New Club Spotlight: Konichiwa Japan Club

By: Azam Hostetler and James Allen, Staff Writers

A recent club fair at Foran showcased numerous clubs available to students and highlights the great opportunities the school has to offer. This year Foran has welcomed many new clubs, one of which being the Japan Club.

    Mrs. Bradford, the Model UN and freshmen world history teacher proposed the idea to Mr. Berkowitz last spring after noticing many students wearing anime clothing garments with Japanese characters on them.

    Bradford says about the club, “We might do some historical lessons of Japanese eras and some language as well; we might even try to do some cooking. If anyone is interested in learning about Japan or even if they just are interested in pop culture this would be a great club to join!”

    The first meeting of the Japan club occurred on October 10th. The club will meet every other Monday. During the first meeting, members of the club discussed and brainstormed ideas on a jamboard of what the club will be about. Ideas like fashion, food, music, anime, art, history lessons, and more were very popular with members.

    Nicole Hale, a senior, and co-president of the club, says, “Japan club is a club all about Japan! We will talk about whatever topics interest us but right now some central ideas we have are talking about the language, history, mythology and aspects of pop culture. Right now we mainly have discussions about Japan and what we would like to learn and talk more about.”

    Bradford used to teach a whole year course on Japanese and other Asian history at the Center for Global Studies in Norwalk. Her course was all about Japan’s earliest culture, progress, and tradition. Along with her undergraduate degree in East Asians studies, she also lived in Japan for two years after college, studying abroad for her degree.

    Devlin Stammler, a junior at Foran who lived in the outskirts of Tokyo for three years says, “Japan club sounds like an interesting idea because it shows the history and how the people are. While living in Japan, I found this nice being able to be with people who know or can grasp who Japan is.”

    During the first club meeting, anime & manga, Japanese animation and comics were discussed, which are part of otaku culture, otaku being someone interested in Japanese culture. but students also asked about origami and Japanese art, which may be discussed further in future meetings.

    Hale continues, “I am looking forward to (hopefully) making sushi and learning about Japanese food, creating arts and crafts, as well as talking about harajuku fashion and cosplay, perhaps creating presentations talking about and informing people on aspects of history and language and pop culture that we can not fully experience now.”

    The Foran Japan Club is looking forward to educating people about the country of Japan, hopefully beyond what is shown in popular media that people in other countries consume.