I attended an International Festival in downtown Kanazawa put on by Ishikawa Foundation for International Exchange (IFIE). I rode the bus downtown for ¥240 and got off at exactly the right stop, yay! I began exploring the four levels of the building and scanning the booths of many different countries to discover.
Many JET participants were representing English speaking countries, so I got to meet and talk to some new JETs in the area. Many of the booths had some kind of food or candy from the country it featured. I enjoyed a makeshift smore from the United States booth, made from comparable Japanese ingredients.
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| Andrew, the happy American. |
In addition to different booths featuring many world countries, the event featured hands on Japanese cultural demonstrations. This was most exciting to me because I had been eager to experience a couple Japanese traditions.
I got to make a calligraphy scroll. It was fun using the thick brush to make gentle but bold strokes to form the character.
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| I chose the word Love to write in Kanji, the Chinese character. |
I got dressed up in a kimono and got to walk around for a while. When the act of helping someone get dressed is virtually non-existent for adults anymore, it was fun to be assisted into this garment. The woman dressing me and I got pretty intimate as she wrapped me tight making the kimono feel somewhat like a corset.
There were many foods from several Asian countries to try for a small price. I ate a couple of foods from Bangladesh while watching a performance of Japanese belly dancers. The music reminded me of Morocco.
I was able to use English quite a bit to converse with people of several different lands. This as a great experience of soaking in not only Japanese culture but other world cultures too. It was neat to see all the different foreigners making their home in Kanazawa.