2019 Activity Report
March Activity Report
31 March 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
With March being warmer than usual, many people must have been looking forward to seeing the cherry blossoms, which have become Lithuania’s new spring attraction. Furthermore, at the end of the month, there was an “Asia Week”, which was mainly organized by the students of Asian Studies, and both the students and the staff were enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, due to the impact of the new coronavirus that has spread worldwide, all events, including lectures and extracurricular activities, were cancelled in Lithuania from March 13 onwards. The government says this strict quarantine will continue until mid-April. All classes are now being conducted online.
The 4th Baltic Alliance for Asian Studies (BAAS) was successfully held this month after many events were canceled or postponed. BAAS is a biennial conference for Asian research professionals held in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Researchers from these three Baltic countries and other regions around the world gathered to give presentations and actively exchange opinions on various fields. Students from Vytautas Magnus University volunteered at the conference, where they exchanged opinions with guests from Japan and experts in Japanese studies. BAAS was a blended conference with some presentations and Q&A sessions held through online video conferencing systems such as Skype and Zoom for attendees who were unable to come to Lithuania due to COVID -19.
(Please refer to the https://balticasianstudies.wordpress.com/ for a detailed program).
After the quarantine was tightened, activities for students who had fewer opportunities to use Japanese due to staying at home began. In cooperation with Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, which also conducts distance learning, we are holding weekly Zoom online Japanese exchange events. In the first session, participants introduced themselves and were free to talk about whatever they liked. In the second session, participants had book-talk in which they introduced one of their favorite books to other participants. Teachers and graduates also participated alongside the students, and enjoyed the language exchange. This event will continue next month as well, as the Czech Republic has been ordered to stay home until mid-May, and Lithuania until mid-April.
February Activity Report
29 February 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
Students who had spent the New Year’s holiday without snow returned, and the University of Vytautas Magnus became lively in February. The new school year started and the students’ lives gradually picked up the pace.
There are many participants in the Reading Club this semester too. The members are mainly sophomores and juniors, but the number of first-year students and participants from outside the university have gradually increased, making it a place for Japanese language learners to interact. Starting this semester, I will extend my club time by 30 minutes and devote the last 15 minutes of my time to ‘book-talk’. Book-talk is a time for members to give their impressions of the book they read that day and the books they recommend to other participants. In the beginning, a Japanese teacher lead the conversation, but in the middle, students began to freely ask and introduce books they had read in Japanese or Lithuanian. Books in the Asia Books Library have been greatly enriched by this donation. In the future, we would like to cooperate with the library to promote activities to read a lot of Japanese.
The month-end discussion event “Let’s Talk” took place on the relatively difficult theme of “diversity in multicultural societies”. About 30 students participated and spent more than an hour talking in English and Japanese. In discussions using the keywords “assimilation” and “multiculturalism” many people expressed harsh opinions about the difficulties of living as a foreigner and the attitudes of society, based on both their own experiences and those of their parents and grandparents. The participants, who see multiculturalism as a failure, cited examples illustrating the need for a balance between assimilation and multiculturalism, and discussed its difficulties and contradictions. After the event, a Japanese student who participated said, “It was fun because I have never talked with my friends about these topics.”
January Activity Report
31 January 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
This winter, Lithuania is much warmer than usual, and Kaunas has little snow. A student currently on holiday told me that “people in Lithuania like snow, so everyone is disappointed”.
After the exams in December, there was a one and a half month long winter break starting just before Christmas, during which many students spent their year-end and New Year holidays at home. The university is very quiet without students, and the usual noise feels like a lie.
To awaken the students’ brains from holiday mode, a popular event called “East Asian Quiz Competition” was held at the end of the month. A total of eight teams participated and competed with their knowledge. This time, two teams tied and won the championship.
