2022年9月の記事一覧

This week, the third year students have been preparing for the sports festival.  Before and after school, the students have been practicing their dance performance for the festival. Since this will be my first sports festival at Wakoku, I am looking forward to the event!

In Australia, the school sports festival is a little different. The events at our festivals usually include shotput, high jump, long jump, running, and relay races. We also have another event in the year called the swimming carnival, where students compete in races for backstroke, butterfly, and so on. I am looking forward to seeing the different events at the sport festival at Wakoku.

Good luck to the students who are working hard for the sports festival!

Catriona

Hello it’s me, Tunji! Unlike most people, I didn’t travel during the summer break. I honestly didn’t have that much time off to begin with. While I was working I took the opportunity to check out the various club practices that went on during the summer. Apart from ESS, I took the opportunity to watch the girls basketball team and the Shorinji Kempo club practice. I had been previously invited to watch the basketball play so I took the opportunity so as it was easier to fit in my schedule during the summer. As for the Shorinji Kempo club, I've always been interested in martial arts so it was very interesting to watch. One of the members even placed 4th in a national competition everyone is so talented.   

                   Welcome back to the start of a new semester. It’s Jade writing today! Let’s talk about clubs at Wakoku today. In particular, I’d like to tell you about the Handmade Club!

                   Handmade club happens every Tuesday after school. In this club, students can learn how to make delicious food with their friends. Usually, we cook something sweet. For example, we have made chocolate chip cupcakes, delicious crêpes, and last week we made decadent French toast. So many of the students at Wakoku are already amazing chefs and can make some great-tasting food. Hopefully being able to cook together at school inspires everyone to keep on trying new things in the kitchen.

                   In Canada, my home country, there usually aren’t after-school club activities like Handmade Club. Instead, Canadian students can experience the fun of cooking during Home Economics class where they learn how to make all different kinds of food. In Canada, I enjoyed taking Home Economics class and now I’m enjoying seeing how a similar activity happens in Japan.

There are many differences in the tools and equipment used in Japanese kitchens vs Canadian kitchens. Canadian kitchens always have large ovens and stove tops but there usually aren’t things like gas ranges and rice cookers. Japanese kitchens use chopsticks a lot more in cooking and make much better use of the microwave. In the end, however, equipment and tools don’t matter as long as there is tasty food being made and enjoyed by the people close to us.

Let me give a huge thank you to Handmade Club for letting me join them and share in the joy of cooking together!

Welcome back to school!

This summer, I had the chance to pop back into Singapore for a visit, after not being able to go home for the past two years. To say that I was excited was quite an understatement.

I have always heard about how people would experience reverse culture shock after being overseas for a period of time and I had a taste of it on my first train ride back in Singapore. Having been used to the tranquility of Japanese train ride, it took me awhile to get used to the chatter that is common in trains in Singapore. The moment I got on the train, I was greeted by many different conversations spoken in different languages. In that short 20 minutes train ride, I heard an Indian mother talking to her child in Tamil, a pair of Filipino ladies talking animatedly in Tagalog and a group of girls that looked like they were of high school age gossiping in Singlish. Gone was the tranquility of train rides that I had gotten so used to in Japan. In its place was a variety of conversations in different languages (and sometimes volume that borders on invading personal space). The short train ride itself was a glimpse of Singapore’s multi-cultural society. It was at that moment that the thought, “Ah, welcome back to Singapore!” popped into my head.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my time back in Singapore tremendously. There is just something about home that settles the heart. Even though I am not much of a foodie (a person who loves food and is very interested in different types of food), I found myself seeking comfort in the familiarity of the taste of local Singapore food, especially those found in hawker centers (non-airconditioned food courts in Singapore). The dish in the picture attached to this article is Fried Hokkien Mee, literally ‘Fujian Noodle’. It is a dish of stir-fried noodles with egg, pork slices, prawns and squid. Even though it is named ‘Fujian noodle’, it is not known to the Fujian province in China and had been created by Fujian sailors who came to Singapore after World War II. I chose to feature this because it is one of the local foods that Singapore is known and the best that I had during this trip back home. Please try it if you ever visit Singapore.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit home this summer. This little taste of home had recharged me, and I’m all geared up for the new school term. Looking forward to an exciting school term ahead!