We recently celebrated the third of our Culture Days, with this iteration bringing to the forefront the very best (and strange) of Japanese culture! With easily the largest contingent, our Japanese students organized a day jam-packed with great food, light exercise, and dazzling performances that included traditional Japanese dance, a fashion show, and even a bizarre food challenge. In the days leading up to Japanese Cultural Day, our students made the effort to hand out flyers and adorn our cafeteria tables with special menu cards, which successfully generated excitement in the community!
Since exposure to Japanese culture is one of the tenets of our extra-curricular life at UWC ISAK Japan, with monthly excursions to explore the different facets of Japanese life, it was a challenge for our Japanese students to think about how best to represent their culture in a new and exciting way. One of the more interesting ways they decided to do this was to incorporate little bits of daily Japanese school life into the event, such as a ‘morning exercise’ session during lunch, and wearing different types of school uniforms. There was also the sale of dagashi (penny candies), which are cheap Japanese snacks and candies, throughout the day. At night, the dagashi was sold in a booth recreated by Saki (Class of 2019, Japan) and Neo (Class of 2019, Japan) to look like a real one!
“Wearing my kimono was something that I enjoyed and it was definitely special on this particular day since we do not get to wear it often in everyday life. I received many interesting reactions from other students and it was worth waking up at 6 am to put it on! Overall, I really enjoyed this opportunity to appreciate and celebrate our identity and share it with others.”
– Saki (Class of 2019, Japan)
Overall, it was a most wonderful day for everyone and huge props to all of our Japanese students for their hard work in putting this day together!
