2022 Activity Report

I reported in last month's report that August was an unusual month with cold and hot weather. But this month, to my surprise, it has been so cold that it seems as if we skipped fall. In Belgrade, September may be the coldest month for indoor temperatures. This is because many buildings here have public heating systems, which are managed by the municipality, and this heating is usually not turned on until October. Therefore, a room that should be warm enough to spend the winter in short sleeves when the heating is turned on becomes a place so cold that it almost chills you to the bottom of your body. I have lost count of the number of people I know who have fallen ill due to this sudden cold. Fortunately, I myself managed not to get sick.

Now, I would like to report that we held three events this month.

The first was the Book club held on Saturday, September 10. Since it was held just before test week, there were only two participants. However, since the students knew each other, we were able to spend a relaxing time together over a cup of green tea left over from last month's tea party. The students were also trying a slightly difficult book, so we spent a lot of time reading the book, taking questions as well. They were still "not reading enough!" to talk about the books they had read. so we didn't talk too much, which was good because it gave us time to concentrate on the reading.

The weather this month has been somewhat unusual. One week it was extremely hot, the next week it was cold with lots of rain, making it difficult to choose the right clothes. It was impressive that the locals said to each other that the weather wasn't like this in the past. Since half of this month was a summer vacation at the university, we didn't hold too many events because we didn't think there would be a lot of student attendance. This month's activity report is below.

The first event this month was the Origami party, which took place on August 20.

At first we planned to have a Perapera café, but the Japanese speakers we invited fell ill one after another, probably due to the bad weather, and we had to cancel the event on the morning of the event.

We were only able to contact the students when some of them living in the suburbs of Belgrade had already left home. So we decided to change the event to an origami event. There were many origami papers left behind by teachers who had been at the University of Belgrade for generations, and I myself had bought more origami papers when I temporarily went back to Japan, so we decided to have an origami event while chatting at a cafe. Despite the change, we were happy to have seven students in the end.

I brought an origami book with English explanations that I had bought at a 100 yen store, so the students seemed to easily understand the mountain and valley folds, and they all seemed to enjoy playing origami. Some students who do not usually come to events were also there, and they got to know upperclassmen with whom they do not usually interact, and had a lot of fun talking about their university classes and so on. Some of the students had heard of origami but had never touched it before, so it seemed to be a good opportunity for them to play origami.

Another event was a "tea party" as a new trial. There were 28 participants. Since it was an exam period, I planned this event to give people a break. At first, I thought that not so many people would come and set to start at 3:00 p.m., but more people showed up than I expected, and we had to split the event into two sections of two hours each due to space constraints.

The tea party featured the making of matcha tea, which gave people a chance to experience brewing their own matcha tea. Many students seemed to have gathered at the event, as they had never brew and drink the tea, even though they had seen it in videos and at events before. Although the traditional way of tea ceremony is to drink from a single bowl while passing it around among the guests, in light of the current situation, we asked the students to bring their own bowls and brew the tea by themselves. As a result, everyone tried making their own tea using a CHASHAKU (tea scoop) and CHASEN (tea whisk), which I think was a good thing. Many students said they were glad it was not as bitter as they thought. I think it was because they tasted with sweets.

After that, we had some time, so I brewed some green tea to accompany the chatting, but it seemed to be insufficient after drinking the thick tea they had made themselves. If there is a next time, perhaps the order of green tea and matcha could be reversed. It was good to see so many students interacting with each other throughout the event. Personally, I enjoyed the event because it was a time to talk slowly with students I had not seen in a while, although preparation was more difficult than for other events because of food preparation.

Although there were fewer events this month, I am glad that we were able to have an event that attracted a large number of people. I realized that food-related events are still very popular. I sincerely hope that we can return to where people can more easily cook and share food together.

I think the major accomplishment of this month was this event: the Perapera Cafe we held on Saturday, July 2 at 3:00 p.m. We were finally able to hold a face-to-face Perapera café, which we had been holding off on holding until now. Although I could not count the accurate number of participants, there were about 10 Japanese and 10 Serbians at the event at all times.

We stayed at the cafe for more than 3 hours, changing seats along the way. (This long time may be unthinkable in Japan, but in Serbia, it is enough time to stay for a cup of coffee. Of course, we always order more than one cup.)

Although each group used a completely different language and percentage of that language, there was a lot of laughter throughout the event. At the end of the event, I thought it would cause trouble for the cafe, so I wrapped it up, and many students disappointed the event was over. Both Japanese and Serbian people asked us to do this event more often, and students reminded us to hold the next event, so we will try to hold this event as much as possible during the rest of the year.

And the last event of the month was the Perapera Cafe held on Saturday, July 30. This time it was held on Zoom so that people could talk with Japanese students. There were 9 participants in total. Again, we started with self-introductions and talked about our hobbies and interests. This time, the topic was "Have you ever been to a festival in the summer?”, but as usual, we ended up talking about something completely different.

Although the number of participants was smaller than the previous meeting, there were some students who had not yet studied in Japan, so they had concrete stories about Japanese university students and it seemed to be a fulfilling meeting that gave them a realistic impression of life in Japan.

Once again, I saw people keep talking with various people even beyond the scheduled one-hour time slot. Perhaps that is a good thing, even if the number of participants is not large.

This is a report on this month's activities. The number of participants in the second half of the month was not large due to the summer vacation, but it was a great opportunity for us to have a deep conversation with each of them. We hope to create more opportunities to learn about Japanese culture in August.

Now, back to the main topic. We had two events this month.

