2019 Activity Report
March Activity Report
31 March 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
With March being warmer than usual, many people must have been looking forward to seeing the cherry blossoms, which have become Lithuania’s new spring attraction. Furthermore, at the end of the month, there was an “Asia Week”, which was mainly organized by the students of Asian Studies, and both the students and the staff were enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, due to the impact of the new coronavirus that has spread worldwide, all events, including lectures and extracurricular activities, were cancelled in Lithuania from March 13 onwards. The government says this strict quarantine will continue until mid-April. All classes are now being conducted online.
The 4th Baltic Alliance for Asian Studies (BAAS) was successfully held this month after many events were canceled or postponed. BAAS is a biennial conference for Asian research professionals held in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Researchers from these three Baltic countries and other regions around the world gathered to give presentations and actively exchange opinions on various fields. Students from Vytautas Magnus University volunteered at the conference, where they exchanged opinions with guests from Japan and experts in Japanese studies. BAAS was a blended conference with some presentations and Q&A sessions held through online video conferencing systems such as Skype and Zoom for attendees who were unable to come to Lithuania due to COVID -19.
(Please refer to the https://balticasianstudies.wordpress.com/ for a detailed program).
After the quarantine was tightened, activities for students who had fewer opportunities to use Japanese due to staying at home began. In cooperation with Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, which also conducts distance learning, we are holding weekly Zoom online Japanese exchange events. In the first session, participants introduced themselves and were free to talk about whatever they liked. In the second session, participants had book-talk in which they introduced one of their favorite books to other participants. Teachers and graduates also participated alongside the students, and enjoyed the language exchange. This event will continue next month as well, as the Czech Republic has been ordered to stay home until mid-May, and Lithuania until mid-April.
February Activity Report
29 February 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
Students who had spent the New Year’s holiday without snow returned, and the University of Vytautas Magnus became lively in February. The new school year started and the students’ lives gradually picked up the pace.
There are many participants in the Reading Club this semester too. The members are mainly sophomores and juniors, but the number of first-year students and participants from outside the university have gradually increased, making it a place for Japanese language learners to interact. Starting this semester, I will extend my club time by 30 minutes and devote the last 15 minutes of my time to ‘book-talk’. Book-talk is a time for members to give their impressions of the book they read that day and the books they recommend to other participants. In the beginning, a Japanese teacher lead the conversation, but in the middle, students began to freely ask and introduce books they had read in Japanese or Lithuanian. Books in the Asia Books Library have been greatly enriched by this donation. In the future, we would like to cooperate with the library to promote activities to read a lot of Japanese.
The month-end discussion event “Let’s Talk” took place on the relatively difficult theme of “diversity in multicultural societies”. About 30 students participated and spent more than an hour talking in English and Japanese. In discussions using the keywords “assimilation” and “multiculturalism” many people expressed harsh opinions about the difficulties of living as a foreigner and the attitudes of society, based on both their own experiences and those of their parents and grandparents. The participants, who see multiculturalism as a failure, cited examples illustrating the need for a balance between assimilation and multiculturalism, and discussed its difficulties and contradictions. After the event, a Japanese student who participated said, “It was fun because I have never talked with my friends about these topics.”
January Activity Report
31 January 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
This winter, Lithuania is much warmer than usual, and Kaunas has little snow. A student currently on holiday told me that “people in Lithuania like snow, so everyone is disappointed”.
After the exams in December, there was a one and a half month long winter break starting just before Christmas, during which many students spent their year-end and New Year holidays at home. The university is very quiet without students, and the usual noise feels like a lie.
To awaken the students’ brains from holiday mode, a popular event called “East Asian Quiz Competition” was held at the end of the month. A total of eight teams participated and competed with their knowledge. This time, two teams tied and won the championship.
Although Kaunas is not a city with many opportunities to learn Japanese outside of the classroom, all of the faculty, alumni, and students of Vytautas Magnus University are always exploring new possibilities and actively participating in what they can. In recent years, along with the increase of foreign students from Japan, activities involving Japanese students have become popular.
Many major events are planned for Kaunas this year, such as the Baltic Alliance for Asian Studies (BAAS), Asia Week and SUGIHARA WEEK. As a GJO coordinator, I would like to continue to support Japanese language learners and foreign students so that they can get involved in these events as deeply as possible.
December Activity Report
31 December 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In December, Kaunas became full of Christmas spirit. Every year, unique Christmas trees appear in the city hall square.
