Japan Club Help

6 comments

1. Ooo I can actually help with this!

   I was an officer for the Japanese club at my university, and we split the club into two parts: culture and language. The first part discussed cultural aspects such as food, holidays, traditions, and life in Japan. Each meeting had a different topic. Afterwards, we had 会話 where we would split students into their Japanese level and have conversation topics for them to discuss in Japanese. For the beginners, you can follow the Genki textbook and teach grammar points.

   As for free activities, you can incorporate aspects of Japanese culture such as making Onigiri (not free, but rice is cheap), radio taiso, origami, karaoke, and hand games (jankenpon and ichiman jyakku).

2. 1. Make onigiri. Bring plastic wrap or gloves, rice, and stuff like canned salmon/tuna, etc. with microwavable bowls so you can heat everything up and make onigiri. Cheap and will keep them entertained. And will save you some money on meals/snacks if you also make some lol.
   2. Make paper fans with construction paper and popsicle sticks (like [these](https://blog.fromjapan.co.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/uchiwa.jpg)). Not sure how well these would work, I came up with it a minute ago lol.
   3. Learn some Japanese together/ do something related to the language. You could also try practicing kanji calligraphy. Nothing fancy, just get some brush pens or markers (I think Crayola makes them) and paper.
   4. Related to above, you can have them write out goals in kanji. I do it every new year and I think for kids/teenagers it could be a good activity. Get paper, strings, and markers, and use a website like JISHO to find kanji related to their goals. For example, if they want to get into a good university and also make friends, they could write “大学・友達”. Then you can hang all of them up. Good start of the year activity I think
   5. Make hand-rolls. This might be a bit on the pricey side but you could just leave out the raw fish I suppose. Maybe save it for a special occasion like end-of-the-year because it’s a party thing
   6. [Teach them how to fold paper chopstick rests](https://origami-resource-center.com/chopstick-wrapper-stand/)
   7. Do Youtube karaoke with anime songs/ Japanese songs.
   8. Make microwave mochi

   I’m out of ideas… hopefully some of these were helpful lol

3. If they like anime and you want to do activities surrounding culture, then get them to discuss the different cultural points brought up in the anime. Eg,

   1) Greetings – how do you greet your friends vs in the anime? (Do you even greet your friends?) Discuss the differing levels of politeness when greeting different people and what it means. For the kids in higher grades, consider bringing the discussion beyond etiquette and discussing social hierarchy in Japan vs how it exists in their own lives, and what effects it might have.

   2) Food etiquette – What does itadakimasu/gochisosama mean and why do people say it? Discuss expressing gratitude in everyday life.

   3) Discuss various themes:
   If you are watching shonen anime aka naruto/one piece, do character studies. Common themes brought up in these shows are friendship/loyalty to friends, trusting the team/supporting each other, personal drive/motivation/passion, doing what’s right, staying positive/never giving up in the face of extreme challenges.

   If you are watching sports related dramas – it’s similar but most of the focus will be on teamwork and never giving up. Discuss how everyone has their good and bad points but hoe as a team they come together and overcome difficulties.

   If you’re doing slice of life/school days/coming of age anime – character arcs tend to be more fleshed out, discuss social interaction, conflict resolution, compare and contrast a “typical day” for the character vs their own, for older kids consider discussing how different environments, family, social status etc affect one’s behaviour and attitude. Some animes will touch on bullying in school and is a good lead into discussions surrounding empathy.

   If the animes are interest related (cooking/camping/music) bring the discussion around to hobbies and get everyone to teach everyone about theirs and learn a new hobby (possibly from the anime too!). Just a fun thing to increase interaction amongst the kids.

   If they fit none of the above – discuss cinematography, animation, background music, story pacing etc and how they add to the viewing experience. How is the anime differ from the manga? Are there any interviews by the author/production studio? How does this anime compare across the author’s previous works?

   If you need ideas on how to lead discussions like these, youtube has many video analyses on various anime. I personally like [Under The Scope](https://youtube.com/c/UnderTheScopeReviews) and [Aleczandxr](https://youtube.com/c/Aleczandxr)

   Otherwise, the additional ideas others have mentioned work well too. Consider holding a bunkasai – cultural festival, which almost every school related anime would have featured at some point. It’s like a school open house – your school might have something similar or might have a day where all the clubs interact with each other or perform. Either do a cafe or a haunted house – the most common activities that pop up in anime hahaha

4. It might be fun to try teaching the kana alphabets a little. Maybe enough katakana to write their names? Tofugu has an excellent set of mnemonic-type resources for [hiragana](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) and [katakana](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/) that make it pretty easy.

5. You can teach them the traditional way to make Japanese sticky rice!
   My host family taught me when I was in Japan.

   You measure out the rice and wash it until the water runs clear. Then pour it through a sieve and let it sit for an hour or so. All the excess water will absorb into the rice or evaporate off. Pour the rice into the pot and add the same amount of water as you did rice. Slowly bring to a boil and boil it for 10-12 minutes. Then turn off the heat and leave it covered for another 15 minutes.

   Perfect fluffy sticky rice every time!

   And then you can make sushi or whatever afterward. You would need to bring in a hot plate to do this.

   You can also make a simple furikake with sesame seeds, nori, salt and sugar. You can make nori wrapped rice balls with furikake sprinkled on top.

6. Can anyone tell me about dance dance danseur manga chapter 210?