Although Kaunas is not a city with many opportunities to learn Japanese outside of the classroom, all of the faculty, alumni, and students of Vytautas Magnus University are always exploring new possibilities and actively participating in what they can. In recent years, along with the increase of foreign students from Japan, activities involving Japanese students have become popular.
Many major events are planned for Kaunas this year, such as the Baltic Alliance for Asian Studies (BAAS), Asia Week and SUGIHARA WEEK. As a GJO coordinator, I would like to continue to support Japanese language learners and foreign students so that they can get involved in these events as deeply as possible.
December Activity Report
31 December 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In December, Kaunas became full of Christmas spirit. Every year, unique Christmas trees appear in the city hall square.
However, it’s the important finals season for students. While the number of extracurricular activities and events have decreased, libraries are getting more and more crowded with students writing reports and studying for tests. A very nice Christmas present arrived at such a library. The Komaru Transportation Foundation donated more than 300 books related to Japanese language and Japan.
In order to further develop Japanese language learning in Lithuania, the establishment of “Komaru Collection” was proposed at the Japanese Language Speech Contest held at the Vytautas Magnus University Library last May. Books from a variety of genres, from technical books that stimulate students’ intellectual inquisitiveness to Ghibli movie comics, picture books, and multi-reader books that make Japanese more familiar to students, are now on the shelves of the Asian Bookspace. On December 10, a ceremony to mark the opening of the Komaru Library was held at the main library of Vytautas Magnus University. This was attended by the Foundation’s Chairman, KOMARU Shigehiro, and the Ambassador of Japan to Lithuania, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary YAMAZAKI Shiro. The university library is an open place that anyone can use, so more people will have access to Japanese books in the future. In addition, it is hoped that the Japanese-language reading activities of Vytautas Magnus University, which are currently a great success at reading clubs, will spread throughout Japanese language education in Lithuania.
In mid-December, when most of the students had finished their exams and were feeling a sense of openness, the East Asia Quiz Competition was held for the third time. This quiz contest, which started this semester, has grown into a very popular event among students and graduates, and we have even seen the participation of Japanese students studying abroad.
Kaunas has various places related to Japan and Japanese. I would like to create as many opportunities as possible next year with the learners and resident-Japanese of Kaunas.
November Activity Report
30 November 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In November in Lithuania, temperatures reached minus 5 degrees Celsius in the second half of the month, although it was warmer than usual. The fall semester ended on November 29, and the students plunged into exam mode.
The end of the semester in the Japanese class is marked by students giving presentations. In the second year class (Level 3), students gave readings and performed skits. In particular, many of the skits utilized music and props to entertain, and were very popular among classmates.
The third year students (Level 5) gave a presentation entitled “Unofficial Mascot Character for VMU”. Each student used a mascot character to introduce the appeal of VMU, and five unique and interesting characters were introduced. Instead of just creating cute characters, they had to explain our university’s educational philosophy and strengths in Japanese and explain how these are reflected by the characters. So even though it was a short 5-10 minute presentation, it was pretty hard to prepare for. After the announcement, the participants and audience voted to determine the best mascot. The winner was “Vitucas” which was modeled after the Grand Duke Vytautas, ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after which the university was named.
In addition, Ms. SAKURAI Mayu (Gifu University), a Japanese exchange student studying disaster prevention, was invited as a guest lecturer to talk about “natural disasters and disaster prevention”. At the beginning of the class, Ms. Sakurai discussed the dangers of natural disasters in Japan, especially earthquakes and tsunamis, basic knowledge on disaster prevention, and what non-native Japanese speakers should be careful of in the event of a disaster. After that, students were divided into groups and had discussions in Japanese on possible natural disasters in Japan, their preparations, and their actions in the event of a disaster. The participating Japanese students shared their experiences and knowledge and reaffirmed the importance of preparing for disasters with Lithuanian students. Ms. Sakurai, who made the presentation, concluded her lecture with the message, “not being able to understand Japanese is a great disadvantage in times of disaster. I hope that you will acquire knowledge of Japanese and disaster prevention so that you can help those who do not understand Japanese in the event of a disaster in Japan.”
