About 270 people filled the East Hall of Kryzsko Commons at Winona State University on Saturday evening. They came to eat sushi, watch a karate demonstration, play a round of Mario Kart and ultimately enjoy Japan Fest 2008.
Sushi, karate and video games have become such a part of mainstream American culture that one might forget that these things have Japanese roots.
One thing that was a part of Japan Fest that is inherently Japanese, but has yet to become mainstream, is Taiko drumming.
A group of three Taiko drummers from Minneapolis opened the evening of entertainment by playing several intense rhythms on two drums constructed of oak wine barrels and one smaller conga-like drum.
Along with beating the one drum, it was as if they were playing ten drums in the air, reaching upward and tapping their drumsticks, making noiseless music.
The Japan Club President, Kai Oehler, said he had the idea of bringing the Taiko group to Winona when he saw them performing while he was a counselor at Concordia Language Villages.
With the city of Winona as a financial backer, he was able to persuade the drummers to come to Winona.
Not only did they perform, but they also gave a minute Taiko lesson to volunteers who went up on stage.
Persuading the drummers to come to Japan Fest was just one step in preparing for the event.
The Friday before Japan Fest, the woman in charge of decorations, Natsumi Sasa, crouched under a table to tape the tablecloth in place.
She immerged to take a break and explain the theme for decorations. She was in the East Hall decorating since three in the afternoon with several fellow Japan Club members. She thought it would be midnight before she went home.
The tablecloths she was taping were four different colors: Pink, light blue, red and white. Each color represented a season.
The large hand-painted murals of Japanese symbols also represented the season. Oehler said sheets needed to be sewn together in order to create a large enough canvas on which to paint the symbols.
Sasa said painting the murals was a job that began during fall semester.
In another corner of the room Go Tateyama was struggling with boards, Duct tape and wire to create a device for hanging banners to arch over the food tables.
of the culinary operation.
At 6:30 p.m. on Friday she stood on a plastic stool and hovered over the stainless steel cooking surface.
With a spatula, she retrieved fried cabbage cakes that looked like oversized potato pancakes and placed the cakes onto paper plates.
Three of her hairnet-clad kitchen helpers held out the paper plates and then scurried over to put the fresh cakes on the open counter space and grabbed another paper plate to repeat the process.
Nearly every inch of counter space around Yamabaki was covered in bowls brimming with several gallons of ingredients.
Satomi Yoshida, Ayumi Yaegashi and Yukika Shimotori were busy in a conference room off of the East Hall creating signs to be attached to various booths where people could play Japenese games, try a hand at calligraphy, learn about traditional festivals or try on a kimono.
Oehler said Wind Wisper West, a shop that sells Kimonos in Wabasha, lent the kimonos to the Japan Club to use for the evening free of charge.
Running the booths gave the Japanese students an opportunity to interact with Americans.
Oehler saw this as very positive.
All but two of the twenty-one Japanese students are exchange students, and are studying in the United States for just one year. Oehler says that generally they just interact with other Japanese people while they are here.
“The Japanese students are often too timid, and American’s don’t necessarily feel the need to include them,” Oehler says.
Oehler himself knows what it feels like to not fit in. He is an American who lived the first sixteen years of his life in Japan.
When he was put in a school with other American kids, he didn’t like it because he didn’t feel like he fit in. He thought he was Japanese.
Throughout Japan Fest, one could hear Oehler speaking instructions in fluent Japanese to the other Japanese students as they scrambled to refill the plates of food.
On Sunday, Oehler took the club on a day trip to LaCrosse for what he deemed a well-deserved reward for all the hard work they put into Japan Fest. He said he wanted this to be the best show the Japan Club has ever done and he says, “I think we did that; hands down.”

Questions or comments?
Contact Lydia at
LCOglesb3075@winona.edu