experience language barriers. They are able to gain hands-on experience of the work of artisans with the help of professors and Japanese students. This program also provides Japanese students with more opportunities to learn side-by-side with international students and communicate with them, without going abroad to study.
Beyond the classroom, Kyoto Institute of Technology has provided a designated space for intercultural exchange, the Global Commons area in the library. A ��concierge�� is always available at the Global Commons to assist with multilingual and multicultural activities. Activities include ��Language Exchange,�� where students can partner with someone from a different linguistic and cultural background for mutual teaching and learning, ��Chotto Cinema,�� which screens a variety of foreign films in short installments, and ��M Cafe,�� where students can speak freely with staff who are native speakers of various languages about language and culture. These have become valuable KIT assets.

��Kurotani Japanese paper

Connections on a Global Scale

To date, Kyoto Institute of Technology has held symposiums, workshops and exhibitions at several of its partner institutions in various countries: the United Kingdom (2009), South Korea (2010), France (2010), Italy (2011), and Singapore (2014). Going forward, KIT will take advantage of its location in Kyoto, with its abundance of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, including traditional crafts. Not only will we increase the number of places students visit through this project, but we will also give them more opportunities to experience traditional performing arts such as Noh theater, shamisen (traditional three-stringed lute-like instrument), and shakuhachi (traditional bamboo flute), as well as Japanese cultural pursuits such as tea ceremony, ikebana flower arranging, and kodo (art of appreciating Japanese incense), which they are otherwise unlikely to encounter. In this way, we intend to turn the whole of Kyoto into a place of learning, with the aim of fostering a broad and deep knowledge of the many facets of Japanese culture, and develop the project into an activity that will connect international and local students on a global scale.
Further, to nurture multicultural respect and co-existence in our international and domestic students, we hope to further enhance our learning environment, including our community spaces. Our goal is to establish foundations that will enable each and every student to steadily engage in multilingual and multicultural activities here in Kyoto, while enjoying their encounters with different cultures and languages and providing experiences they will benefit from throughout their lives.

��Director-General of UNESCO visit