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TASTE OF JAPAN 2012

Taste of Japan 2012 on April 6 in the Grand Ballroom was a great success! Tons of people came out, and we had a great time. There were booths like calligraphy, manga, gold fish scooping, and DDR. We had awesome food, including several types of sushi, and yakisoba. The star of the night was the sumo suit wrestling station. We ordered two sumo suits and inflated them for epic battles! Those suits were heavy--Hilo, our event planner,  said they were 50 lbs. The performances were stellar--G Girls, Will of G and Soran Bushi dance teams, did a great job, and singers and musicians also blew us away with their awesome J-pop covers. We also had special guests from Maryland, Chin Hamaya, who specialized in Okinawan taiko drumming, and a kendo group. Thanks for coming, everyone!

Danny Zollner did us a huge favor and took a bunch of pictures. Check them out!

Chin Hamaya performs an Okinawan taiko dance

Team Soran pre-performance

Eliot, Nicola, and Jessica did an awesome job with their acoustic set! 

The G Girls shake their groove thang

 G Girls

Manga booth 

Sumo wrestling suits were a hit!

People line up to try on kimonos for the photo booth

Nerf gun station

IACE travel gave us little gift bags

The semi-finalists for the Nintendo 3DS who made it past the trivia round

The finalists for winning the Nintendo 3DS battle it out via sumo suit race

Charley Farmer won this year's big prize!!

Students play DDR

The kimono booth was a big hit as always!

During, Troy Mapa and other b-boys provided surprise entertainment by breaking it down on the dancefloor.

Last GBM of the semster--Potluck

JASA members gathered for our last GBM of the fall semester December 6. Members brought food to share, and we had a lovely feast. Some of the things people brought included oden (Japanese soup), curry rice, kimbap (Korean sushi) and spinach dip! We had a grand old time. After we were done stuffing our faces, we watched a Japanese movie called Great Teacher Onizuka, which is a live-action adaptation of a popular manga series. It was a great way to relax before finals week.

The moment you've all been waiting for...Party photos from JASU Formal!

The JASU Formal was held on Oct. 29 this year--Halloween weekend! UMCP hosted the JASU formal, to great success. JASU picked a Haunted Formal theme. We had a "obakeyashiki," or Japanese-style haunted house that was very frightening! There was much screaming. We had snacks and drinks. Everyone looked fly. Rickie Koo from Georgetown was the MC, and Phil Mulliken from UMCP was the DJ. There were performances by UMCP dance groups Will of G, who danced to "Te Amo" by Exile and "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO, and the G Girls, who danced to AKB48's "Heavy Rotation." They were a huge hit. We danced the night away--or until 10:30, at least. Photos taken by JASU.

As many of you know, an 8.9 scaled earthquake hit the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake caused a massive tsunami that has wiped out villages, homes, and other buildings all along the north-eastern coast of Japan. This has led to more than 3,000 deaths and thousands more missing, along with even more people becoming homeless in the freezing areas of Sendai and other towns.

JASA has reacted quickly to this horrible event by having an onigiri fund raising sale the very following Monday morning of the incident. A lot of people showed up to help us Monday, with many Japanese students coming out to do their part to help raise funds. By the end of the day Monday, we had raised more than $1300!

All profits will be given to the Japanese Red Cross to help supply those without homes or

shelters a warm bed to sleep in and food to keep them going in this time of need. If you have any ideas for fund raising, relief work, or anything at all to help Japan in this time of need, please let us know right here in the comments section! This tragedy was horrible, but we can all help out somehow!

Thanks again to everyone who came out Monday to assist in the fund raiser! For anyone who may have friends and family over in Japan, we wish them safety and security. Keep Japan in your thoughts and prayers everyone!

Semester Kick-off!

Hey everyone! We’d like to thank you all again for coming out to JASA’s first Spring Semester GBM. We hope you all enjoyed the games and snacks provided and hope you are ready for the new semester, because it’s going to be a busy one.

Like we said at the GBM, Soran Bushi practice will begin THIS week Tuesday and Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., with official tryouts Friday at 6 p.m., so practice hard and get on the team for the D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival and Taste of Japan!

Speaking of Taste of Japan, committee sign-up sheets were available at the GBM for anyone who wanted to help out with the event. If you signed up, thanks a lot! We look forward to working with you. If you didn’t sign-up and wanted to, don’t worry. Contact us on our Facebook with what you’d like to do, and we’ll make sure to get back to you. We’ll need people to help us with food distribution, booth management and more! So let us know if you’d like to help and we’ll get you in with the team!

Other committees we have up and open to members are our fund raising committee, Soran Bushi candidates, and our annual charity wiffle ball team. If you are interested in any of these, jut drop us a message on Facebook, or contact jvinh420@gmail.com with your name, e-mail, and committee you want to be a part of.

We have a lot of interesting events planned for this semester. From karaoke in College Park, to dancing at the D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival, this semester won’t be short of things to do. We look forward to seeing you all at our Soran practice. Good luck!

WHAT: JASA Daifuku and Dango Fundraiser!
WHERE: In front of Stamp Student Union, near the ATM.
WHEN: Friday, October 8th, 11:00 a.m.->4:00 p.m.
COST: Only $1!!!

We're taking a different approach to our fundraisers this time around by introducing TWO, yes TWO new items to our "menu." We will be selling Daifuku and Dango in front of Stamp this Friday!

Daifuku is a small round Japanese sticky rice cake filled with sweet red beans. The characters written for little cake literally means "great luck"!

Dango is a type of sweet Japanese dessert dumplings served on a skewer. These little treats are a favorite all year round and served in different varieties depending on the season. We will be having Mitarashi dango (a sweet salty syrup) and Anko dango (red bean).

Like we mentioned before, we will be selling it all for only $1! So don't forget to come out Friday and buy a delicious Daifuku or Dango treat before finishing off your week. See you there!