The JYC Blog - November
In November, the group returned to Japan House London. This month's theme was A Deeper Dive, a chance for The Japan Youth Collective to think more closely about their particular interests in Japan and the skills they would need to find out more.
At the Catch-up session, they met Japanese Freelance journalist Misato Kimura who shared stories from his career and imparted his advice and top research tips. The group was also joined by Maddie Rose Baker, Producer at NHK’s London Bureau, and Dr Laurence Green who both spoke about how their passion for Japan had informed their life and career choices before splitting into small groups for a short role-play activity.
November’s Japan Lab, called Meet the Experts, was an opportunity for the group to learn more from experts about Japanese Film and Television, Japanese Music, and Japanese Language.
In the first session, the Collective discussed the cultural differences and similarities between the UK and Japan as well as the representation of Japan with Dr Griseldis Kirschafter watching a clip of The Story of My Family. They were next treated to an exclusive Tsugaru Shamisen and Min’yo performance with London-based musicians Hibiki and Akari, who took the young members on a “musical tour” of Japan. In the final session led by The Japan Foundation London, participants learnt useful conversational phrases and how to introduce themselves in Japanese, and tried to list as many languages as they could from a global total of around 8,000!
In a separate session, a small group joined artist and calligrapher Aya Burbanks for some shodo (calligraphy) practice. They got to grind their own ink from an ink stick and try gyosho style calligraphy for the first time!
Otsukare sama deshita (お疲れ様でした, ‘thank you for all your hard work’) to all our Collective participants!