Japanese Cultural Festival 

Year 8 BUNKASAI (Japanese Cultural Festival)

Myles Windsor  8A

'On Thursday, the 16th June, all students in 8A, 8B, 8C and 8D had the BUNKASAI (Cultural Festival) incursion at school. It really taught me all the very interesting things about Japanese culture and history. The first thing that happened on that day was listening to the speeches. Year 12 school captains’ speeches introduced us to different opportunities that we could pursue in the future if we continue to study Japanese. Mr. Dunne’s speech was very funny and he taught us what interesting activities we can do in Japan. 

There was a piano performance of “Merry go round” from the anime “Howl’s Moving Castle”, which was enjoyable and made me move into the movie story.  

In period 2, we had a presenter, Jarrod Hoare, who showed us what Rakugo is and different types of Rakugo stories. Jarrod also showed us Japanese comedy which was very entertaining. In period 3, we watched a demonstration of kendo which is Japanese fencing. Some of us got the opportunity to swing the kendo swords, too. 

In the last period, we experienced sumie (brush painting) and we drew bamboo. It was a mindful activity. I saw some other sumie paintings created by the sumie presenter, Junko Azukawa. At lunch we got to eat Obento. It was so tasty and I really liked it. 

My favourite activity was Kendo fencing, it was really entertaining to watch and I learned a new sport that is native from Japan. One thing that I did not expect from BUNKASAI today was the rakugo stories and I found them extremely interesting and learned some new Japanese words. I really enjoyed BUNKASAI day learning all the different things and I felt grateful for participating in BUNKASAI. I hope future Year 8 students will get to continue to do it.'