TUJ LEAD · 11/11/2024

On October 28th, Japanese Culture was a collaborative event put together by TUJ LEAD, TUJ’s Japanese Culture Club, and SWU L.E.C. to explore the history, food, and folklore of northern Japan’s Tohoku region.

Members from these organizations opened the event with brief introductions of the organizations. Following this was the first activity of Kahoot prepared by SWU L.E.C.. This game featured various questions with facts about Japan so that participants were able to learn while playing. The winning team received a prize of Fukushima’s Rakunou Cafe Au Lait Crunch.

The next activity was a Match the Story game that allowed participants to learn some Tohoku folklore by matching each folklore to a picture of the prefecture. The winning team received Akita butter mochi. A game of Tohoku Sugoroku was the last activity of the evening. Groups chose home teams and away teams, and the rules stated that if a player landed on a + or -, a point was added or subtracted from their score. Scores were then combined and the winner won prizes of senbei from Iwate.

In between these exciting activities, the hosts from JCC explained Tohoku and its 6 prefectures (Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata, Fukushima). In Tohoku, agriculture,nature, gods, and folktales are prevalent and important. Some facts about each prefecture were shared as well, such as Fukushima’s Akabeko (gets rid of evil), Yamagata’s famous Mogami River, Akita’s Emishi people (a non-Yamato ethnicity), Aomori’s Nebuta (features wood and paper floats), Iwate’s Ainu language place names, and Miyagi’s raditional Zunda (sweet edamame paste).

With an intermission that included delicious Yamagata food and Aomori’s apple juice, and an end-of-event group photo, students from TUJ and other universities enjoyed learning about Japanese culture at this bilingual Laugh and Explore.