In recent years, an increasing number of students from VMU have come to Japan to study. Some Lithuanian students actually experienced earthquakes and typhoons when they were studying or traveling in Japan, which made them realize the necessity of disaster prevention education. Next semester, we are planning to hold an event to consider the importance of disaster prevention education and disaster information for students who have been accepted to study abroad programs.
This initiative also provided us with an opportunity to discover new ways of engaging Japanese students in Japanese classes. In the past, Japanese exchange students have participated in classes as partners for conversation practice, but it was a valuable experience for the Japanese language class students to be able to do very practical activities such as “listen, think and exchange opinions in Japanese”. As a GJO coordinator, I would like to continue to increase opportunities for Japanese language learners and Japanese exchange students to discuss each other’s specialized fields in Japanese.
In addition, this semester we have launched several new initiatives using the Zoom online video conferencing system. First of all, there is an online exchange with a group from Gifu University that holds monthly study meetings about Lithuania. VMU students gave presentations in Japanese about Lithuania and Kaunas to Gifu University students, who then split up into small groups online to introduce themselves and their recommended dishes. In the future, we aim to create an exchange event that Japanese students who wish to study in Lithuania can participate in beyond the framework of classes and universities.
We also held an online reading session with a Japanese class at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic to promote exchanges between non-native speakers of Japanese. The theme was ‘Penguins in Antarctica’ written by TAKAKURA Ken, and the students read the book by themselves in advance and compiled their thoughts on Japanese expressions and the author’s words and actions based on the guide questions prepared by the teacher. The students, who were nervous at first, gradually began to open up, and eventually freely expressed their opinions and asked questions. Feedback after the event showed that many of the participating students enjoyed reading. Our future goal is to create an environment that makes it easier to participate in online reading by lowering the level of books and increasing the time for ice breakers.
The Japanese Culture Circle “Bridge” held various presentations and activities this month as well, but at the end of the month, the usual discussion event, “Let’s Talk”, was held. The topic this time was Japanese and Lithuanian idioms, and I learned many interesting phrases from both languages, and their respective meanings. Each group introduced their own languages’ idioms to each other, and at the end, each group presented a short play in which the idioms were used. Many unique Lithuanian expressions were introduced, such as ‘Born in trolleybus (troleibus gim?s – born in trolleybus)’ which means “a person who does not open or close a door” and (eiti pas nyk?tukus – go and visit the dwarves) which children use when they say “go to the bathroom”.
This semester, nearly 40 Japanese students have studied as exchange students at Vytautas Magnus University. In addition to participating in Japanese language classes and club activities, active students also participated in internships and volunteer activities related to Japanese language and culture. Ms. Miura (Nanzan University) worked as an intern at the Center for Asian Studies, translating the center’s pamphlets from English to Japanese. She also volunteered to participate in ‘Dragon Academy’, a program to promote East Asian culture among Lithuanian middle and high school students. Together with Lithuanian students, she visited The Gymnasium of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, where they interacted with the students through presentations and other activities. I am looking forward to the success of the Japanese students next semester.
October Activity Report
31 October 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
In October in Lithuania, which usually heads for winter without pausing, the pleasant weather continued, which made it possible to go out without a coat. Like “Koharubiyori” in Japan and “Indian summer” in North America, Lithuanian has a term for autumn weather. ” Bob? vasara ” literally means “Grandma’s Summer” (Bob? is a word used for elderly woman, but it has rude connotations, so you must be careful when using it). Lithuanians are familiar with Bob? vasara, but this year it was warmer than usual, and everyone enjoyed the autumn leaves both in town and in the suburbs.
