The Water festival

July 27th, 2010

 Hello. I am Lin. Today I will be talking about Water Festival of Myanmar. I choose this topic because Myanmar is my home land and this festival is the most famous festival in Myanmar. I am sure you will be enjoy it. Lets start.

 This festival is celebrated in april 14th to 17th, just before the Myanmar’s new year. During festival week, people throw water at one another. It is believed that water festival washes away sins and welcomes new year. Water means peace and good things to us. April is the hottest month in myanmar. So I think this is the best reason to throw water.
 It is celebrated over a period of four or five days. The whole country is on holiday. People ride on the open top jeeps and pick up truck and visit around the town. They get wet all over but feel happy. The last day of festival is new year’s day. It is a time to visit to elders and pay obeisance. If you can be here with us, I am sure you will get extremely wet but you will never forget the true joy. Thanks you.
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Test Information and Audio

July 26th, 2010

Here are the audios that will be used in your Final Test.

1.Please come to class 10 minutes early!

2. Check which group you are in (1, 2, 0r 3)

3. Listen to the audios before the test and get ready to make comments about it on your final tests

Group 1 (audio 1, audio 2, audio 3, audio 4)

Hanako  / He  /  Taehoon  /  Lin  /  Mizuki  /  Yuta  /  S. Emi

Group 2 (audio 5, audio 6, audio 7, audio 8)

Natsuko  /   Reina  /   Yuri  /   Chisa  /   Hiroya  /   Narumi  /  K. Emi

Group 3 (audio 9, audio 10, audio 11, audio 12)

Momoko  /  Shin  /   Kaho  /   Akane  /   Hideki  /   Misato

Information about the test can be found below.

PART I (40 minutes)

1.    First, listen to the interview that the teacher chose for you. Think about these things:
a.    What was the topic?
b.    Who is talking?
c.    Think of an interesting way to introduce the topic.
1.    Second, record Read the rest of this entry »

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Hot festival!

July 21st, 2010
 
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This summer is too hot every day, but I like summer because there are many festivals in summer. I’m going to introduce summer festival of my hometown in Tochigi prefecture. Have you ever heard about “Yamaage-matsuri”?

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Bon-Festival

July 21st, 2010
 
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Hello, my name is Misato. Today I’m going to introduce a special festival in Japan, “Bon” or “Obon”.

Bon is a Japanese festival where we pray for our ancestors’ spirits. The origin of bon hasn’t been found clearly. Anciently, there was the event that ancestors visit descendants to exchange twice a year. This event was held in early spring and early autumn. The event in early spring became festival of new years, and the other became bon. In Bon festival a variety of foods are offered to the spirits of ancestors, and people pray for their ancestors’ repose.

Many Japanese people who have moved to the cities to work return to their home towns during this period. In towns and villages across the country, people in yukata gather for outdoor dances known as bon-odori. Bon-odori is imitation of the deceased from hell.

 In some districts, people made syouryouma. Syouryouma is made from cucumbers and eggplants. Cucumbers are likened to horses which run fast, because people wish their ancestors come back home fast. Eggplants are likened to cows which walk slowly because they wish their ancestors go back to the next world slowly.

Thank you for reading and listening.

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Health and Sports Day

July 21st, 2010
 
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 Hi, my name is Hideki. Today, I am going to introduce a special day in Japan. In Japan, there are a lot of the special days.

I chose “Health and Sports Day”. Do you know about meaning of the special day?

Health and Sports Day is to encourage people to play sports and cultivate a healthy mind and body. 

This day was made because of  the opening ceremony of   Tokyo Olympics which was held in 10.10.1964.

                        

Sports festivals are often held on this day.

Especially, elementary school, junior high school, and high school held sports festivals, and students are very excited.

However, fathers who usually don’t exercise, often  go to the hospital after they are injured at school festivals.

Thank you for reading!! If you interested in Health and Sports Day, I’m so happy!! See you.

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Movie Festival

July 21st, 2010

Hello. My name is Hanako. My hobby is watching movies. So I would like to introduce about movie festival in Japan.

There are many movie festival in japan. For example Bakuon film festival,Okinawa movie festival,Shimokitazawa movie festival and france movie festival.

I want to introduce most favorite movie festival. It’s a  seaside movie festival in Zushi. It’s a very small festival.   We sit on the beach and watch a movie. There is a sea very near so We can hear sound of the wave. We can drink alcoholic drinks and eat something in there. The movie festival is that with an atmosphere of at home. It was shown in this year For example CINEMA PARADISO, Little Miss Sunshine and ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

But  bcause the sea is near, it is very cold. So if yo want to go seaside movie festival, you should take a coat or blanket.

Please go for the seaside  movie festival of the next year by all means.

Thank you.

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Happiness

July 21st, 2010
 
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Hello everyone!

I’m Mizuki. My name’s Momo, and this is Taehoon.

Today’s topic is happiness. We will talk about happy life and we will introduce a short audio on the topic ‘I Believe’ by one of our classmate, Shin’s I believe.

Please enjoy!

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Cute fashion and interview

July 21st, 2010
 
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Hi!!This is Narumi,Kaho and Hanako. 

We read of “Happpiness” by Shin.This story is a man who got cancer.But he had recover from serious cancer.His recovery was a miracle.He recover cancer because his family did not give up.So, we think family have of the family’s love.Love has strong power of medicin.we believe to family’s love. 

  

And we did interview to 20 people about “What kind of fashion do you like?”. 

 

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Posted in Hanako, I Believe, Interview, Kaho, Narumi, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Fireworks of the world class – “Nagaoka fireworks”

July 20th, 2010
 
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 In Nagaoka city of Niigata has very famous fireworks display every August 2 to 3. This event started in 1840. It started in full scale on September 14 to 15, 1879 by persons related to red-light district. They put their savings together, and launched 4 sun, 5 sun, 7 sun size fireworks total 350 fireworks in festival of Senjyu-cyou yahata-sama. Now this fireworks display became very famous for big scale and gorgeous in all over Japan and one of top3 fireworks in Japan. The number of launches of fireworks is about 20,000. What is particularly famous is Phoenix. This is prayed for the revival from the Chuetsu great earthquake in October, 2004, it has 1.5 kilometers wide. Moreover it recognized to Guinness Book with the widest fireworks in the world. Every August 2 to 3, there are about 800,000 people gather from all of Japan!

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The Double Ninth Festival

July 20th, 2010
 
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Hey, have you ever heard about The Double Ninth Festival? It’s a traditional festival in China. The  “double nine” in the name refers to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. In fact, in China we usually call it “Chongyang”, because according to the <I Ching>, a sacred book of Taoism, nine is the yang (from “yin” and “yang”) number. And “chong” means double.
The Double Ninth Festival is to bless the aged people to live longer. The number “9” in China has the same sound to the word “long”.
This festival has a long history. The earliest record can be found in The Three Kingdoms period (about AD220~280). On the day of The Double Ninth Festival, people climb the mountains and wear a plant “Zhuyu”. On this day, people eat the “Chongyang cake”, enjoy chrysanthemums, and drink wine which is made from chrysanthemums. Chinese people think all these activities can get rid of evils. Flying kites is also a traditional activity.

There are lots of Chinese ancient poetry about this festival. The most famous one is WangWei’s “Double Ninth, Missing My Shandong Brothers”.

As a lonely stranger in the strange land,
Every holiday the homesickness amplifies.
Knowing that my brothers have reached the peak,
All but one is present at the planting of zhuyu.

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