Job Discussion Forums

[Okonomiyaki]

Kouminkan were the best part of the 7 years I lived in Hiroshima. These community centers popped up every 10 kilometers or so. They typically had sports clubs, dance clubs, art "circles" (groups without teachers), sign language lessons, shodo (Japanese calligraphy), sculpture, cooking, daycare, English lessons, Chinese lessons...even Japanese lessons! No group was allowed to charge more than 3,000 yen per month; most groups were free to join.

In a community where the alternatives were restaurant tabe-aruki, karaoke, expensive bars, watching pro sports, and fishing in the local stream, the foreigner community embraced the kominkan and made it the center of our lives. The kouminkan made life... great.

A kouminkan, by the way, is not a "shukaisho". A shukaisho is typically much smaller, being just a one, two, or three room building, usually empty except weekends and some evenings, in a small neighborhood. A kouminkan is perhaps 8 times larger, with 3 permanent staff administrators and few quiet moments.

My last year in Japan, I lived in Nagoya and couldn't find a kominkan. I'm not sure if there were none, or if they simply went by another name.

Now I'm considering coming back to Japan, and I can't imagine wanting to live in any part of Japan that doesn't have a large active kouminkan.

So I'm asking you: Where you live, in your prefecture, are there kouminkan? What are they called? Is it just a Hiroshima Prefecture thing??

EDIT: x kominkan ---> o kouminkan (thanks to "Bread" for correcting that romaji.)

[Bread]

What's the kanji for kominkan? I can't find anything by that name on Google at all. Are you sure you got the name right?

edit: Nevermind, it was kouminkan, 公民館. Should have guessed that one quicker. There are tons of them around where I live on Google maps, and I think I've noticed signs saying 公民館 on the street before. Never gone in before, though.

[Okonomiyaki]

Which prefecture do you live in, Bread?

[TokyoLiz]

The international relations association in my town has Japanese language lessons in kouminkan, libraries and the IR office itself. Years ago, I took Friday night language lessons. I met lots of neighbours that way.

My city has a number of beautiful public buildings in which you can hire rooms for circles, dance and music events. Some have kitchens, too. After leading a children's eikaiwa one afternoon, the cocktail lesson after in the kitchen next door chilled me out!

[Bread]

[Okonomiyaki]

OK, sounds like you DO have kouminkan where you live, sinc ethe local International Center rented out rooms in one to do some teaching of Japanese to foreigners.

The second half of your post, though...did I get the wrong impression? It sounds like the kouminkan aren't being used much, except as rentals for others' events (much like shuukaishou are used in Hiroshima). Don't your kouminkan have a large schedule of ongoing semipermanent classes and circles?

In Hiroshima's kouminkans, each kouminkan had ongoing sports clubs, sign language, calligraphy, English circle, and so on. To sign up for them didn't require ORGANIZING a new club... just joining a preexisting club (and speaking enough Japanese to make it worthwhile).