News

Japanese A Capella Concert
March 27, 2010

German Assistant Anne Gottfried and Italian Professor Cristiana Furlan hosted la Soirée Cabaret on March 27, 2010 where 4 sections of the Department of Modern Languages performed theater pieces and singing, etc. The Japanese section did two performances. One was a Japanese a capella concert. Here are some more information on the songs.

浜辺の歌, Hamabe no uta (The song of the seashore). 1913, Kokei Hayashi (poet) and Tamezoo Narita (composer). This traditional sounding "Song of the Beach" has been sung in Japan for over 70 years. This song represents the experience of the poet's young days. Kokei Hayashi spent time convalescing near the ocean when he was sick. The poem was written in 1913. Later young Tamezoo Narita, who was a student at Tokyo Music Institute, composed the melody.

大地讃頌, Daichi sanshou (Praise for the land). 1962, Atsuo Oki (poet), Shin Sato (composer). The last chapter of the Cantata called "Songs of Soil". The seventh, and the last song from the cantata "Songs of Soil". Harmony-wise, it is the hardest of the 3 songs we performed. One of the most popular choices for contemporary choral music in Japan.

花, Hana (Flowers). 1900, Rentaro Taki (one of the best-known composers of Japan), Hagoromo Takeshima (poet). Araguably the first modern choir piece ever written in Japan. It was composed by Taki just before Taki's study abroad in 1901 at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig. It describes the arrival of spring over the Sumida River in Tokyo.

Japanese Debate Demonstration
March 27, 2010

The second performance was a debate in Japanese. There are many ways to make use of one's ability of foreign languages. Traditionally, at an academic institution such as a university, the study of literature has been the academic "red meat" so that one can chew on it and say something interesting about it. Advaced courses of language X (substitute the language of your choice for X), have been typically about the literature written in that language. It is simply a reflection of what the professors studied when they were graduate students. That is fine, really FINE. But that is NOT THE ONLY WAY to go about it. My students Fred Dubois and Elliott Verreault and I wanted to show just that. "Debate" as such here is not synonymous with "discussion". In a debate, there are two opposing sides (affirmative and negative) and the task of each side is not to persuade the other. (That's for a discussion.) The task, or the burden of proof for the affirmative is to demonstrate that the status quo is unacceptable and thus there is a need for change. The task of the negative is the opposite: the status quo is satisfactory and there is no need for change. By doing the academic, formal debate, students learn how to construct arguments, how to refute opponent's arguments, how to gather data, etc. Best of all, they learn how to think critically. This is a set of skills needed for any walk of life (even in literature) in the future for the students I take care of. We have, for this occasion, created a shortened version of debate that terminates in 20 minutes.

Sugaring-off to the Cabane du PicBois
March 21, 2009

Ça coule, ça coule

As usual, this spring, we went to a sugar shack in Brigham, Quebec. (You can view the web photo album of our outing here.) The students from JSE102, JSE202, the Japanese students, our friends, Nozomi, and I had a wonderful time. The participants are: Samantha Bedard, Catherine Claus, Marc Lepage, Pierre Proulx, Maryse Proulx, Joëlle Proulx, Dave Bouchard, Kanami Murakami, Fred Dubois, Matthieu Lirette-Gélinas, Danielle Duguay, Stéphane Mercure, Stéphane's girlfriend, Chihiro Tajima, Shigetaka Wakai, Alex Martinez Perez, Kevin Aubin, Ai Fukuzaki, Benjamin Constantineau, Dominic Tardif, Julie Fortin, Nozomi Maehara, Pauline Prince, and myself.

It was very sunny all day and there was no wind. It was really nice to sit on the bench on the deck outside of the sugar shack, doing nothing, or having a little chat with each other, or watching Mr. Pollender, the owner of the sugar shack, preparing the "tire" (maple taffy) for us. This is our 5th time to visit the Cabane du PicBois. We started the sugaring-off to the Cabane du PicBois back in 2005. We are always welcome here as we are a good, well-behaving group.

At the Table

Half way through the meal, I decided to ask everyone's opinion on the food. The pea soup here is quite special as they "puree" the beans to make the soup. Of course other ingredients are in, as well, such as diced ham, and other stuff. La Presse ranked this sugar shack as the second best sugar shack in the Province of Quebec in 2003.

The interviewees are: Chihiro who liked the omelet a lot but not the "oreilles de Crisse", Stéphane, Stéphane's girlfriend who said "こんにちは" ("hello" in Japanese), Kanami, Dave, Dominic, Danielle, Fred who thinks he can go to a sugar shack near Keio University!, Ai and Kevin. They all liked the food very much. Me, too.

The maple syrup they used for the "tire" was the syrup they made for this season. It was nice, clear syrup and it had just the right sweetness according to everyone's palate.

Spring has come: a bubbling stream

There is a little stream by the sugar shack and it is constantly making comfortable, babbling sound. It sort of makes you feel like listening to it forever.

If I just keep teaching Japanese with Nozomi, hopping from building to building at Bishop's, I never get to hear the bubbling sound like this. It is really nice to come out here. Spring is all around us now. The day before, Nozomi and I successfully finished the last organized event of the year: the Japanese bamboo flute concert. It was a great weight off our shoulders to see all the events successfully completed.

Elliott's slideshow from Yamaguchi, Japan
January 17, 2009

BU student Elliott Verreault, who is studying at Yamaguchi Prefectural University, Yamaguchi, Japan, produced a slideshow for the students from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, who are leaving Yamaguchi as they have come to the end of their exchange program. Our own students such as Elliott Verreault, Dominique Daneau-Pelletier, Marc-André McPherson will be there for another semester. Another BU student Bridget McKenzie will finish her stay there soon and she will be coming back here in April. The slideshow features not only Centre folks, but also our students (mentioned above) and our past teaching assistants Sayaka Kamura and Rie Hirano plus the past exchange students from YPU Michiko Iwamoto and Miwa Kubo. Just look at everyone's smiling face. You will know what a good exchange program is all about. Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words! You can do the same and more! At first, I was a little hesitant to put the slideshow up as it is for the students from another school. I decided not to care nor worry about it. The BU students, the Centre students, and the YPU students, they all don't care about where they are from, what affiliation they have, what language they speak. They ALL met at the same place and bonded with each other and became friends. This is indeed a small miracle and I am happy for them.