The annual AISF New Year's party was held on January 12, 2015, Coming-of-Age Day, at the Foundation hall.

Scholarship students, peoples concerned, families and staff members of the Foundation joined the party. We shared the enjoyable time celebrating the New Year over excellent sake and delicious dishes.

Mrs. Atsumi, Executive Director, prepared "Osechi" (Japanese traditional New Year's dishes) for us this year. We enjoyed the foods not only through our palate but also by our eyes, because the dishes were arranged beautifully in "juubako" (tiered lacquer food boxes) setting with the Atsumi family crests. It was really "a sight for sore eyes".

Besides "Osechi" there were "Zo-ni" (rice cakes of steamed rice which we, ourselves, pounded into cakes in the courtyard, and boiled with vegetables), spareribs which Ms, Ishii prepared,
lamb BBQ prepared by Mr. Yeo and the Mongol Team and boiled China-style dumpling served by the China group. We enjoyed two kinds of boiled dumplings this year. One is orange-colored which were mixed with pork, leeks and shrimp in vegetable sauce and the other is the one which were wrapped by jade-green colored skins which were made from spinach, eggs, and gelatin noodles which were mixed in spinach sauce. Three kinds of an hors d'oeuvres suitable for dumplings provided added color and taste.

After enjoying foods and 'sake' all of us reported our recent newsworthy activities and experiences. Starting from the members of the oldest scholarship years, we, the 2014 scholars, were the last presenters. After introducing ourselves individually, we sang together "we look up when we write our doctoral thesis" an adaptation of the original song "sukiyaki" (I look up when I walk down).
We showed a movie in which we looked back over the year 2014 and reported our usual life. We sang the "sukiyaki" song without rehearsal, but we expressed our gratitude to the Foundation, using as the last phrase "we are not all alone, and it was heartfelt thanks to the Foundation that we acquired more knowledge and encouraged each other side by side".

After our performance, birthday presents and cake from scholarship students were given to Mrs. Atsumi who has reached 87 years of fruitful life, while all the participants were singing birthday songs to her. We also served tea and and played CD classic music for her, besides handing her birthday cards with written messages from the students. A bouquet was also presented to her, because we know that she likes flowers when we traveled to Tadeshina. Although it was a small token of our gratitude, we were so glad that she was delighted.

A bingo game, which has been revived after 3 years, livened up the closing of the party.
We ended the party with cheers for the people who won in the bingo and for the children who got their favorite gifts with full of smiles.

May this year be happy and fruitful for you!

Photos of the Day

(Written by Wang Huijun , trans. by Kazuo Kawamura)