Sunday, July 3, 2016

Friday, July 1 2016

Speaking only in Japanese, we were able to make Japanese potstickers called ギョーザ (gyoza)!  The students were split up into 6 groups where each of us were tasked in making the gyoza from scratch.  That included seasoning the gyoza filling, folding the gyoza into little pockets, as well as frying them!  We were also able to make Japanese rice balls called onigiri.  The ongiri is seasoned with an assortment of Japanese seasonings like nori (seaweed), sesame seeds, umeboshi (pickled plums), and fish flakes.  This experience was so much fun, and we’re all looking forward to our next cooking class!

After the cooking class, we all went to the senpaigata (RA’s) culture classes.  Chung senpai’s culture class was on Japanese music and dance.  In his class, he taught us a dance by the Japanese music director, Halyosy called ‘Painter’.  This is his second year teaching a song by Halyosy, where some of the students will be dancing to ‘Painter’, live, at the closing ceremony!

In Tomomatsu senpai’s class, we learned about different tropes in Japanese anime.  The theme’s she brought up such as ‘environmentalism’ brought upon variety of different discussions in class.  We’ll definitely be watching Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) when we come home from the Academy!


In Sabo Senpai’s class, we were able to watch certain Japanese fairytales like ‘Momotaro’.  We discussed about the differences in eastern and western fairytales, the role of women in separate cultures, and the purpose of fairytales in these divergent cultures.  It definitely provided us a different perspective of the foundations of eastern vs. western thought.

















Language:

Beginner:
The Beginner class continued to learn more hiragana today, and the first alphabet tomorrow. While learning about the days of the week, we watched a slightly scaring, but still very informative song. Needless to say, it is still stuck in my head. We were also taught the corresponding kanji, and the meanings behind the days. We played board games, and even spurred some competition with a hiragana card slapping game. According to my mom, I’m not know for fast reflexes, but I still came out on top with the most cards. Some ambitious students even began to teach themselves katakana (the second Japanese alphabet).


-Molly


Intermediate/ Advanced:
For today’s language class, we learned a variety of vocabulary and kanji in preparation for tomorrow’s sports festival (undoukai). Using quizlet flashcards with pictures, we learned the equivalents of “to throw,” “to win,” “to lose,” “competition,” and others. We watched several videos of Japanese school students cheering and briefly discussed them. Everyone was extremely synchronized, almost soldier-like, which was part scary and part impressive. The students also created and filmed mock sports interviews so that we could use the questions during tomorrow’s festival. Lastly, we headed back to our dorm’s multipurpose room to continue practicing taiko. We worked on rhythms and synchronization. It was fun, but the fast-paced nature of the activity means it is getting harder and harder. I look forward to the challenge!
-Olivia

Topic-based Class:
Beginner: Our learning of the Japanese language doesn’t end in Namastil’s-sensei morning class as Otani-sensei handed out flashcards of various words, such as easy (which these classes are not) and cute. Then we continue the class by learning how to tie the obi, which is the sash for a yukata. Each gender has a different method of tying the obi, which was frustrating. Eventually we got the handle of things.
-Isaac

Intermediate/Advanced:
Today’s lesson went more in depth of the seasons and haikus. After a brief review of the seasonal kanji, students did a variety of activities that ranged from analyzing and summarizing writing pieces about seasons to reading/translating famous haikus.


Now, oddly, this had nothing to do with the lesson, but toward the end of class we were shown a video that rapped the days of the week in Japanese. It was amazing and made me wish I learned the days of the week in such a fun way. Just as the kids say these days, it was pretty lit.
-Mirai

Gyoza
Today, instead of going to the dining hall for dinner as usual, we all cooked gyoza and made onigiri to eat. Gyoza are Japanese pot-stickers that are made with beef/pork, green onions, cabbage, salt, and soy sauce all mixed together, wrapped in “gyoza skin” and fried in a pan. Onigiri is a ball of rice filled with Japanese seasonings called furikake and wrapped in Japanese seaweed called nori. Although these foods are typically easy to make, we could only speak in Japanese with our groups while cooking which made everything a lot harder! I had to ask the teachers many times for Japanese words so I could instruct my group to cook properly. It was hard but I learned a lot, and I look forward to cooking for Japanese foods!

-Abhishek


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