25.4.07

japan festival

Last weekend was the Japanese festival at my school. Japanese student groups (including my Yosakoi group), students in Japanese classes and the community came together for the festival, which turned out to be a lot of fun. A lot of preparation including advertising, setup and performance practices paid off.




Here is a giant fan with the word "matsuri," or "festival" written in Kanji. It was set up by the registration table.

This sign was set up outside a room where the traditional tea ceremony was being demonstrated. It shows the proper way to hold the tea cup.


Japan is famous for traditional flower arrangements called "ikebana." Here is one such arrangement.


This is a geisha doll in traditional dress.


Someone receiving a lesson on the shamisen, a four-stringed guitar-like instrument.


Yosakoi danced at the end of a two-hour series of performances including singers, a boyou dancer, and a storyteller. Here taiko drummers are performing a song on their drums.

I helped in the Traditional Toys room. In this game, you remove the hammer from the center of the stacks of blocks. Then starting at the bottom of the stack, you try to knock out the bottom block without knocking over the entire tower. I was really bad at this game, but there were some little kids who were really good.


This is another tricky game. You're supposed to swing the ball up into the air and catch it in one of the cups at the top of the stick. Then, if you're good, you can flip the stick over and catch it in the cup on the bottom of the handle. I never got past step 1.

Most of the day I helped kids with three different kinds of top games. This little guy was determined to get the big tops to spin.

These are a variety of paper cranes folded by the people in the origami workshop. There is a Japanese folk tale that says if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, you will have your wish come true.


7 comments:

Sonnjea said...

Looks like a lot of fun! Hard work, but fun anyway.

Molly Malone said...

origami, toys, yadda, yadda. tell me you had some mad karaoke and DDR going on in other sections too?
seriously, though: congrats on pulling off what looks like a great experience! i'd love to try my hand at the little hammer game. i'm sure i'd knock it down.

Greta said...

Sadly no karaoke. :) There were some video games going on, though. And as for active workshops, anyone could try their hand at kendo. THAT was a little bit scary.

Eric said...

I swear my parents had a toy like that ball and cup thing when they were kids. You sure that's Japanese? ^_-

Sally T. said...

That basket of cranes is pure gorgessity. Love, love, love!

Ynah-chan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ynah-chan said...

My Japanese host family sent me the samurai looking wooden toy but never figured out what they were for until I read your blog so I wanna say thanks. Do you happen to know the name of the toy/game?