This past weekend more than 20 Nagasaki JETs came out to support some real, live grassroots internationalization at the 19th Nagasaki International Festival. This is the third year we’ve had the second floor of the Dejima Koryu Kaikan to ourselves, and every year we’re trying new things in our big space. This year we had three main attractions.
JET Cafe
JET Cafe is an area where guests can sit down and enjoy conversation with native English speakers. It’s like a cafe in that guests can come and go as they please, and we have tables and chairs… but unfortunately there’s no coffee. Maybe we can work on that for next year…
We’ve received feedback in previous years that guests wanted more English interaction space. That’s why we more than doubled the space for JET Cafe this year. We had six tables, with one native speaker each. The tables were divided into three different levels: kids, intermediate, and advanced. Guests of all ages had a great time chatting with our volunteers.
Culture Booths
This year we had culture booths from China, South Korea, South Africa, and Singapore. Each booth had cultural items like flags, money, books, traditional clothing, and much more on display for guests to see. At the booths were JET participants from those countries and they were there to interact with the guests and to tell them about their cultures.
World Candy Contest
This was a new part of the festival this year! Guests received a card when they arrived at our floor that had pictures of four different kinds of candy from around the world. At each culture booth guests could get a piece of candy that is commonly eaten in those countries. Once they ate each of the pieces of candy we would invite them to vote for their favorite by putting a sticker on a voting wall. Over 250 people voted on their favorite candy and it was South Korea that got the most votes (104!).
The Prefectural CIRs are planning to continue joining this festival in coming years, so if you’re interested in coming out to chat with locals and put your culture on display then we would love to have you join us.
Contact the CIR PA with any questions or suggestions.
