About New Year

Hi I'm Mayako!

I promised Manish to talk about Japanese New Year,
so now I'm writing the blog =)

In Japan, there are many tradition on New years day.
I'll introduce them.
I hope we can do some of them in new year
with Manish, Monika, and other EPs, if possible.

In Japan, we welcome a god of the year.
(The god is animal, and differ from year to year. Monika, you may know. Do you remember?)
So we decorate our living room or the entrance with pine branches or
kagami-mochi, a large, round rice cake offered to the gods, etc.

And we send new years card to friends and teachers.
We often draw the picture of the animal of the year.
The animal of the next year is tiger!

And there are many many play for new year.
Hanetsuki, Takoage, Iroha-Karuta, Fukuwarai, Sugoroku, Kakizome..
Do you know any of them?
Hanetsuki is a kind of sport.
Takoage is to fly a kite(Tako).
Iroha-Karuta is card game,
and Fukuwarai, I like the best, someone with his eyes closed
places parts of human face on a sheet of paper.
It's very fun. The word "Fuku" means happiness, and "Warai" means laughing.
Sugoroku is like a backgammon.
and Kakizome is wrinting Kanji character with Sumi, a chinese ink.

We do these play wishing the happiness of the year.

And we eat Osechi-Ryori, a special dishes on new year's day.
Woman cook it on the last day of the year and
she can relax in new year.

I think there are other many things I can't write about New Year!

How is your country's new year?

Hello everyone;)

My name is Hiro. I’m a project leader of this JAPAN team and TN manager of Monika’s office; Tonda-Ya.. I ‘m looking forward to seeing EPs, Mr. Manish and Ms.Rai.

It’s my first time to be a blogger.

Now, I show you my favorite spot in Japan.

That’s Mt.Fuji!! Maybe you've already heard about Mt.Fuji, the most highest mountain in Japan(3776m). It is famous for it’s beautiful appearance. Nowadays for everyone Mt.Fuji is one of the symbol of Japan. By the way, do you know other aspect of this mountain?? Not only dynamic attraction, Mt.Fuji has cultural side. From ancient era Japanese have a custom of worshipping nature such as sun and river and large mountain. We can often find the article about Mt.Fuji in ancient writing. The first article is more than 1200 years ago!! And it’s often selected by the subject matter of HAIKU(俳句) or art ex)Fugaku 36 kei (富岳三十六景)　work of Katsusika Hokusai(葛飾北斎) gave movement to Western world at 18th century. As this shows, Mt.Fuji is always with Japanese history and people. Why don’t you going to see Mt.Fuji next time??
Bye Hiro

As the inernship

Hi! I'm the blog manager Yosuke.
Today, I want to ask everyone who comes (or already came) to Japan for the internship

As you may know, Japan has been developed with Information Technology (I.T.) drastically from 19th century.
On the other hand, many Japanese traditional cultures had gone because of they were not on the trend.

What do you think about this?
Is there anything your country had lost along the time going?

If you have any idea about this, please show me an example if possible, and answer whether you want to get it back to your daily life or not.

This is a little difficult question. When you don't come up with any idea, just answer "is it good to recover any traditional things or life-style that have already gone?", please.

Thank you for reading!
Yosuke.

Monika's Birthday!!!

hello,everyone! This is Youhei,Kobayan.


We had Monika's birthday party the other day.
That was very exciting party , I think. We ate takoyaki,nabe, cake,and so on.
They ware very delicious!! Especially,Tuda'start was so good!!

How about ,Monika? I heard that you cooked tkoyaki for the first time,was it easy?
I think you did very well. If there are something that you have never tried,please tell us! Some day let's cook and eat it together.

I offer you my congratulations! Happy birthday,Monika!



Well,so long,everyone.