Sunday, October 2, 2016

International Festival

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.
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.
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.