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!

JASA's First GBM!

Hey everyone! We want to thank you once more for coming out to JASA’s first general body meeting of the 2010-2011 school year. We had more than 100 people show up! We hope you all enjoyed the kakigori and had a good time meeting new people and this year’s executive board. We hope to see you all at our other great events this year.

Don’t forget, our next fundraiser will be October 8^th, so mark it on your calendar! We’ll hopefully be selling mochi, onigiri or both at once. We’ll be working on what to sell for all of

you and will keep you posted on what ends up happening.

If you would like to volunteer for our next fundraiser, keep your eyes on your email box for a message on how you can join in and help us out. See you all soon!

JASA ELECTION RESULTS

The New JASA E-board
2010-2011
IS>>>
(top, from left)
PRESIDENT: Hiloshi Sasakula
VP of INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Jeffery Wey
PUBLIC RELATIONS chair: Vic Poonai
TREASURER: Woo Seok Yoo
(bottom, from left)
VP of ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS: David Toledo
VP of PROGRAMMING: Jessica Liu
SECRETARY: Jasmine Vinh
VP of EXTERNAL AFFAIRS: Kat Henry

See you Next School Year!!

TASTE OF JAPAN

Today, JASA hosted it's main annual event, Taste of Japan! Those who attended enjoyed authentic Japanese FOOD, watched some awesome performances, played cool games -- and 1 lucky person won a Wii in the exciting GAME SHOW!!!

Tickets were only $5 and we sold 285!!! Thats a new record!

Performances included: JPOP bands, Kendo (martial art with swords), and JASA's Team Soran!
Activites included: Gold Fishing, DDR, Calligraphy, Origami, Travel info, Fashion, Balloon game, Hand Sumo game, Photobooth and more!!

If you are looking for your Photobooth pictures, they are here!: http://picasaweb.google.com/jasaumd/2010TasteOfJapanPhotobooth#

Thank you to everyone who came out!!!

special thanks again to: AAST (http://www.aast.umd.edu/), MICA (http://www.union.umd.edu/diversity/), and Husky Heating Oil (http://www.huskyheatingoil.com/)

TEAM SORAN AT SAKURA MATSURI

Today, JASA's Team Soran performed TWICE at Sakura Matsuri! (official site: http://www.sakuramatsuri.org/)
Presented by the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C., Sakura Matsuri is nation’s largest Japanese street festival, stretching for six blocks through downtown DC!
These were definitely our best performances so far! Thanks to all who attended!