Lecture by a Nobel laureate, Prof. Koichi Tanaka

  On January 29^th, a visiting professor, Koichi Tanaka, will give a lecture on the 2^nd floor of Center Hall on Aobayama Campus from 13:00. Prof. Tanaka is one of Tohoku University’s alumni. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002. At that time, he was a corporate employee at Shimadzu Corporation contributing to technology research, and he is still affiliated with the company. His lecture will be held on the theme of “environments for interdisciplinary research—developing mass spectrometry”

Thanks to the prize, he has taught at many prestigious universities in Japan so far. This is a rare chance to meet a Nobel laureate and hear his story. The lecture will be in Japanese, and will be aimed at Master’s level students. However, if you are interested in joining the event you can register your name by writing the School of Engineering at event@eng.tohoku.ac.jp .

 

 For more information, please click here.


Map of the venue on Aobayama Campus

 

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!

Merry Christmas!!

 It is December 25th. Christmas is an event that is celebrated world-wide. Here in Sendai, trees on Jozenji-Street decorated with lights have been a winter feature for the last two decades. These days, more people enjoy decorating their whole houses as though competing with each other to have the most gorgeous decorations.

Common Christmas cake in Japan

 For good or bad, Christmas is not very much recognized as a holy and religious event in Japan. Therefore, many people take this event as an occasion to truly have fun: while people in Christian countries spend time with family and eat homemade dishes including turkey  on Dec 25, the Japanese (especially the youth) party with close friends, have various drinks, including alcohol, and eat the indispensable Christmas cake.

 Since the winter vacation is for two weeks, not all international students visit their hometown, so they try to plan events where people can share time and food together. The outside is cold, so let’s stay warm and active. Enjoy the holiday season.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Jozenji-Street in Sendai