Yohan Osaka Children's English Camp

Every year the Yohan Church in Osaka hold a 1  1/2 day English camp for kids. It's an event were children can come and have fun doing various activities while learning English and about Jesus and it was as blessed for me as it was for the kids. I was told about this event from the Yohan Gifu church I attend here in Gifu city and wanting to serve God more as well as my love for kids I decided to join so I took bus from Gifu city on a 3 hour trip to the big city Osaka. Upon arriving I was surprised to discover that there were people there who have been setting up the entire event for a week though the actual event itself was not even 2 days. Also there were volunteers who traveled from the U.S. as well as members of the Yohan Church in Seoul Korea.

On the first day each kid was given a card with blank spaces for stickers. Every time a student accomplished an activity correctly or did something well such as trying to use English they were rewarded with a blue sticker. If they were misbehaving or using too much of their native language they would receive a red sticker. The blue stickers could later be traded in for fake cash that they could use during lunch to purchase food and snacks also using English and during they last day they could even by items from the flea market we created which included items like cartoon videos, shoes, toys and other things.

Mini Olympics

Lunch time. Using English the kids can order a variety of things to eat.

The activities ranged from Mini Olympics, to role playing and even a summer festival with performances from some adorable little kids and a rendition of a scene from Alice In Wonderland all in English. There were also a lot singing. Only about 4 or 5 songs but we sang them throughout the day quite often with dances that accompanied them and the children seem to enjoy them no matter how many times we did them. By the end of the event every song was stuck in my head, but they were all giving praise to Jesus so so be it!

Violin performance by two talented boys.

Cast of the Alice In Wonderland stage play. I was so surprised by the English the memorized.

The students all wrote in English a small resume including things like favorite food and dream job and then drew a picture of their future dream job.

I love babies so much and this little cutie was adorable.

Early morning exercises in the park.

It was a lot of work with the first day starting at 7am and ending at 10pm but it was such a blessed time and I will definitely do it again next year if possible. God bless the children.

Below is a video that was put together (not by me) of the event.

I Want To Be A Korean Pop Singer: The End Of An Experience

So last Saturday my partner and I went to Nagoya to sing in round 2 of the KPOP competition. There were 27 entries in total. We all arrived around 12pm for rehearsals where we were told how the real competition would play out and also each got to do a short sound check. With 27 performances it took almost 3 hours to get through this. The other contestants consisted of all Japanese people and mostly girls. out of more than 40 people there were about 8 guys only and I was definitely the only black guy there. There were three categories:

1. Dance
2. Ballad
3. Traditional song

 After rehearsals we had about 25 minutes of free time in which like us most people used to rehearse some more. The actual contest began at 3pm. To try and fit everything into the small 3 hour time frame they had given it they were not allowing some contestants to complete their entire songs. I thought this was pretty stupid because it was the semi finals competition and everyone should have the chance to sing and perform their songs in its entirety just as they have been practicing so hard to do before the contest. Instead they would sound a bell that would mean the contestant needed to stop singing and then the host would come out and waste 2 or more minutes talking to the contestants. While I like the fact that the contestants are able to explain a little about themselves or their songs via the questions I think they should also be able to finish their songs. For me personally finishing the song was more important to me than answering some simple questions. Thankfully are group was one of the few that did get to finish the song but I still felt a little bad for those who didn't.

My partner Sayaka and I.

 Everyone at this years semi-finals did a good job. There were a lot of good singing voices and some good performances.

These guys got a special "Most popular award". They had a really energetic song and dance and even had special costumes.

All girls dance group. They had a cute color scheme with individual matching shoes and shirts.



I believe this group won the award for "Best Dance" but to be honest I don`t really remember and I think they changed outfits during award ceremony.


I was pretty nervous before getting on stage but after the music began my anxieties all disappeared and I just enjoyed the performance. After all the performances were done there was two special performances, one by two girls who were in last years competition and another by a Korean actor/singer from a popular drama  back in 2009. Sadly we did not make it to the finals but it was a fun and interesting experience. I would never imagine trying to sing in a competition. It's something I am not particularly good at but I just enjoy doing for fun. To be honest I don't think we really fitted into any of the categories. We were entered into the Dance but we weren't a dance act and there were other dance groups that really did a lot of dancing. The Ballad group wasn't for us either and the singers in that category really were all about having really good voices and next to no performance and the Traditional Song group was definitely not for us. Can't say I'm not a little disappointed as I would have loved to been able to say I went to Tokyo for a KPOP finals competition in Japan but it was fun while it lasted. I'm more disappointed that I couldn't help win it for my partner.

Answering some questions in Japanese from the MC after the performance.

There was someone there recording all of the performances which will later be on YouTube. When they are posted I will post a link here on my blog. Until then I present you me and my partner`s performance. Here is Sayaka featuring Christian performing the song "Chansori" by IU ft Seulong.

Vacation is exhausting.

I've been away since July 18th (in Korea now) but I will try to get some new posts up during my 3 day break starting August 12th before being busy again.


Blogs to come
1. My time at Osaka Yohan Church Childrens English Camp
2. Vacation in Singapore and Thailand
3. Vacation in Seoul
4. The results of the 2nd stage of the KPOP competition taking place this Saturday August 13th.

I want to be a Korean Pop singer! 2nd stage!

As you may have read before HERE a friend and I have entered a KPOP contest in Japan. The first stage was to make an audition CD and send it by mail to the competition. We'll we did that and we have recently received word that we have been accepted and can move on to the 2nd stage which means we must perform live in Nagoya. If we can pass this stage then its off to Tokyo for the finals.

Here is a little poster we made to advertise our performance to the judges.

  Now I just need to finish learning the entire song by  memory and we need to create a performance to go along with the song.

I want to be a Korean Pop Singer!

Actually not really but I do enjoy K-POP (Korean pop) songs and recently my Japanese friend came up to me and asked me if I would like to sing as a duet with her in a huge K-POP contest here in Japan. The contest has been held every year since 2008. It is open to all non native Korean speakers who either wanna do a dance performance, a ballad, or a traditional style of Korean song. Now while I do enjoy singing in the privacy of my own home or at Karaoke I would usually never even think to try and participate in a singing contest, but when she asked me the first thing that came to my mind was "How awesome would it be to tell people I was in a Korean singing contest in Japan?!" Especially awesome if we make it to the finals which take place in Tokyo. Luckily I've studied Korean before this so I have some knowledge of pronunciation and my previous studies makes remembering the lyrics more easy. My partner Sayaka speaks good Korean and also has a good singing voice so perhaps we will have a chance. If nothing else I'm almost positive an African American has never entered this contest. So we got that going for us.

Here is the Japanese website.


Here is a decent translated version of the website.


So the song we chose is called "잔소리" which translates roughly to "Nagging" by Korean pop singer IU featuring  Seulong from 2AM. It's a really cute and catchy song and I had never heard about it until deciding to join this contest but I'm in love with it now.

So our first step is to send in our audition recording by July 17th. If we pass that stage we will go on to the 2nd stage which is a performance in Nagoya and if we are blessed enough to pass that stage we will make it to the final stage in Tokyo. Wish us luck!

You can see previous competition performances HERE.