Autumn semester, 2020- for international students we organized the event named “Let’s make a New Year’s Greeting Card in Japanese style!”. In the lesson, the participants tried to write a New Year’s greeting card using a calligraphy pen.

Teacher TAKAHASHI Erina who is experienced in teaching Calligraphy to international tourists taught them practical lessons by showing them her hands on camera. The participants learned some typical words for celebrating New Year in Japanese and their meanings and how to read them.

After they had practiced on the paper that they had prepared beforehand learning by imitation, they shared their work through the camera. Although for the participants it was the first time to write different types of phrases for celebrating New Year in Japanese, for example, [あけましておめでとう], [迎春], [謹賀新年] (three of them all mean “Happy New Year” in different way)and so on, they wrote them perfectly in a little while. Also, when they were writing their name in Katakana, the teacher wrote the model of each name for them.

Supporters for exchange students, MASUDA Kaho (dept. of French Literature, 4th grade) and YAMAUCHI Hinata (dept. of Information and Communication Science, 4th grade) joined this event too. They explained the culture of the Japanese New Year’s greeting card and twelve zodiac signs in English.
They took a photo of every participant who had written one letter to make [あけましておめでとう(Happy New Year)] as Hinata suggested. Their dependable teamwork was wonderful due to Kaho leading the event using her high-level language skills and Hinata’s unique ideas.

After enjoying writing calmly, they talked with each other. The event finished with full of students’ smiles.