This month we had some big news on Japan-Lithuania relations. The new Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, visited Japan for the first time. Furthermore, President Nauseda made an official visit to Gifu Prefecture, which is home to the sister city of Kaunas, Yaotsu, and gave a special lecture at Gifu University, the partner of Vytautas Magnus University. We had a special broadcast from Gifu University, and our students were able to listen to the President’s speech. Of course, the president’s speech was in Lithuanian, but the students in the intermediate Japanese class listened attentively to the Japanese being interpreted.
Just as last time, many students participated in the second “Let’s Talk” discussion event. The theme this time was ‘Gender in Japan and Lithuania’. Using Japanese words such as “Otokomae”, “Memeshii”, “Ikumen” and “Rikejo”, we discussed why these terms are sometimes criticized, whether there are similar expressions in Lithuanian, and what gender problems exist in both Japanese and Lithuanian societies. Many of the participants seemed to share the idea of “gender is determined by the society and culture in which you live” and “some gender roles are imposed by parents and grandparents”. Also, when a Japanese student explained the meaning of “Ikumen”, the question of “isn’t that just a ‘father’?” was raised, and the discussion seemed to develop rapidly, with students asking why the media covered “Ikumen”. Compared to last time, the vocabulary used in this discussion was difficult, so the Lithuanian students who could only participate in this discussion in Japanese had a hard time.
At the end of the month, a quiz competition (commonly known as Brain Battle) was held to test peoples’ knowledge of East Asia. 13 teams participated in this contest, which was sponsored by a group of interested East Asian research faculty, graduates and students. The questions focused on East Asia, particularly China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, and covered a wide range of topics from history and politics to youth culture and pop culture. For this reason, the team members played to their strengths while tackling the difficult questions. As a result, two teams named ‘Sugi Squad’, a team made up of postgraduate students and alumni, and ‘Nekochanai’, a team made up of second year undergraduate students, tied for first place.
September Activity Report
30 September 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
Unlike Japan, where the lingering heat continues, Lithuania has been dyed autumn all over the city. The sight of cold rain wetting red, yellow and orange trees lining the streets is a classic autumn scene in Lithuania.
This month’s Japan-related events started with a special lecture entitled “Japan-Lithuania Relations” on September 20. In this lecture, Ms. Simona Vasilevskite, who has been working at the Gifu Prefectural Office as an international exchange member of the JET Program for the last year, discussed how relations between Lithuania and Japan have developed. The event was also open to the public and was attended by about 30 people. The content of this lectures focused on the level of interaction between individuals, organizations, local governments and the national government. Ms. Vasilevskite’s background of Japanese language study and career were also discussed, and it seemed to be a very good stimulus for students who want to work using Japanese after graduation.
A week later, on September 27, an exchange event with Japanese students, ‘Let’s Talk’ was held. This event is something I am starting this semester with the cooperation of the Japanese Culture Circle “Hashi”, with which I aim to create a place for Japanese language learners to exchange opinions with Japanese exchange students outside of the classroom. I also hope to deepen the understanding of Japan among people not studying Japanese through exchanges with Japanese students, and to provide Japanese students with opportunities to directly hear the voices of people living in Lithuania, so we decided to use Japanese, English and Lithuanian instead of just Japanese as the language of our activities. There were only 45 participants, 6 of whom were Japanese students, but they were divided among the small groups and had some interesting discussions. This time’s theme was ‘Images of Japan and Lithuania’. We talked about each other’s image of the other country, and we discussed cultural differences and the dangers of stereotypes. For example, a Lithuanian participant was under the impression that “Japan is a technological superpower”, but when he heard that there were still companies and organizations in Japan using fax machines, he was surprised. Regarding the image of “the Japanese are diligent”, one Japanese student said, “it’s a problem to think that working in an inefficient way is ‘diligence'”. The Japanese students also talked in groups about their impressions of Lithuania before coming, and received many questions from the Lithuanian participants. Even after the event, the participants who wanted to talk more remained in the classroom. I hope next month’s event will be just as exciting.
