On April 6, Winona State University held the annual International Dinner in the East Hall of Kryzsko Commons! Because of raised management fees for the food from Chartwells, it is difficult to continue holding this event; therefore, this might be the last International Dinner hosted by WSU.
At the International Dinner, there was a fashion show that featured wardrobes from all over the world, as well as dancing and singing performances by students from a majority of Asian countries.
I belonged to the Public Relations team of this event to advertise it not only for WSU students, but also for the general public. As a member of the Japanese team, I also performed a traditional Japanese dance Sōran Bushi.
Sōran Bushi is a folk song for fishermen in the Oshima Peninsula of Hokkaido. It is said to have been sung while transferring the herring from large drift-nets into small boats. At the beginning of the song, the famous phrase “Sōran” is sung repeatedly, from which the name of the song is derived. One theory holds that “Sōran” was a harmonized call for fishermen to awaken one another who worked all night.
Generally, Japanese students have experience in dancing Sōran Bushi when they are elementary school students in P.E class. Most of the Japanese students at the International Dinner knew this, and some of them remembered how to dance well enough that we decided to perform it at the event.
As you can seen in this video, it is hard to dance because we have to repeat the action of stretching our legs deeply. I have not danced this choreography since I was an elementary school student, so I struggled to do that. Despite its difficulty, however, we practiced the dance together as a group over and over again.
I didn’t expect that there were would be so many people coming to the event.
I have never danced in front of a large crowd of people before and the dance itself is considered funny for people from other countries, so I was slightly embarrassed. But we did our best, and I was happy to hear my friends say afterward that it was a good performance!
It was my first and last International Dinner. I’m glad I was given the chance to introduce one of the many Japanese cultural traditions to a lot of people, and I made a new memory during my experience of studying abroad in America.
I hope everyone now has an interest in learning something about cultures from other countries, and hopefully the International Dinner will continue in future years at WSU.