The 18th Ichigo Ichie took place on Sunday, July 1st. 58 participants (30 adults and 28 kids) from China, Australia, India, the Philippines, the UK, the USA, Malaysia and Japan had a great time together.
Traditional Children’s Play - Let’s try Origami
We learned that games such as koma (spinning tops), tako (kites), karuta (card game), otedama (tossing bean bags) and kendama (ball and cup) have been played for a long time in Japan and in many different parts of the world with local variations. The kids had fun showing us how to play with these traditional toys.
Next we made groups and discussed what games we played in our childhood. Some examples were kinobori (climbing trees), kakurenbo (hide and seek), takeuma (stilts), ichirinsha (unicycle), ball sports, jump rope, hopscotch, Lego, train sets and menko (card game) just to name a few! We enjoyed finding out the similarities and differences of games from different countries.
After that, Naomi told us about origami (paper folding), probably the most well known type of Japanese traditional play. We were lucky to see some amazing examples of origami that she had created herself including insects, animals and dinosaurs. We also saw a beautiful rainbow senbazuru (1000 paper cranes) that is usually made to wish for someone’s good health when they are ill in hospital.
Lastly, we had lots of fun learning how to make origami shapes together such as a balloon, a ninja shuriken and a paper crane. Naomi showed us some fun games you can play with origami shapes such as sumo wrestlers. We had a great time playing together and learnt so much about traditional Japanese games!
Russian Greetings
Jun Sudo from Japan, taught us some useful Russian greetings.
“ Zdrastvooyte ”(=Hello)
“ Dobraye ootro ”(=Good morning)
“ Dobriy den'” (=Good afternoon)
“ Dobriy vyecher ” (Good evening)
“ Spaseeba ” (=Thank you)
“ Eezveeneete ” (=Sorry)
“ Da sveedaneeya ” (=Good bye)
Story Time
Lastly, we had story time. Nicolas Dover, from The UK, read the kids “Dear Zoo”, a animal picture book by Rod Campbell. The kids had fun listening to the story in English and Japanese.
Upcoming Meeting
The next Ichigo Ichie is to be held on Sunday September 2nd at the cooking room of The Mukunoki Center. It will be an obento Workshop where we will learn how to make Kawaii obento. We’re looking forward to seeing you at the next Ichigo ichie!
