10 things you didn’t know about Japanese Toastmasters clubs

At this end of the world Toastmastering is way different than it is in Sri Lanka and unfortunately mostly not in a good way. Therefore my dear Gaveliars, do enjoy and cherish those inspiring Monday afternoons. They are very rare to find anywhere else. After nearly 6months of search I found an English speaking Toastmasters club in Tokyo. I can easily write a list of 100 things but I don’t want to bore you to death with my grievances

So here goes the list

1. My greatest disappointment with Japanese Toastmasters clubs is that there is no round robin session in meetings. For me that’s the essence of the meeting where everyone gets a chance to speak. One certainly needs a warm up to open up. There was this one time they introduced round robin session as a special session. Many got freaked out that they never tried it again. Many Japanese are naturally very reserved. Therefore expressing their true opinion is very out of place. That might be the reason they hate it so much. Well, in my opinion there is no other way to destroy the core sense of a meeting more successfully than removing the round robin session.

2. There are two other roles replacing the round-robin session. Namely Thought of the day, and Joke master. I’m sure these two are superb concepts, if used properly they might make the meetings more interesting and I recommend you all to try it out. As the names suggest joke master cracks a joke and the person who present the thought of the day present some food for thought. Well I believe both of these concepts don’t work well in Japan. We rarely get their jokes. I think they lose the core when translated in to English and don’t get me started about the thought of the day. Many Japanese don’t reveal their thoughts and emotions as a result, they are beating around the bush and at the end no one gets the thought. One of my fellow foreign members who had enough of it once asked, “I’m sorry, but where is the thought?”

3. A significant attribute of Japanese Toastmasters clubs is the competitiveness. At the end of every meeting the best table topics speaker, the best prepared speaker and the best evaluator is chosen from the votes of every member. Only the speakers who are within the time limit are considered in voting. The winners are given small certificates which are provided by Toastmasters International. Before announcing the winners all the members beat the tables in the rhythm of drum-roll which I found pretty cool. The winners are photographed and published in the club website. This might be a great encouragement for members to improve their skills but I prefer the relaxed atmosphere we had at Gavel club. There is no harm to try it out for a change.

4. Table topics session is purely impromptu in Japan. The table topics master reads out each topic and points out a member for each topic. Thanks to my long surname that can’t be read by any one, I have never done a table topic in here and no volunteering is allowed too. So I believe it’s not fair. Table topics are not evaluated too.

5. If you lack self-confidence I recommend you to come and do a prepared speech in a Japanese Toastmasters meeting. At the end, in your evaluation you will hear nothing but the good points in your speech. In here evaluations are more of appreciations than evaluations.

6. Evaluations are timed in these meetings. Time allowed for prepared evaluations is 2-3 minutes. Evaluator is given color signals and only the evaluations that are within the time limit is considered in voting. This might be a good technique to limit some expressive evaluators.

7. Induction ceremony is an important feature in the meetings. Unlike in Sri Lanka where the induction ceremony is conducted once a year at the installation ceremony, here it is done every time when a member joins the club. Members should vote in order to give their approval for the new member. Many bureaucratic procedures are included in this ceremony. Usually once a month this ceremony takes place and it wastes a lot of time that can be used for the educational meeting.

8. One of the most irritating facts about the meetings is that members are using the same set of phrases for each role. That makes them so predictable and kills the excitement. Most of the time I can easily guess what they are going to say next.

9. Without doubt the most annoying thing in the meeting is the ever so loud hammering of the Gavel. Each time they pound it I get jumpy.

10. Many Japanese have very stiff facial expressions but their body language is excellent. It comes naturally to them probably because they are mostly slim and inertia is far less than ours.

These are some fun facts that I noticed in Japanese Toastmasters clubs. No need to say how much I miss my dear Gavel club each time I attend these meetings but by far this is the closest I can get to stay in touch with those good old Monday afternoons..