Members of the Conway community engaged in Japanese culture through interactive activities in Japanamania, an event held as part of the Center for Global Learning and Engagement’s International Education Week.
The event was led by David House and Kae Hashimoto Reed. House is a visiting lecturer of Japanese Language and the faculty adviser for the UCA Japanese Club.
Hashimoto Reed is a professional percussionist, principal timpanist of the Fort Smith Symphony, and visiting lecturer at Arkansas Tech University in the department of music and department of English and world languages.
People of all ages gathered in Torreyson West room 320 for the interactive Japanese lesson and cultural celebration Wednesday, Nov. 15.
House said there were people from at least five different countries in attendance.
“One objective of events like Japanamania is to expose students and community members to language and culture through fun low-stakes experiences,” House said. “It’s also important for us to bring people from around the world together to enjoy these experiences.”
Ashley Pettingill, Director of the Center for Global Learning and Engagement, kicked off the evening with an introduction to International Education Week. This year was the third year for International Education Week.
Pettingill spoke highly of UCA’s Japanese students and program.
“We have about 350 international students here at UCA, and our Japanese group is our largest group of students,” Pettingill said. “We have 49 Japanese students. You guys [Japanese students] are very engaging, you do a great job doing a lot of events throughout the semester, so we really appreciate you engaging the community.”
“We also have a lot of students that are interested in traveling to Japan and we have some partners there,” she said.
A student hangs a piece of paper on a wish tree. Students participated in activities significant to Japanese culture.
For students interested in studying abroad, Pettingill encouraged them to visit the Center for Global Learning and Engagement’s office or the Study Abroad office located in the library.
House began the educational part of the program with a humorous video by YouTuber Bill Wurtz, explaining the history of Japan in only nine minutes.
After the video, House began with the language portion.
“When you look at it, it seems like a very complicated and hard language to learn,” House said. “However, Japanese grammar is very regular.”
House taught the group a Japanese greeting, “Hajimemashite,” which means “Pleased to meet you for the first time.”
To practice greeting each other, the group played the game “Jan-Ken-Pon” which is Japanese for Rock, Paper, Scissors. Participants challenged each other to the game, and whoever won was first to introduce themselves. The loser followed, and both members of the game would then find another opponent.
After the game, participants ate Japanese food including rice and dumplings. Many attendees were eager to try eating their meals using chopsticks.
As attendees ate, they were invited to write wishes and hang them on a wish tree. Wish trees are popular during Tanabata, a Japanese celebration where people write wishes on tanzaku, small pieces of colorful paper, and hang them on trees with ribbons.
After the meal, Hashimoto Reed gave a Taiko drum performance.
Taiko drums are Japanese barrel-shaped drums often played with sticks called bachi and have been a part of Japanese culture for centuries.
After she performed, Reed invited students up to bang on the drum before leaving as a way to relieve stress from this busy part of the semester.
“We know that with the end of the semester coming up, you may want to do this,” she said, hitting a bachi stick onto the drum.
The event was met with positive reception from the audience. Kaya Bonds, a UCA junior, is taking a Japanese course and wants to one day move to Japan to study law.
“My minor is in legal studies and I want to study international law in Japan,” Bonds said. “I also like the culture. I’m not really big into anime or anything like that, but I genuinely just love the scenery and like seeing the different foods.”
House was happy to see people come to the event and enjoy the language and culture he has a passion for. As a professor of Japanese language, House gets to share this passion with students every day.
“I tutored Latin language through college, and then went on to teach EFL [English as a foreign language] in Japan for a little over seven years,” House said. “After coming back to the U.S., it made sense to receive formal training. I earned my MAT [Master of Arts in teaching] at UCA.” “While at UCA, the Japanese language-teaching position opened up; I was lucky enough to be the one to fill it,” he said.
House has seen an expansion in Japanese language instruction since he first arrived.
“Japanese language instruction at UCA has been sustained and expanded thanks to a lot of hard work by and support from many different people including students, co-workers, Japan-related organizations, and our institutional powers-that-be.”
House said events like this can spark interest in the community and allow participants to learn more about and engage in other cultures.
“We all hope that our year-round international event programming will open eyes, broaden minds and deepen appreciation for the amazing world in which we all live,” House said.
