The international lounge in my ward (where I take my group Japanese lessons) recently had a big New Years cultural event. These people are all volunteers, old people giving back to the community and trying to help foreigners not just with Japanese, but also help us assimilate culturally.
Halfway through the introductions I thought “You know what? This event is a nice slice of life and less than 10 foreigners will ever see it. I want other people to be able to experience the hard work these volunteers put in.”
So here it is. It’s a humble, lighthearted look at various New Years things like Fukuwarai, otoshidama, etc. It was originally just a few clips, but I ended up spending a lot more time on it- doing lots of research on various terms, origination of games, etc. So I hope you guys are able to learn a few new things from it.
If you guys have any feedback, I’d love to hear it. It’s my first attempt at this sort of thing but it was a lot of fun to make, and making it helped ingrain a lot of the terms I researched. But mainly, I just want to call attention to this amazing group of people that work so hard and ask for nothing in return.
3 comments
These international societies contribute so much to expat life in Japan for those who know they exist. I still have fond memories of my local one, twenty years ago. I’m surprised you said this was your first attempt at a video like this – you seem like a natural. Happy lunar new year!
Thank you for sharing, it was heartwarming to see their interest in the various people’s languages/cultures as well.
I do have a little question, it seemed to be mostly women attending. Do you think there’s a stigma around men coming to these kind of gatherings or was it just a coincidence?
That BFG Division needle drop is *fire*