August Activity Report
31 August 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
The summer vacation that began in June has ended, and classes at Vytautas Magnus University began once again in the last week of August.
The second year students, who are already busy with study, part-time jobs and club activities, were nervous in front of their new Japanese teacher, but slowly remembered the Japanese they’d forgotten over the break, and told me about their summers.
Out of the third-year students studying Japanese in the East Asian Studies major, eight are going to start their exchange student lives in Japan from this semester. They’ve already arrived in Japan, and some of them, who have already had their orientations and level evaluation tests, contacted me about their worries and expectations.
On the other hand, the students who didn’t go on exchange moved up to the Level 5 (Intermediate Japanese) class, and were very surprised at the number of Japanese exchange students who have come to VMU. This semester, a record-breaking 39 Japanese students have come on exchange to Kaunas. As the GJO coordinator, I am going to plan even more opportunities than last year for Japanese students and local students to meet and socialize.
Students are also starting to be more active outside of the classroom.
The members of the Japanese Culture Circle, “Hashi”, had an executive meeting to discuss their activities strategy for the new academic year. Seeing undergraduates, postgraduates and alumni alike exchanging ideas on the same level is a little different to what you would see in Japan, where lowerclassmen and upperclassmen have hierarchical relationships. This year, many ideas came up using the keywords “content that Japanese exchange students would be interested in”, “academic events with guest researchers/specialists” and “social events where you can use Japanese”.
As the GJO coordinator, I will also be in involved in these activities, and will be in charge of one event per month.
The Japanese Book Club resumed activities in late August. The second year students are keen to learn, and thoroughly enjoyed their reading time. One hour wasn’t enough for some students, and they chose to stay and keep reading after the club meeting finished. This semester, I’m looking forward to many more students growing an appreciation for Japanese through reading, and going on to write their own books.
June Activity Report
30 June 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
Compared to other universities in Lithuania, the semester ended a little earlier at Vytautas Magnus University, so most students finished all their exams by early June, and the summer vacation began. Many students leave the country, so even if you hold annual events during this time, not many students can participate.
Despite this, many students attended the screening of the documentary film “MIKOSHI GUY”, which was held on June 17. This documentary follows MIYATA Nobuya, a man involved in revival efforts of festival culture in Japan, and a Q&A session was held with the man himself after the screening. Attendees asked questions about the meaning of dances and shouts seen throughout the film, and the relation between mikoshi (portable shrines) and Shintoism. The mikoshi shown in the film was put on display in the university, and caught the attention of many. I want to make many more opportunities for students to experience Japan and Japanese culture in the future.
In other news, at this month’s Book Club, “Lim and Kim”, a Japanese book by 2nd year student Eva, was added to the bookshelf. Both the story and illustrations were created by Eva. Students who saw the new book information on Facebook quickly came to read this book at the club. In addition to “Lim and Kim”, other Japanese books written by VMU students can also be read on the Book Club’s webpage.
https://sites.google.com/view/kaunasjapanesereadingclub/our-books?authuser=1
May Activity Report
31 May 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
For a moment, the weather was continuously good like spring in Japan, then it was rainy and cloudy for the first half of this month, and temperatures dropped to below 10 degrees. On top of that, May is the end of the academic year and the busiest time of year here at Vytautas Magnus University. Students are busy preparing for essays, assignments, presentations and exams, and everyone seems a little tired.
The climax of this busy period was the Japanese speech competition that was held on May 17. This year marks the second year of this competition, and 12 contestants gave brilliant speeches to the topic of “transportation”. Tomas Juodsnukis (Vytautas Magnus University) came in first in the beginner’s section for his wonderful speech on the French car race, “24 Hours of Le Mans”. Gytis Mockus (Vilnius University) won the intermediate category with their nostalgic speech on the changes in public transportation in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. First place in the advanced division was a difficult choice for the judges, but it was given to Matas Skarnulis (Kaunas University of Technology) who gave a speech titled “Let’s Do Our Best to Drive” on the long painful journey young people go through to get a driver’s license in Lithuania, delivered, of course, in a comical tone.