The first was a reading event held on Saturday, June 18. Three students participated in this event. This time, we decided to hold it in a cafe. This was because of the aforementioned bomb threats. University facilities were no exception, and a bomb threat was issued to the Faculty of Arts and Letters building a few days before the event, so the university was closed. I kept books in the building, so I couldn't take out them for Japanese language learners. I brought the books I had personally stored to the café and set up a reading event. My book are not compatible with the level of Japanese language learners and many of them are difficult to read, but the students did their best to read through them for a little over an hour. It's not that they didn't understand the story at all, they seemed to understand the outline. We ended the meeting by having them talk about what they had read, mixing Japanese and English. Next time we don't want to be involved in any closures due to bomb threats.

Japanese classes resumed this month. To beginner level students, the class uses "Irodori" to acquaint them with Japanese for daily life. With intermediate learners, we read articles from News web Easy, a newspaper article website where easy Japanese is used. The aim is to have students learn about Japanese culture by reading Japanese news together. When this Japanese class is conducted at a different time from their exam period, a few students come to the class one by one, and I enjoy the class because I can ask them various questions, or conversely, ask them questions about Serbia, which is fun.

So, that is my report on this month's activities. At the University of Belgrade, the university building will also be closed from mid-July to mid-August. This is the period when there are no exams, even for students who still have exams to pass. Therefore, there will be no students in the dormitories. We will try to keep in touch with students next month, though in a small way.

The first event this month was the Japan café on Saturday, May 14. There were three participants, and we made it our first in-person event at the café nearest the university. The theme for this event was "Matsuri (festivals)”, and although it was a week late, we started by talking about “Tango no Sekku (Children’s Day)”, and in relation to that, we talked about “Hinamatsuri (Girls' Day)”. We then introduced the three major national and regional festivals famous in Japan, the food stalls found at festivals, and festival food, and compared them to festivals in Serbia. Since these festivals are different from those in Europe and the United States, I collected photos and other information in advance on a PowerPoint presentation and shared them with the students at the event. And we talked about what these festivals are while looking at photos and illustrations for about an hour, exceeding the scheduled time. Even if you have seen scenes of summer festivals in anime and other media, most of the time the focus is on the food stalls. This may be why, even students who have learned Japanese culture for more than three years at school do not know processions, mikoshi (portable shrines), and dances ,which differ from region to region and festival to festival unless they have been to Japan. Therefore, I received a lot of questions, and the students said they learned a lot of new things. Talking with students here, many of them said that if they were to visit Japan, they would like to go in the spring to see cherry blossoms. However, spring is also a busy time for them with schoolwork and jobs. On the other hand, many festivals are held in the summer, when students and workers have a chance to visit Japan. Summer is hot and humid weather and not a very comfortable time to travel, but I hope this Japan café on the festival culture would be one of the reasons to visit Japan in summer.

This April, as usual, was a month we could not tell if it’s cold or hot, and winter and spring came and went week by week. Perhaps because of this weather, I think many people, myself included, got a little sick. As I mentioned last month, this April was also the month when indoor mask requirements were lifted and the university instructed us to conduct face-to-face classes as much as possible. With only two months left in this semester, the number of students coming to the university has increased dramatically, and it seems that the university is finally returning to its pre-Corona form. In response to this, I changed GJO's weekend activities to face-to-face from mid-semester onward as much as possible. So, I am pleased to report below on the GJO's activities this month as well.

First, we continued our evening Japanese classes this month. There are some students who have been studying for a long time before college, but there are few classes that match their language ability, so they have to take low level classes. One of the reasons we conduct this evening Japanese classes is to give these students a chance to continue learning Japanese. This month, I taught beginner level students using "Irodori" provided by Japan Foundation, and intermediate level and above students using intermediate level speed reading materials and NHK for School videos for discussion-based lessons. In some of the levels we had finished the textbooks because I taught at a fast pace. So, at the request of the students, we switched to classes in which we solved the reading comprehension questions of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test together. This activity will end this month as we are busy in May toward the end of the semester. Still, I hope to resume this activity in the second half of June after the first round of the tests.

Next, on Sunday, April 10, we held a Japan café on Zoom from 11:00 to 12:00. There were three participants and we talked about Japanese cute culture and its problems. First, I asked the students to give me as many examples of cute culture as they could think of and to talk about what they found interesting. Some students talked about Sanrio characters and GHIBLI. What I found very interesting was that the Sanrio character, Kuromi-chan, has caught the eye of people who like punk rock and has become popular in Europe. I had never heard of such a story, and while Kuromi-chan is no doubt a cute character, the reasons for her popularity were interesting and different from those in Japan. I then introduced Yurukyara to the students. The students were impressed by Japan's love of cute. We continued to talk about idol culture, and I told them about the music situation in Japan, which loves cute, and other Asian countries, where cool tends to be popular. I also explained cute culture and the expectations from the fans that support it and their dark side. It was a sobering topic because I personally support some Japanese idols, but it was fun to listening to students' views of Asia. In the end, the members agreed that everything has pros and cons, and the same goes for cute culture.

The third event was the Perapera Cafe on Saturday, April 23. It was held by Zoom as before to interact with students in Japan. There were a total of 15 participants this time, including three Japanese language students from the University of Belgrade, three other Japanese language students from Taiwan and other countries, and nine Japanese students.

Since it was April, the beginning of a school year in Japan, many people meet or attend for the first time. They introduced themselves and talked about their hobbies and interests. Since it was before Golden Week in Japan and before the Easter vacations in Serbia, I gave them a topic, "What do you think of consecutive holidays?" beforehand, but there was almost no talk about holidays. Instead, students talked about their hobbies, why they had chosen their respective universities, what they are studying and where they live. They also talked about recommend places to visit in Japan. An hour wasn't enough again, and students continued to ask questions about Serbia, discuss music recommendations for each country, and share links to websites even after the end time.