However, it’s the important finals season for students. While the number of extracurricular activities and events have decreased, libraries are getting more and more crowded with students writing reports and studying for tests. A very nice Christmas present arrived at such a library. The Komaru Transportation Foundation donated more than 300 books related to Japanese language and Japan.
In order to further develop Japanese language learning in Lithuania, the establishment of “Komaru Collection” was proposed at the Japanese Language Speech Contest held at the Vytautas Magnus University Library last May. Books from a variety of genres, from technical books that stimulate students’ intellectual inquisitiveness to Ghibli movie comics, picture books, and multi-reader books that make Japanese more familiar to students, are now on the shelves of the Asian Bookspace. On December 10, a ceremony to mark the opening of the Komaru Library was held at the main library of Vytautas Magnus University. This was attended by the Foundation’s Chairman, KOMARU Shigehiro, and the Ambassador of Japan to Lithuania, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary YAMAZAKI Shiro. The university library is an open place that anyone can use, so more people will have access to Japanese books in the future. In addition, it is hoped that the Japanese-language reading activities of Vytautas Magnus University, which are currently a great success at reading clubs, will spread throughout Japanese language education in Lithuania.
In mid-December, when most of the students had finished their exams and were feeling a sense of openness, the East Asia Quiz Competition was held for the third time. This quiz contest, which started this semester, has grown into a very popular event among students and graduates, and we have even seen the participation of Japanese students studying abroad.
Kaunas has various places related to Japan and Japanese. I would like to create as many opportunities as possible next year with the learners and resident-Japanese of Kaunas.
November Activity Report
30 November 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In November in Lithuania, temperatures reached minus 5 degrees Celsius in the second half of the month, although it was warmer than usual. The fall semester ended on November 29, and the students plunged into exam mode.
The end of the semester in the Japanese class is marked by students giving presentations. In the second year class (Level 3), students gave readings and performed skits. In particular, many of the skits utilized music and props to entertain, and were very popular among classmates.
The third year students (Level 5) gave a presentation entitled “Unofficial Mascot Character for VMU”. Each student used a mascot character to introduce the appeal of VMU, and five unique and interesting characters were introduced. Instead of just creating cute characters, they had to explain our university’s educational philosophy and strengths in Japanese and explain how these are reflected by the characters. So even though it was a short 5-10 minute presentation, it was pretty hard to prepare for. After the announcement, the participants and audience voted to determine the best mascot. The winner was “Vitucas” which was modeled after the Grand Duke Vytautas, ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after which the university was named.
In addition, Ms. SAKURAI Mayu (Gifu University), a Japanese exchange student studying disaster prevention, was invited as a guest lecturer to talk about “natural disasters and disaster prevention”. At the beginning of the class, Ms. Sakurai discussed the dangers of natural disasters in Japan, especially earthquakes and tsunamis, basic knowledge on disaster prevention, and what non-native Japanese speakers should be careful of in the event of a disaster. After that, students were divided into groups and had discussions in Japanese on possible natural disasters in Japan, their preparations, and their actions in the event of a disaster. The participating Japanese students shared their experiences and knowledge and reaffirmed the importance of preparing for disasters with Lithuanian students. Ms. Sakurai, who made the presentation, concluded her lecture with the message, “not being able to understand Japanese is a great disadvantage in times of disaster. I hope that you will acquire knowledge of Japanese and disaster prevention so that you can help those who do not understand Japanese in the event of a disaster in Japan.”
In recent years, an increasing number of students from VMU have come to Japan to study. Some Lithuanian students actually experienced earthquakes and typhoons when they were studying or traveling in Japan, which made them realize the necessity of disaster prevention education. Next semester, we are planning to hold an event to consider the importance of disaster prevention education and disaster information for students who have been accepted to study abroad programs.
This initiative also provided us with an opportunity to discover new ways of engaging Japanese students in Japanese classes. In the past, Japanese exchange students have participated in classes as partners for conversation practice, but it was a valuable experience for the Japanese language class students to be able to do very practical activities such as “listen, think and exchange opinions in Japanese”. As a GJO coordinator, I would like to continue to increase opportunities for Japanese language learners and Japanese exchange students to discuss each other’s specialized fields in Japanese.
