グループ五の学園祭 2023

学園祭は通常、英語で「Campus Festival」と訳されます。さまざまな教育レベルで開催され、それぞれの規模が大きくなっています。学園祭の期間中、生徒たちはクラスやクラブでカフェ、ゲーム、屋台、パフォーマンスを企画します。これは学生にとって楽しい場所です。学園祭は学外の人にも開かれています。 (カルム)
文化祭のブースは取材した学生さんから聞いたのですが、バスケットボールのブースもありました。バスケットボールをできるだけ多く当てて景品を獲得するゲームです。自作のアートや動画のブースも出店します。取材によると、折り紙やワークショップは中学時代に大人気。コロナの影響で 2 年ぶりに学園祭に参加することになり、今年の学園祭を楽しみにしている様子。(フレデリケ)
面接の後、私は自分が何をすべきかを決めました。折り紙とゲームの両方をやってしまいました。カルムはこいこい、キャメロンはチェス、私は Spスピドというカードゲーム、ジェナは将棋を選びました。折り紙チームは、スコットランドの国花であるアザミを折りました。 ( リジー)
その日、私はとても忙しかった。プロジェクトルームに着いてから、30 分ほどでステーションが組み立てられました。左のテーブルには鯉とチェス、右のテーブルには折り紙がありました。私たちは出店を交代で担当しました。私はまた、他のテーブルを見ながら部屋を歩き回りました。楽しかったです! (キャメロン)
全体として、今日のメッセージは、このようなイベントが学生を団結させるということだと思います。学生主催の屋台は、すべてをより個人的なものにしました。このコミュニティを作成できたことを誇りに思います。他の部門もこれを試すべきだと思います。良かった午後でした。 (ケイト)

Gakuensai, commonly translated as “campus festival” is a popular school event that often makes an appearance in most high school anime and manga. It is held at varying levels of education, with it becoming bigger and more complex at each level. During gakuensai, the students, in their classes and clubs, organise an “attraction” like a café, game, food stand, or performance. This allows the students to show off their skills within the activities organised by their clubs, but it is also a chance for the students to just have fun. Gakuensai is not only for the students, as people outside of the school are welcome to come visit the stalls and attractions that the students have organised.

The students we interviewed mostly told us about the booths at Gakuen-Sai. Ball games are quite popular. Some booths do basket-shooting where participants try to hit the basket with their basketball a certain number of times in a certain time to earn a prize. This game is inspired by a popular arcade game with the same rules.
Many other students bake or cook food that they will sell to finance society trips during holidays or to increase their funding, others make booths where they display self-made art or videos. Workshops for Origami or drawing are popular especially at school, according to our interviewees.
Due to Covid-19 Gakuen-Sai often could not take place at the students’ universities, so they sadly did not do very many throughout their academic career. Most people haven’t attended Gakuensai for 2 years, so they are really looking forward to the festival this year. After the interviews, we decided what our group should do. Half of us wanted to do Japanese games and half of us wanted to do origami, so we decided to do both. We researched what games were popular in Japan, and decided who would do which game. Callum chose Koi koi, Cameron chose chess, I chose a card game called speed, and Jenna chose shogi because she had it on her Switch. The origami team decided to do thistle origami because it’s the national flower of Scotland. Then, we bought the things we needed – origami paper, hanafuda cards, and prizes for the game winners. Both halves of our group practised their chosen activity in preparation for gakuensai. The day was very busy, and we were kept occupied for most of the time. When we got to the project room, we were given 30 or so minutes to set up our station. We used two tables each for our different activities. The left table had koi koi and chess while the right table had origami. Once set up we took turns manning the stalls for a half hour each then switching over. When not at our tables, we were walking around the room looking at the other group’s stalls and taking part in their chosen activities.

Overall, I think the message from the day was that an event such as this really does bring students together. The fact that the students had organised the stalls made everything more personal, and in comparison, to British university open days, the feeling was more authentic. The atmosphere was incredibly familial and made us proud of the community that our department has helped us cultivate. I think other departments should try this too – it was a very good afternoon for us all!