Japanese

Spring 2013

Karaoke Night

The event was organized by Ashley Talbot, a student in the second year Japanese class. Students and professors in Japanese Languages classes enjoyed singing both Japanese and American songs with some dance moves.

Nihon no tabemono naito ("Japanese Food Night")

Students enjoyed ”Makizushi (rolled sushi)” and “Kakiage (vegetable tempra)” with their teachers. For Makizushi, they were able to choose different ingredients such as avocado, cucumber, marinated-shrimps, etc. Miso soup made from “Daikon (Japanese radish)” was served as well. We had fun to prepare, cook, talk, and clean!

Fall 2012

Nihon no tabemono naito ("Japanese Food Night")

Students made Japanese Curry Rice with their teachers. They created their own plate in Obento style with some Japanese traditional home-made food such as Tamagoyaki, Ohitashi etc.

Spring 2012

Sushi Night

 
Students making Sushi rice and learning how to make Makizushi

Taiko Performance  by TAIKOPROJECT
TAIKOPROJECT brought their exuberant mix of traditional and 21st-century taiko drumming to Bowdoin College for a performance on March 29, 2012, in Pickard Theater, Memorial Hall. TAIKOPROJECT was founded in 2000 in Los Angeles, California, by a group of young, emerging taiko drummers. They were seeking to create a truly American style of taiko, blending traditional forms in which they were raised with an innovative and fresh aesthetic approach.

Fall 2011

Calligraphy Workshop

 
Students are working on their calligraphy and Japanese fans called “Sensu.”

Students enjoyed our Calligraphy Workshop on September 16^th, 2011.  Japanese calligraphy (Shodō) is a form of stylized writing done with sumi ink on hanshi paper using a fude brush.  The participants first learned and practiced the art of calligraphy by writing words or kanji characters on  hanshi paper, and later pasted their writing onto a blank sensu fan.

Tea Ceremony Workshop

Students took a break from their daily routine to experience an evening of aesthetic beauty, quiet reflection, and communal harmony. The tea ceremony workshop was presented by Ms. Sachiko Clough, a Japanese native who studied tea ceremony and Ikebana at Omote Senke school with Mori sosho from 1978 through 1983. Participants enjoyed authentic Japanese matcha (green tea) with Japanese sweets specially ordered for this occasion. 

Watch the Tea Ceremony workshop video »

Spring 2011

Origami Workshop

Tsunami Relief  -  The Million Crane Project 

 
Students with a thousand cranes.

The Million Crane Project is a nationwide initiative among schools and colleges across the U.S. to make and send pictures of one million origami paper cranes to Japan to express support.

Orizuru, or paper cranes, have profound significance in Japanese culture. According to the legend of senzaburo, anyone making 1000 paper cranes would be granted a wish.  When friends of a girl suffering from leukemia in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima made 1000 cranes to wish for her recovery, orizuru became a national symbol of peace, sympathy for victims and support for survivors of similar disasters.

“Perspectives on the Earthquake in Japan” -  Faculty Panel Discussion
Tuesday, April 12 

• Tom Conlan, Professor of History and Asian Studies, spoke of his two years living in Sendai and shared pictures of the region.
• Vyjayanthi Selinger, Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, spoke about the cultural significance of earthquakes and nuclear catastrophes in her talk, “Godzilla and Earthquakes in Public Imagination.”
• Henry Laurence, Associate Professor of Government and Asian Studies, discussed the political dimensions of the crisis.
• Mitsuko Numata, Lecturer in Japanese language, introduced the Million Crane Project.

Fall 2010

Makizushi Night

   
Students aare making Sushi rice and learning how to make Makizushi

Students in Ms. Mitsuko Numata’s class had a makizushi workshop on May 10^th.  We served a variety of ingredients with Miso soup and Japanese homemade Green tea sweets.  Some students did a great job on making their own makizushi.

Spring 2009

Students enjoyed an evening of quiet reflection as they heard the elegiac chanting of Heike biwa. The Heike biwa tradition originated in medieval Japan as a way to placate the spirits of those who died in war.

Fall 2008

A evening of music and dance as students and the broader campus community soaked in traditional Japanese puppet theatre, bunraku.

Students enjoyed a lecture on Japanese mathematics.