JAPAN FOUNDATION WORLDWIDE

The Chef of the South Pole Came to Australia! – The 13th Japanese Film Festival

The Japanese Film Festival, marking its 13th anniversary, is now known as one of the major events in Sydney. This time, the festival presented 21 stellar films covering all genres from action blockbusters such as “Kamui,” “GOEMON,” and “K-20: Legend of the Mask” through comedies such as “The Homeless Student” and “Oppai Valleyball” to art-house movies such as “Gravity’s Clowns” and “All Around Us.” In Sydney and Melbourne, these films drew over 10,000 visitors. Among the most popular films, special attention was given to “Chef of the South Pole.” The director, Shuichi Okita, and author, Jun Nishimura, of this fabulous and hilarious hit visited Melbourne and Sydney for the Australian premiere. They shared their experiences in the South Pole, revealing how to deal with daily life, cooking, and shooting a film in such extreme conditions. The audience was enthralled by the story behind the screen.

Lecture on Politics in Japan: Professor James Arthur Stockwin

In the field of intellectual exchange, we invited Professor James Arthur Stockwin from the University of Oxford who received the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange 2009 to Sydney and Melbourne in November 2009. At a lecture entitled “Political Earthquake in Japan – How much of a difference will it make?” Professor Stockwin discussed the factors of the change in Japan’s government and its implications on the country’s political landscape. With a description of the historical background and many case studies and statistics, this lecture presented a clear view of the political upheaval. It was followed by a lively question-and-answer session between Professor Stockwin and the audience which consisted of scholars, business people and journalists. This event revealed that people in Australia are taking a keen interest in Japan’s political power shift.

Lolita fashion show in Sao Paulo

The year 2008 was the centennial of Japanese emigration to Brazil. Today, the population of Japanese descent in Brazil is about 1.5 million and the majority live in large cities. The society of Japanese descents in Brazil has tremendous influence over culture and economy of the nation comparing to those in other countries. Japanese immigrants have been successful in propagating and conveying a variety of Japanese traditional culture (music, folksongs, and performing arts) to their children. Meanwhile, another trend emerged in the 1980s when interests in contemporary Japanese culture including anime and TV games surged among the younger generation. Since then, such contemporary Japanese culture (pop culture) has been overlapping with the cultural basis that was inherited from Japanese immigrants.

TV and personal computers are the major media for propagating Japanese pop culture in Brazil. There are over 1000 social networking service (SNS) communities for anime, manga, and costume play in this country. Moreover, 175 anime-related festivals are held throughout the coutry, and the majority of them are organized by non-Japanese-Brazilians. These festivals attract the audience of about 50,000 on average, resulting in the estimation that about 10 million people nationwide participate in events related to Japanese pop culture. This figure accounts for almost ten percent of the entire population, and 75% of the participants are the youngsters in the 10-22 age group.

The Japan Foundation, Sao Paulo has been organizing pop culture activities to promote the younger generation’s understanding of Japan. As part of such efforts, we hosted two projects in a row. In October, we invited Ms. Mitsuko Horie, leading singer of anime songs, to hold lectures and demostrations in Sao Paulo, Manaus, and Belem. When she sang good old anime songs in particular, many in the audience seemed to be immersed in memories of their childhood. From late November to early December, Ms. Misako Aoki, who was commissioned by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as one of Japan’s “Trend Communicator of Japanese Pop Culture” or “Kawaii Ambassadors”; and Mr. Takamasa Sakurai, contents & media producer, visited Brazil. They toured Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Brasilia to hold lectures on Japanese anime and Lolita fashion shows. In addition, they actively participated in a local pop culture event and Japan Festival to introduce Brazilian audience to the new aspects of Japan.

In order to bring Japanese culture close to children in Russia, the Japanese Culture Department "Japan Foundation" of the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature started in September 2009 to deliver lectures on Japanese culture to local schools. We ask experts on Japanese culture to hold demonstrations and workshops of ikebana (flower arrangement), tea ceremony, calligraphy, and origami. While some of these lecturers are Japanese living in Moscow, there are many Russian experts on Japanese culture in this capital city; in fact, lecturers of ikebana, tea ceremony, and origami are Russians. There are also Russian instructors of kendo, judo, karate, and aikido because these Japanese martial arts are very popular in this country. As a rare instance, there is a group of Russian musicians called “Waon” who perform traditional Japanese music.

In September 2009, we launched our official website and posted a call for application for workshop delivery to schools. It turned out that the number of applications immediately exceeded the quota of ten schools. After we closed the list, we received a number of inquiries about next call.
Workshops were delivered to nine schools between September to December 2009, receiving extremely good reactions from children and teachers. Origami in particular was the most popular subject; origami workshops were held at four out of nine schools. In the other case, children who hardly knew Japanese participated in a calligraphy workshop. Their eyes twinkled with amusement by looking at unfamiliar calligraphy tools, and they seemed to enjoy the lesson as drawing pictures rather than as writing characters. As in this case, most children participated in the workshops were not familiar with Japanese, while some had been learning the language. These delivered workshops were the first opportunity for many children to experience Japanese culture. They commented that these workshops made them familiar with Japan, the country that had been distant from them before.

We started the second call for application in this January, and ten schools have already applied. We would like to deliver Japanese culture to as many schools as we can.