Japanese School Culture Festival: Kendo

The Society held the “Japanese School Culture Festival” as a new project in May 2017. Taking into account children’s needs, the goal was to provide opportunities to come into contact with and experience the Japanese language and Japanese culture lightheartedly, at a Japanese-style school culture festival, and in doing so have the children deepen their understanding of the language and the culture. The festival was held at the same time as the “Japanese Speech Contest for Hong Kong Primary, Junior and Senior Secondary School Students,” which the Society hosts every year. The stage at the main venue featured performances of Kendo (Japanese fencing), Kendama (Japanese bilboquet), and the Shakuhachi (bamboo flute), and interactive workshops were held in 17 classrooms and booths. These included trying on Yukata (summer cotton kimono), Origami, Furoshiki (cloth wrapping) and Japanese-language lessons. For children in Hong Kong the Japanese language and Japanese culture are no longer something rare since they have come into contact with the language and culture through Japanese Anime and games, as well as through travel with their parents. However, it seems likely that they do not have very many chances to experience the type of school festivals they see in Anime and on television. The festival attracted not just Hong Kong children and their parents but Japanese families as well. Over 800 people attended, giving rise to very lively event that overflowed with beaming faces.

Exchange meeting: Japanese culture introduction quiz

The Japan Foundation runs a program that dispatches students who are majoring in Japanese-language education at universities and similar institutions in Japan to Japanese-language educational institutions overseas, as Japanese-language teacher trainees. University students from regions throughout Japan are recruited every year, and they undertake hands-on training at the accepting affiliated schools overseas. Every year, teacher trainees are also dispatched to Hong Kong under this program, and they are keen not only to teach Japanese lessons themselves, but to interact with the local students also. In light of that, we helped with implementing an exchange meeting between the teacher trainees and the local high school students, who were also keen for a chance to interact with Japanese people.

The exchange meeting began with a quiz created by the teacher trainees as a way of introducing Japanese culture. The themes included fashions and foods that are popular in Japan, with questions drawn from four genres. The local senior secondary school students answered the quiz hesitantly, yet came up with a series of correct answers, and their strong grasp of current Japanese trends was met with great surprise. Following that, participants were divided into small groups for opinion exchanges. Some appeared shy to begin with, but just as you would expect among young people of the same generation, they immediately got acquainted, and the fun time quickly came to an end.