It’s a love story, baby, just say it in Japanese

Drum roll, please…introducing our first guest speaker: Dr Timothy Brown! As an expert in Japanese religion, he gave a lecture on religious trends and differences in Japanese religion. From Buddhism to Shintoism to atheism, Japanese religion is more a practice than an identity. This was an interesting lecture as this idea of religion is so different from religions in America. 

Today’s core language classes included a significant milestone for the Beginner class, because we finished learning the hiragana chart. We also learned how to say our birthdays and practiced speaking in front of the class. 

In the afternoon we had a special shodo (calligraphy) class taught by our very own Rie-sensei. Shodo takes a lot of practice and patience, and we learned how important breathing is. We wrote Japanese characters on our hachimaki (headbands) that we will wear during our sports festival. 

Our favorite activity of the day was singing and dancing at karaoke! We sang a mixture of English and Japanese songs, and bonded over dance numbers and Taylor Swift ballads.