Today was my first real day of volunteering at the JCCCW after my preliminary visit mentioned here. It was sort of mundane in many ways, but also felt really nice after years of isolation from a Pandemic, followed by a WFH tech job, followed by a few months of unemployment. I met many wonderful people at the center / remet people whose names I could not keep in my tiny walnut brain for even one single week.
Breakdown of the day
After arriving at around 11:30 instead of 11 due to bus issues (and admittedly a bit of personal laziness), I walked in and re-introduced myself to Atsuko, who manages the library there. I then headed up to the main office where I was given a tour of the museum and some history of the place that I didn’t get my first time visiting. I might eventually need to write a longer blog post about them, they have a really interesting history starting off as a Japanese language school, then temporarily being used as a group housing center after Japanese people returned to Seattle from the Internment Camps at the end of WWII.
My actual work started in the museum file room where I was shown a bunch of boxes, many with labels, many without and told to take my pick. Apparently a previous president of the museum accepted a large number of donations without really filing them, so they were trying to get a better inventory of what they have.
My first task was very repetitive but still interesting in its own right. I was given a box full of documents that had been filed in Past Perfect (a truly dinosaur-esque piece of software), but not yet labelled as being in this box. This seemed like a comical oversight on my part, imagine going through all the work to painstakingly describe the size, shape, state, and history of each item in a box but not to mention which box it was in?
Nonetheless, it was my first task so I went at it, figuring it would be a great way to learn the interface and maybe come up with some hacks to make things quicker. I got pretty adept at the keyboard shortcuts but there were lots of papers so I probably took about two hours to get through the whole box.
There is something really interesting about doing museum work like this. On the one hand it is deeply mundane, but on the other hand, each picture and record described a family that lived a long time ago, that had a full, rich life. There were pictures of people in front of their churches, photos of what looked like business meetings, letters written in both Japanese and English. Every artifact felt precious and interesting, one of the last remnants of lives that no longer persist on this world. The office chatter was calming and pleasant—I felt oddly at peace.
Once I finished with the box, I asked if there was a functioning microwave; I had brought my own lunch and felt awkward eating at my desk. They led me to the kitchen where I plopped my leftover Avgolemono and waited. Atsuko came by and introduced me to Hideko, who also worked there, though I forgot what exactly she did. Atsuko stayed around and we talked about tea, I told her one of my favorite teas was Kabusecha, a type of Japanese green tea that is grown in the shade. She said she had never heard of it, showed me this Yamamoto Strawberry Sencha they had a box of in the kitchen. It was pretty good!
While I was awkwardly eating my lunch alone in the conference room, two visitors came in and apologized for disturbing my lunch. I felt a bit strange because the room is sort of part of the museum, but I hadn’t expected any visitors. The one of the visitors turned out to be on the board of the JCCCW, and was giving her friend, who was visiting from the Smithsonian, a tour of the place. I tried to eat my soup quietly so as not to disturb them.
Once I finished eating, I headed back upstairs to see if there was anything else I could help with. One of the other paid museum workers took me to the file room and gave me a heavy box, then walked me through what is expected when categorizing new items in Past Perfect. I found this work much more interesting, it forces you to really look closely at these items. However, in a funny turn of events, this box was mostly heavy because it contained a metal desk clock. In fact there were only two items in the box, a brass clock and a massive Imperial Japanese Rising Sun flag. Maddy took a picture of me and Eric holding it. I must admit it was pretty cool, especially because the intake paperwork said it was an American flag.
After finishing this box, I had worked about four hours and been at the JCCCW for about four and a half, so I headed home. It was a really interesting day and I am looking forward to going back! I probably will eat in the office like everyone else, though.
My only photo from the entire day was this photo I took of the white gloves they gave me. I feel like a real museum worker!