In addition, this semester we have launched several new initiatives using the Zoom online video conferencing system. First of all, there is an online exchange with a group from Gifu University that holds monthly study meetings about Lithuania. VMU students gave presentations in Japanese about Lithuania and Kaunas to Gifu University students, who then split up into small groups online to introduce themselves and their recommended dishes. In the future, we aim to create an exchange event that Japanese students who wish to study in Lithuania can participate in beyond the framework of classes and universities.
We also held an online reading session with a Japanese class at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic to promote exchanges between non-native speakers of Japanese. The theme was ‘Penguins in Antarctica’ written by TAKAKURA Ken, and the students read the book by themselves in advance and compiled their thoughts on Japanese expressions and the author’s words and actions based on the guide questions prepared by the teacher. The students, who were nervous at first, gradually began to open up, and eventually freely expressed their opinions and asked questions. Feedback after the event showed that many of the participating students enjoyed reading. Our future goal is to create an environment that makes it easier to participate in online reading by lowering the level of books and increasing the time for ice breakers.
The Japanese Culture Circle “Bridge” held various presentations and activities this month as well, but at the end of the month, the usual discussion event, “Let’s Talk”, was held. The topic this time was Japanese and Lithuanian idioms, and I learned many interesting phrases from both languages, and their respective meanings. Each group introduced their own languages’ idioms to each other, and at the end, each group presented a short play in which the idioms were used. Many unique Lithuanian expressions were introduced, such as ‘Born in trolleybus (troleibus gim?s – born in trolleybus)’ which means “a person who does not open or close a door” and (eiti pas nyk?tukus – go and visit the dwarves) which children use when they say “go to the bathroom”.
This semester, nearly 40 Japanese students have studied as exchange students at Vytautas Magnus University. In addition to participating in Japanese language classes and club activities, active students also participated in internships and volunteer activities related to Japanese language and culture. Ms. Miura (Nanzan University) worked as an intern at the Center for Asian Studies, translating the center’s pamphlets from English to Japanese. She also volunteered to participate in ‘Dragon Academy’, a program to promote East Asian culture among Lithuanian middle and high school students. Together with Lithuanian students, she visited The Gymnasium of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, where they interacted with the students through presentations and other activities. I am looking forward to the success of the Japanese students next semester.
October Activity Report
31 October 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In October in Lithuania, which usually heads for winter without pausing, the pleasant weather continued, which made it possible to go out without a coat. Like “Koharubiyori” in Japan and “Indian summer” in North America, Lithuanian has a term for autumn weather. ” Bob? vasara ” literally means “Grandma’s Summer” (Bob? is a word used for elderly woman, but it has rude connotations, so you must be careful when using it). Lithuanians are familiar with Bob? vasara, but this year it was warmer than usual, and everyone enjoyed the autumn leaves both in town and in the suburbs.
This month we had some big news on Japan-Lithuania relations. The new Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, visited Japan for the first time. Furthermore, President Nauseda made an official visit to Gifu Prefecture, which is home to the sister city of Kaunas, Yaotsu, and gave a special lecture at Gifu University, the partner of Vytautas Magnus University. We had a special broadcast from Gifu University, and our students were able to listen to the President’s speech. Of course, the president’s speech was in Lithuanian, but the students in the intermediate Japanese class listened attentively to the Japanese being interpreted.
Just as last time, many students participated in the second “Let’s Talk” discussion event. The theme this time was ‘Gender in Japan and Lithuania’. Using Japanese words such as “Otokomae”, “Memeshii”, “Ikumen” and “Rikejo”, we discussed why these terms are sometimes criticized, whether there are similar expressions in Lithuanian, and what gender problems exist in both Japanese and Lithuanian societies. Many of the participants seemed to share the idea of “gender is determined by the society and culture in which you live” and “some gender roles are imposed by parents and grandparents”. Also, when a Japanese student explained the meaning of “Ikumen”, the question of “isn’t that just a ‘father’?” was raised, and the discussion seemed to develop rapidly, with students asking why the media covered “Ikumen”. Compared to last time, the vocabulary used in this discussion was difficult, so the Lithuanian students who could only participate in this discussion in Japanese had a hard time.
At the end of the month, a quiz competition (commonly known as Brain Battle) was held to test peoples’ knowledge of East Asia. 13 teams participated in this contest, which was sponsored by a group of interested East Asian research faculty, graduates and students. The questions focused on East Asia, particularly China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, and covered a wide range of topics from history and politics to youth culture and pop culture. For this reason, the team members played to their strengths while tacklin