Ela goes to Junior College

This year, Ela and I went to the cultural festival at the Junior College where I used to work. I went to this festival my first year here, but couldn't take any pictures. This year, that was not the case. The festival celebrates all cultures, though Japanese culture is most promienent (since there's more Japanese people there). There were displays from China, Kora, Japan, and even a bit of Americna culture.

The college must have special ordered the weather. It poured down rain all morning, stopping right as we left the house to go to the festival, and as we left at the end, it started raining again. It was quite something.

First up on the agenda was the eating of somen, which is a summer dish in Japan. Noodles are sent down a bamboo trough in a flood of cold water. You scoop the noodles out using chopsticks as they come by, and then you eat them with a mixture of soy sauce and onion, and may be wasabi for flavor. Here's what the process looks like:


After we had eaten that, the school also provided some traditional Japanese fair, including sushi makings (no raw fish, though), Japanese curry, Yakisoba (stir-fried noodles), takoyaki (fried octopus) and french fries and fried chicken for the kids and less adventurous Americans.

During lunch, there were several activity stations set up for visitors to enjoy. You could try caligraphy, make a wish for tanabata, or play with traditional Japanese games. A kind teacher who remembered me wrote out my name and Ela's using Kanji. Then there were several demonstrations to watch.

First a girl performed some sort of martial arts:


Then there was a group of Okinawan drummers:


And then Chinese tai chi...


... and a traditional Chinese dance:

Some older ladies came to perform Japanese fan dance and the hula.

The final event of the afternoon was the Japanese version of a pinata: a watermelon was placed on a mat and people were blindfolded and attempted to break it open with a bamboo stick:

Then we got to eat the watermelon. The students all thought Ela was adorable:

And I enjoyed being back at school and seeing some familar faces.