Volunteering for the Japanese Paper Doll Exhibition

I helped women from the Nishinomiya Women’s Association with the “Ai Japanese Paper Doll Exhibition.” Four ladies came from Nishinomiya, Hyogo in Japan to hold the exhibition. They had made more than 100 paper dolls for the event. I was surprised because these were all hand made. They were elaborate, beautiful and interesting.

They held the exhibition and a workshop to teach how to make paper dolls. I helped them with manual labor and interpretation. One woman could speak English well, but other three ladies couldn’t. When three women taught how to make paper dolls, we interpreted for them. It’s not very easy to make these dolls, and my interpretation was terrible because at first I didn’t even know the words “hold” and “paste,” and it is difficult to explain without these words. However, most people did very well; I tell you truly I was really surprised. Anyway, the workshop and the exhibition were a great success.

When the workshop was over, I said to them, “I’m sorry. My English is bad so I couldn’t help much.” Then they said “It’s not true. Your English is not perfect, but much better than ours. We could teach them peacefully because of your effort.” I was happy to hear that. I really had a good time because of the great success, new good friends, and good-nurtured women. This experience became one of my good memories. Volunteering was hard work, but I felt satisfied and made lots of good friends.