Indonesian Festival on this Saturday!

Tomorrow, our Indonesian students will join "FESTINA 2014" which will be held in the evening at Sendai Fukushi Plaza.
For those who can, please visit the venue and enjoy the Indonesian culture!

Happy 2014!!

The new year of 2014 has started. The university reopened this week, and students started to prepare for the semester-end exams and final papers. In the high schools, there is a tense atmosphere as students have entered the season of university entrance exams. On January 18 and 19, the National Center Test for University Admissions will be held across Japan. It is a standardized national exam that must be taken by applicants who wish to enter governmental universities, and Tohoku University will be one of the test venues.

In Japan, people who have something they wish strongly to achieve usually go to shrines and pray for success. There are also people who visit shrines to ask for perfect health and safety for family members. For such people, there will be an annual event on the evening of January 14. It will be at Oosaki Hachimangu Shrine. The name of the event is “Matsutaki Matsuri.” It is a kind of bonfire festival. The shrine is not far from Kawauchi Campus, so Tohoku University students can easily attend the event. There, you can encounter an intense fire of tremendous scale made by burning New Year’s decoration, talismans and so on. Legend has it that your mind and body will be cleansed if you stand close to the fire.

Just before ignition

After the ignition (photo from 2013)

 Sometimes it is hard to tell shrine from temple, but the fundamental difference is that while temples are associated with heaven after death, shrines are associated with life on earth. We wish you a happy new year for 2014!

International Festival this weekend!

 This weekend, another festival will be held, but this time, it will be primarily run by international students—the Tohoku University Foreign Students Association (a.k.a. TUFSA). This 28th Tohoku University International Festival will start at 11:00 on Sunday, November 10 at Sanjo Junior High School, which actually sits just next to University House Sanjo (most FGL students live there).
 A big stage will be prepared, and you will be able to see a fashion show of various ethnic costumes, singing and dancing by international students. If you look around, quite a large number of food stalls can be found. They will offer international cuisine, and you will have the opportunity to taste cooking from more than 20 countries.
 Entrance is free. For the food stalls, you can pre-order food tickets for 1,000 JPY from members of TUFSA, or buy them online (currently tickets cost 1,200 JPY).
 This is a great chance to experience many different cultures at once, so why don’t you join us?!? It will be fun!!

Festival at Tohoku University!

 November is a festival season, which means the 65th Tohoku University Festival was held!

 The Kawauchi Campus was filled with so many booths. At each booth, students cooked something special. Here are some shots.

This booth is run by students from Aomori prefecture. Here they cooked and sold Senbei Jiru (せんべい汁), the most famous local dish in Aomori. The ingredients include lots of vegetables (and chicken in some case), but the major one is Senbei—round rice crackers! Except crackers, everything is placed in a huge pot and cooked for a while, and the crackers are added last. Even though they are cooked in hot soup, they do not become too soft.

At this booth, boys tried cooking an Italian dish—risotto.
Original amusing leaflets were put all over their tent,
and the likeness looked similar to both male students.

At the plaza, performers showed their talents on stage.
The Mr. and Ms. Tohoku University contest was held there too.

The cosplayers were in bloom!
These students were selling Chinese-style chicken.

International students did a great job too.
For halal eaters, the Indonesian students showed their strong solidarity. 

They cooked and sold nasi goring for 300JPY.
Egg and shrimp were added to it, and professors stopped by to buy it.

 If you become Tohoku University students in the future, please open up a booth at the University Festival and cook your national food to give us a chance to experience different cultures!

Events in Sendai at the beginning of Autumn

Although the temperature still gets up to around 30 degrees in the afternoon every day, autumn is beginning to appear for sure. Some people have been wearing long-sleeve clothes since the evenings are becoming cooler these days, and outside events can be seen more often from the end of August.

Early Summer Events in Sendai

In May, there are famous annual events in Sendai. One is the “Sendai International Half Marathon” which was held on May 12.

This year, the number of participants was 12,874. There were four types of race: 2 km, 5 km, and 21.0975 km for both wheelchair users and general runners. The 2 km course was mainly for children and the elderly. 

Just as the title of the event says, there were various runners from all over the world, and the first prize went to Mr. Mekubo Job Mogus from Kenya. Sidney Olympics gold medalist Ms. Naoko Takahashi also participated in the event as a guest runner. The roadside was crowded with cheering people, some of whom were dancing and beating drums on Jozenji Street.

A week later, those dancing people appeared again in central Sendai thanks to the Aoba Festival, another annual event in May. The original one dates back to 1655, but at one point about 40 years ago the festival was cancelled because of transportation conditions. However, it made a comeback in 1985 after more than 10 years of absence. The main features are people dancing suzume odori—"dance of the sparrow" in English—and competition amongst various groups. Some of them are workers from certain companies, and some are neighborhood children, female volunteers and so on.

You will be able to enjoy many events in the City of Sendai as the season gets warmer. There is no way you could miss them!

Beauty and Talent Festa in the middle of February!

On February 12, Tohoku University Ko-Haku 2012 Winter Festival was the hottest event of the winter. The most talented and creative students of the University performed on the stage, singing, dancing, acting, and posing to celebrate the New Year, to heat up Sendai winter, dedicating their performances to everyone, who had gone through the tough year after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and, shouting out to the world, that we, in Tohoku, are here, living, studying, and having fun!

This is the second year of the Festival and the name of the event "Ko-Haku" is similar to one of the most popular New Year's TV Shows in Japan, a concert-battle between the brightest stars of Japanese show industry with the ladies performing in the Red Team (KO) and men performing in the White team (Haku). The Tohoku University Ko-Haku Festival was more than a singers battle, although it was also judged by the professional judges – the University professors (how much more professional could it get J ). It was a complete Talent Show, reflecting what the students of one of the top Universities in Japan can do besides studying. The show was spiced up by the traditional Japanese, Indonesian, Malay dances, street dance , musical shows, A-capella concert, crazy Vocaloid family cosplay, and finalized by the international fashion show, representing 15 countries and five continents.

The event was organized by the Tohoku University Graduate School of Economics and Management, Division of International Education and Exchange  (DIEE) and the Center for International Exchange, Global 30 office.

The pictures from the event are available at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/108223979894431885504/February122012?authkey=Gv1sRgCN3OutuSo-2c_QE#


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Text and Photos by Aysenem
FGL FB/Blog Team

2011 Tohoku University Festival

In Japan, school festivals are an important autumn event, whether at the primary, secondary, or university levels. Tohoku University is no exception, and the students enjoy their festival a lot! This year the school festival was held from November 3^rd to the 5^th under the theme of “Link Tompei” (Tompei is a nickname for Tohoku University).

Visitors, which included both students and the general public, were able to sample a variety of food at stalls set up around Kawauchi campus. There were art exhibitions, concerts, and various entertainment provided by the students. The annual school festival is an opportunity for the different student-organized clubs to publicize their activities, and for students with hidden talents to perform in front of their peers.

The school festival also provides a chance for the school’s cosplayers to show off the fruits of their labor. Cosplay (costume play) is a hobby that has spread from Japan to other countries in recent years. Cosplayers enjoy constructing hand-made costumes inspired by their favorite manga, anime, or video games and wearing them out to public events. It's not just a hobby; it's a way of life!

-FGL Staff