Obon Season - Late-Summer Get Together

We had another nice potluck & movie night, featuring the obon season this time.  Typically in Japan, late summer involves with summer festivals, yukata, yatai (vendor foods), and fireworks. We didn't have fireworks, but some of us wore yukata, and we all enjoyed the foods and watching Japanese documentary.   We also had Shuei's family and friend visiting from Japan. In fact, they just arrived here in Wisconsin on the night before, so I hope the jetlag wasn't getting them too bad. Thank you all coming and hope to see you again soon!

Obon Potluck and Movie, August 25

While the Obon holiday is officially the 15th of August (or July in some parts of Japan), we are going to celebrate on August 25th with a potluck and movie night.

Come dressed in yukata if you have one, and we'll try some bon odori (traditional dance), eat some good food, and watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Obon Potluck and Movie
Saturday, August 25
6pm
Hozumi's house (see facebook event for address)

Sushi, Ahoy!

Members of the Japanese club gathered for sushi at the Bamboo House in Onalaska a few months ago.  Last month we tried out the new Pirate Sushi in downtown La Crosse and welcomed new members to the group. Another meeting will be announced in a few weeks, so check back often!

Why Japanese love manga/anime

Here is my self-claimed reason (excuse) on why Japanese love manga/anime.

Before Chinese characters were imported from China into Japan, Japanese did not have written language. Japanese tried to learn how to write using Chinese characters, it was very difficult for them. Japanese then tried to invent different ways of writing, such as creating kana letters, to make it easier for Japanese, but written language was still used only by a small percent of high class Japanese. Several hundred years after Chinese characters were first imported, Japanese were finally ready to learn how to write. They created text books and used in schools to teach students. Since they did not know how to read/write, the text books used many pictures to help understand the written context. This is how manga started in the Japanese history. So in history, manga was actually text books!