Japanese Intercultural Association hosts BBQ event
The Japanese Intercultural Association, a Recognized Student Organization formed by students from Japan, last weekend organized its first event: a BBQ party.
The event gathered over 80 students who played games, competed in trivia and ate cultural meals prepared by JIA members.
“We want to make an opportunity for Minnesota State students to experience Japanese culture,” said the president of JIA Yudai Komiyama. “Without the JIA, there’s no chance to actually touch on Japanese culture.”
JIA promotes culture by tabling at events, creating activities for students and organizing seasonal events. Komiyama said they’ve planned many different events for this academic year, including a Halloween-themed event and participation at the annual International Festival.
The BBQ event is held annually by JIA. Treasurer of JIA Ayaka Hata said this serves as an opening of JIA activities for the academic year.
“JIA has a meeting every week, and we started having a meeting in August, and we were also planning the barbecue event there,” said Hata. “We organize the event every year and we do this as the first event of the semester. For the barbeque, we have prepared meat, corn, vegetables, and some refreshing drinks.”
Attendees had a chance to play trivia and learn more about Japanese culture through such competitions. JIA members randomly assigned people into different groups with an intention to help others make new connections. Attendees appreciated the activity as the favorite part of the event for them was making new friends.
“I came to the event mostly to support my friends, and this is how I met most of my friends last year,” said junior Angshula Khan.
“My favorite part about attending and organizing such events is meeting new people. I think it’s really fun,” said Hata. “It’s nice to see everyone who always comes to our events. But also, new people are coming to our events and they are making new friends and getting to know each other. It feels like we are actually creating places for them to make new connections and networking.”
Komiyama said some Japanese students may avoid coming to the event as they believe they will not have an opportunity to learn more about other cultures while focusing on connections with other Japanese students. However, Komiyama clarified that groups at the events are very diverse and that students find international friends when they attend.
“They want to fully immerse themselves in an English-speaking environment,” Komiyama said. “Meanwhile, we have a lot of international students visiting our event and exchanging their experiences. For our future events, I would like to tell everybody that everyone is invited to visit, taste our food and spend some time playing games.”
Caption: Members of Japanese Intercultural Association getting the food at the first BBQ event for the academic year on Sep 12., 2024. (AMALIA SHARAF/The Reporter)
Write to amal.sharafkhodjaeva@mnsu.edu
Back in the late nineties when I was hired at Youngsan Daehakyo, a small university in Pusan, South Korea, I had to make a boat ride visa-run over to Fukuoka which is a lovely little subtropical city on Kyushu Island in southern Japan. I would stay in these capsule sleep box hotel rooms which were much cheaper than a regular hotel room. It is or was an adorable city maybe half the size of the Twin Cites with lovely little wooden Buddhist temples–there are some interesting videos about Japanese school children and their school box lunches on You Tube somewhere that reminded me a lot of the children I met there. Google it. I am sure you will find it.
From Fukuoka you can train your way up to Hiroshima overnight, then on to Kyoto with its hundred or so gorgeous wooden temples, much larger and boxier than the more quaint carved temples in South Korea. The best way to do Kyoto cheaply is to sleep outside in the forests, and bathe in the rivers chuckling down the mountainsides, then, in the morning, head to the temples around town. I visited fifty temples in the eleven days I was there (I also visited fifty temples in Rome in my ten days there years ago). But be sure to see the museum. Always see the museums wherever you travel and photograph them complete if they will let you.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a huge on-line collection of over two thousand pieces of Japanese pottery from what I will dare say is the Edo Period with their lovely little water colored pastels suggesting something appealing to children. I have downloaded all of them, but when I went to Boston, I couldnt find the collection on display. Boston also has the finest collection of Vietnamese pottery in the USA (Phoenix and Birmingham are the other two US Museums for Vietnamese Pottery) and the Chicago Museum of Art and the New York Met have awesome Korean celadon that rivals anything in the Seoul National Museum.
Daniel Sebold, MSU English/Spanish alumnus writing from Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown in Malaysia. (Check out the Islamic Art Museum here in KL.)