For the past years at Camas High school, there has been a festival to help students learn about the Japanese culture. This event takes place turning A and B lunches on Friday, February 22nd, 2019. During, there are different things the students who aren’t apart of the festival can explore relating to the culture. Such as food items (Ramune, miso soup, onigiri, nominmono, curry, tea, gyoza, and mochi), pop culture (Anime, manga, kendama, video games, and maid cafes), and old culture traditions (senbonhiki, teruteru bouzu, and hiragana writing).
The students who are apart of this festival are originally in the Japanese class. Every year Mrs. Lovre, the Japanese teacher, assigns all the students to choose a topic that relates to the Japanese culture, research it, make a poster with a game for the outside students visiting the booth to enjoy, then get all the supplies for their booth. “I look forward to all my students talk to other students and teach them what they’ve learned. Hopefully, see what the classes have done.” Lovre explains happily when asked what she looks forward to this upcoming festival this year.
One of the booths taking place this year is one that hasn’t been done before was the maid cafe. The maid cafe is very popular in Japan today. It usually includes young men and women dressing in formal servant clothing at a restaurant/cafe like atmosphere. The servers usually serve food such as cute deserts with syrup as well as a popular breakfast, omelet rice. Many students and Lovre in the Japanese class were all looking forward to the maid cafe booth. And at the actual festival, the group didn’t disappoint. The students dressed in formal clothing while giving out small deserts to the other students visiting. Although the students did well, many were wondering why they chose this topic. “[It is] because we wanted to prove a point that maid cafes aren’t provocative but more fun and games,” says Lexi Howard, a junior at CHS who was apart of the group.
This year the booths were filled with many decorations that sent the crowds to go wild for the games and food. Even some of the students apart of the booths even were enjoying the presentations. “I really enjoyed seeing how people presented their topic,” Howard stated. Hopefully, the next year will be just as enjoyable for the students.
