TUFS Holds Thai Culture Collaborative Project with Mahidol University

August 22, 2019

On Thursday the 25th and Friday the 26th of July, the “Make and Feel Thailand!” workshop, a project in which participants experience Thai food, culture and lifestyle through traditional crafts, was held at the Fuchu City Civic Activities Center, “Platz”.

This workshop was held as part of the Center for Intercultural Studies’ “Multicultural Activities” project, and participants experienced Thai culture through making bags, doing tie-dye and learning how to cook Thai food. TUFS Professor NAKAYAMA Toshihide (Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa) was at the center of this project and invited five researchers experienced in cultural workshops from Mahidol University to act as teachers for this workshop, which gave the event a unique learning atmosphere not unlike that of TUFS. The workshop was taught in Thai, but students from the TUFS Thai department were on hand to act as interpreters and teaching assistants. Participants ranged in age from 8-60, with up to 25 participants each session, and 76 participants in total. Some participants even came all the way from Shikoku. The three workshops were enjoyable each session and, in addition to making crafts, participants could also learn about the culture, beauty and values behind the crafts of Thailand by listening to and interacting with the native Thai teachers.