Neither Karen nor I have written anything for a couple of days because Karen’s Japan Study Program students arrived Friday. They go on a ten-day orientation about an hour out of Tokyo as soon as they get here so we have not had computer access and have been quite busy. I just got back to Tokyo but Karen is still there and will be there for the whole ten days. I will go back there probably twice, so may not be posting or responding to emails at times.
It is a large group of 36 students from all over the USA and some from other countries attending USA colleges. Two were my students at Knox and one is my advisee. She is from China and has taken all my courses. She brought a gift of vegetarian moon cakes (without the egg yolks) for us and we are excited. We haven’t had moon cakes for twenty years or so. The autumn moon festival (which is apparently not celebrated by the Japanese) is next week and I hope we can have a small celebration with our three Chinese students and our Korean student (the festival is apparently celebrated in Korea) and maybe some of the few other students who have been to China and have studied the language and culture.
Karen spent part of yesterday and all of today and perhaps will spend part of tomorrow interviewing students to help determine best matches with home-stay placements. Yesterday evening we went to the official welcome dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant. They prepared a wonderful feast. Karen and I and two vegetarian students were served all vegetarian food and it was simply the best Japanese food I have ever had.
The orientation is being held at a women’s center that has many hotel rooms, seminar rooms, dining hall, and various sports facilities. The students are in intensive language/culture classes most of the time for these ten days. Karen has and will have sessions with them as well for program related and home-stay related information and cultural sensitivity. The food at the center is not very vegan friendly, but the two vegetarian students seem to be managing ok. I will take some food back from Tokyo to supplement what Karen can eat.
That’s it for now. I will be putting some more pictures up as well.
David
moon cakes! without egg! I wish they were easy to make — we have a celebration at school for our team for the Day of the Dead. Students and their parents volunteer to make pain de morte or Bread of the Dead. It is a simple receipe that I send home. As I read this post, I thought how I’d like to change the celebration this year to the Autumn Moon festival, but it’s much harder to have students and their parents make moon cakes! Oh well.
Mmm, mooncakes! I’m glad I’ve been reminded–I’ll have to go to the Chinese store and buy some this week.
Did you all remember to look at the moon and think of home (family)?