Core Presentations

Japanese Cooking
Calligraphy
Japanese Toys
Japanese Tea Ceremony
Origami - The Art of Paper Folding
A Japanese Play - Tsuru No Ongaishi (A Cranes debt of Gratitude)
Supplementary Presentations

Note: All the presentations are in English. While in Japan the students write the scripts for each presentation and during the pre-departure meetings (13 meeting for the 1997 homestay) the chaperones check the presentations for correctness. During these meetings the students practice their presentations, and the play.

Japanese Cooking

This presentation is usually for a Home Economics class in high school. In 1997 Mika Nakayama prepared and presented a Japanese Pork Stew. Along with some of the other homestay students they prepared the dish in front of a class and then served the students. This gave the American students the opportunity to see and to taste Japanese foods. It was well received even if they did think the food was weird!

Do you want to find out more about Japanese Cooking ?

Calligraphy

This presentation works for any grade, this year the Yuki Kawazoe and Miyuki Shibata did this presentation only once for a high school art class. During the presentation they spoke about the three character sets in written Japanese Kanji, hiragana and katakana. They talked about the history of Kanji drawing examples and showing some familiar American words and place names written in katakana. All of the students then helped the American students write their names in the Japanese katakana character set. Some of the American students tried to write some Kanji. This presentation introduced Japanese writing and pronunciation of foreign words in Japan to the American students.

Do you want to find out more about Japanese Calligraphy ?

Japanese Toys

This presentation is best suited for elementary students, in 1997 Miyuki Shibata and Yuki Kawazoe did this presentation at two different elementary schools in Buena Vista. They showed Japanese paper balloons, ball games, playground hand games (Jan-Ken-Pon) along with this they taught some Origami to the students. The American students got to play with the toys and participate in the games. When it came to teaching the Origami all of the homestay students mingled with the elementary students and helped teach them to make an Origami box from colored paper. The students and chaperones stayed in each class for about 45 minutes playing, teaching and talking with the students.

Origami

This presentation is the easiest one to scale depending on the age of the students. In the elementary school a simple paper box was taught whereas in the Middle school class a more complicated piece, a Japanese fat crane. In the Middle School class Miyuki Shibata and Yuki Kawazoe first presented the twelve months of the year with Origami posters. Next they gave an explanation of Orgimai and it origins. Finally, they then proceeded to teach the class with step by step instructions on how to make the paper crane. All of the other Japanese students helped the American students.

Japanese Tea Ceremony

This presentation has always been a favourite during previous homestays. Unfortunately their was no presentation in 1997 because of a lost baggage problem. The presentation is suited for high school classes. The Japanese student prepares and serves Japanese green tea in the traditional manner. This is a ceremony steeped in tradition and ritual, it is great for the American students to experience it.

Do you want to find out more about the Japanese Tea Ceremony?

A Japanese Play

Tsuru No Ongaishi (A Cranes debt of Gratitude)

Firstly The Japanese students and the Chaperones decided on a play that would be appropriate, relatively easy to perform, involve all the students, be interesting and be possible to perform in about 20 minutes. In 1997 an old Japanese story called Tsuru no Ongaishi was chosen for the above reasons. Two of the students were assigned to write a shortened version of the story in English. Using various resources the students came up with a first draft. After help from the chaperones the final version of the script was produced. Roles were assigned and lines were learned. During each practice sessions the students and the chaperones discussed the correography of the play places, ques, timing, gestures etc.. The students practiced the play about 10 times before departing for the homestay.

While in Buena Vista the students performed the play twice. Once at a party for all of their homestay families and once for a Senior High School English class. On both occasions the play was great. It was easy to forget that the students had written and learned a play in a language which was not their own !

Goki Tsuru	The Crane
Yuki Kawazow	The old man
Miyuki Shibata	The old woman
Mika Yamaguchi	The girl
Mika Nakayama	The Lord
Ai Tominaga	Narrator #1
Chieko Furukawa	Narrator #2

The plot

Tsuru no ongaishi, is an old Japanese story about a crane who gets trapped is rescued and then repays the kindness. It is a story which is told in slightly different ways in various countries and cultures throughout the world.

The play opens with the crane trapped and crying, the old man comes along and frees the bird who flys off. Sometime later a young girl appears at the old mans home. She is a travller who has lost her way and needs shelter. The old man and the old woman heartly agree and she is welcomed into their home. She helps prepare dinner and as the days pass she becomes part of the family. After several days she asks to stay and be the old couples daughter. They are delighted at the idea.

After several days she asks the old man for a loom and for him to get her some yarm so she can do some weaving. The old man gets the yarn and the girls makes the old couple promise never to look at her while she is weaving. She then sets about weaving in another room after some time she returns with some bueatful cloth (brocade) that she have woven.

The old man takes the cloth to town to sell. One of the towns folk takes him to the local Lord who is so struck by the cloths bueaty that he buys for a lot of money, with the promise to buy all that the old man can bring him. The old man buys food for the girl and the old woman. This goes on for some time, the girl weaving the old man selling it to the Lord. And over time life gets easier for the old couple but all the time the girl is looking paler and weaker.

The old woman convinces the man to let her look into the room when the girl is weaving to find out why she is so weak and pale. When they do so, what do they see? A large crane sitting at the loom plucking it's own feathers and working it into the material. The next day the girl breaks down and admits who she really is and that she must leave. The spell was broken once the old couple saw her true form, she leaves them with a parting gift of thanks, transforms into the crane and flies "..on to the east, into the glowing sky that was reddening with the morning sun"

Opening Page Supplementary Presentations

Created by Aaron J. Quigley Questions?: aquigley@cs.usyd.edu.au
Created: Wednesday, April 30th, 1997
Last updated: Friday, October 31st, 1997