While it goes without saying that the actual speech is the most important part for the students, I think that the preparation time they spend expressing their thoughts, opinions and experiences in Japanese is also very important for their Japanese studies. Through writing their drafts and practicing their speeches, these students improved their Japanese. Also, I was glad that students from universities and gymnasiums (high schools), and not just VMU, participated this year. Moving forward I hope to create more events like this where learners can gather and cheer each other on.
In other news, this month an excursion was held for Kaunas City high school students as part of the “Dragon’s Academy”. The Dragon’s Academy is an educational initiative run by the VMU Centre for Asian Studies that aims to spread knowledge about East Asian languages and cultures throughout Lithuania. This time, six students from LSMU Gymnasium (a high school in Kaunas) participated. Professor Andrius of the Centre for Asian Studies formed a team with two Lithuanian students from the Japanese classes and five Japanese exchange students, and toured the “Sugihara Route” with the participating high school students, which includes Kaunas Railway Station, the Sugihara Chiune museum, etc. The Lithuanian students acted as guides, and talked about Sugihara Chiune and the state of Kaunas during his time. The Japanese exchange students communicated with the high school students in English to talk about Japan and answer any questions they had.
It is known that many gymnasiums in Lithuania offer Japanese as an elective subject, and so many young people have a strong interest in Japanese language and culture. This excursion was a valuable opportunity for Lithuanian students and children to learn about Japan in an informal social environment, in this case through talking with exchange students, as opposed to in a classroom or workshop.
*The “Sugihara Route” used for this excursion was based off of the “Sugihara Chiune Route”, a guide map published by Kaunas City for Japanese tourists. This route introduces places related to Sugihara Chiune, who saved many Jewish people during World War II by issuing them visas. A PDF version of this map can be downloaded from this page: https://visit.kaunas.lt/en/maps-and-guides/
April Activity Report
30 April 2019
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako
My name is TAKAGI Kayako, and from this month onwards I will be working as the coordinator of the GJO here at Vytautas Magnus University. I have been in charge of the Japanese language and culture classes here since 2015. I am very conscious of finding chances to use Japanese in this country with so few Japanese people, and how we can link Japan to the everyday lives of Lithuanian students. I want to work towards supplying local students with more places they can experience Japan and the Japanese language, while also increasing opportunities for Japanese exchange students to learn about Lithuania outside of the classroom. I look forward to reporting on my activities.
Lithuania is hotter than usual this year. The cherry blossoms that don’t usually bloom until May started to bloom in mid-April, and were in full bloom by Easter. In Lithuania, cherry blossoms are becoming a symbol of the new year. The students of Vytautas Magnus University were doing hanami (cherry blossoms viewing parties) at Sugihara House and along the river.
Lithuanian winters are long, so everyone enjoys doing things outdoors when spring arrives. The Kaunas Japanese Book Club was also held outside this month. This club was started in February of this year, and its activities mainly focus on doing “wide reading” of Japanese literature. The students of this club choose whatever book they like from over 100 graded readers, which are designed for all different levels of Japanese learners, quietly read it, and then move onto the next. It is said that reading Japanese is one of the biggest hurdles for learners from countries that don’t use Chinese characters. I hope that they can feel the enjoyment one can get out of reading Japanese.
In other news, the students of the intermediate Japanese class stepped up to the challenge of “Kaunas Guide” in which they became guides and gave tours of Kaunas in Japanese. It seems that many students struggled with the complicated architecture and religious terminology. After graduating, there are many students who want to work in a profession where they can use Japanese, but since there are no Japanese companies in Lithuania, being a tour guide is one of their few limited options. My assignment going forward will be figuring out how to give these students more opportunities to consciously use Japanese in a practical context through classes and events.