School News and recent activity - NILS

We would like to introduce local cuisine of Fukuoka (Hakata).
Today, Hakata’s most popular souvenir is Karashi mentaiko (spicy marinated pollock roe). It was first produced on January 10, 1949. It goes best with a bowl of steaming rice. Or mix it with spaghetti noodles. Put them in Dashi-maki (an egg dish). Karashi mentai are known throughout Japan.
The origin of Tonkotsu ramen (noodle in a thick broth made by boiling pork bones) is still not clear. Some people say it originated in Kurume. Others say it has origins in Nagasaki Champon noodles. Enjoy a delicious bowl of tonkotsu ramen by freely adding beni-shoga (slices red ginger) and sesame seeds found on any shop table. Be like a local and order other portion of noodles if you have enough room in your stomach.
Hakata is a treasure chest of delicious foods. The popular hot pot dish called Mizu-taki originated here in 1905 when consome and Chinese style chicken soups were mixed together. Also, there’s Motsu-nabe originally a countryside meal made with beed innards and sushi made with fresh seafood from the Genkai Sea.
We hope you will enjoy not only studying Japanese here at NILS but eating local cuisine here in Fukuoka!

New Semester of NILS has just started (We have two semesters: April-September and October-March). Our students enjoyed a 5-day fall break, and then they started a new semester today. Many students began to prepare for colleges/universities. After today’s class, some students came to the school and consulted with their teachers about colleges/universities where they wish to study the most. Students study Japanese much harder than before to make their dreams come true.
We also have a great news! Two students passed graduate schools: One student studies at Kyushu University and the other at Hiroshima University. Both universities are among the highest level universities in Japan. One of them also passed Level 1 of Japanese Language Proficiency Test! All of the teachers and staffs of NILS hope their futures will be successful!!

Chinese students of NILS opened a one-day gyoza (餃子) shop in the festival held in Ogori at the end of August. This festival is held every summer in Ogori and many people in the community enjoy it.
Gyoza, or pot sticker is a Chinese dumpling widely popular in China and Japan as well as outside of East Asia. Gyoza typically consist of a ground meat and/or vegitable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping.
Boiled dumplings are popular in China, and our students also served boiled ones in the festival. They started to cook gyoza at noon and to serve in the evening. Their gyoza was so popular that people coming to the festival really enjoyed Chinese-style gyoza (a little different from Japanese-style). They served more than 100 packs (6 pieces of gyoza in a pack) in the festival. Our students enjoyed Japanese culture, and at the same time they had an opportunity to introduce their culture to Japanese people in the community.

We usually have an activity every Wednesday. The purpose is to let our students know more about Japanese culture and enjoy Fukuoka. This week the students from Austria and the U.S. experienced calligraphy with Shimogawa-sensei. At first, she taught them how to say “ink (sumi)”, “brush (fude)” and some other related words in Japanese. And then teacher taught them how to use the brush with the ink, and how to write strokes. Since both of our students had studied Chinese before, they wrote Chinese characters more smoothly than we expected. Finally they got very good and satisfying works.

Summer Course of 12 days finished on July 31. On the last day, we had a small speech contest. They studied Japanese at NILS for a short time of period, but their language skills improved more than we expected.
A Korean student introduced her country in Japanese using sllides. She told us about many interesting and fascinating spots in Korea. Her Japanese got much better than before, and it was very comfotable to listen to her story given in her fluent Japanese. We’ve been to Korea once for job and we didn’t have enough time to enjoy the country, but we really would like to go to Korea when we heard her speech.
All of the students really enjoyed our summer course, and they told us they would like to join the program again! We are planning to the same kind of program again next summer.

We would like to introduce Japanese customs to the visitors to our website. The first one is “Obon.”
Obon, also refered to as “Day of the Dead,” is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor departed sprits of one’s ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestros’ graves, and when the spirits of ancestrors are supposed to revisit the household altars (NILS is closed during this period). Related to Obon, Bon Odori (Bon dance) is an event held during Obon. Bon Odori is celebrated as a reminder of the gratefulness one should feel toward one’s ancestors. Many communities in Japan have their own Bon Odori festivals.

There are same kinds of festivals as Obon in some countries in Asia. One of our students from Singapore told us that they had a similar custom to Obon. We, Japanese, have some Buddhist customs to honor our ancestors throughouth the year.

Welcome to Japan! NILS Summer Course of 12 days has started! 5 students from Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan joined this course. On the same day, 5 more students from the US, Austria, and Canada started Daily Conversation Program. So Ohashi branch of NILS is now filled with students from all over the world.
Teachers and staffs are very happy to see the students try to communicate with each other only in Japanese, not in English, German, and Chinese. This circumstance will help them improve their language skills dramatically.
Hope all of the students in our programs will enjoy their study and stay in Japan!

Tanabata is one of our main events. Students had a great opportunity to experience Japanese culture, callligraphy and tea ceremony. NILS invited masters of calligraphy and tea, and they showed students how to do it.
Students really enjoyed these Japanese traditions. The masters told us that they also had a great time with foreign students.

See the Video uploaded in YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR1V-D6NX0w

We will show you how our students enjoy learning Japanese language at NILS through touching Japanese culture!
NILS provides school events every month, hopefully you will enjoy reading school news from us.