(Emanuele, Lizzie, Angelo, and Callum)
学園祭は毎年日本の大学で起こる行事です。学園祭は全部の大学生に準備されます。そのため、先輩と後輩は一緒に準備をします。学園祭のために学生は美味しい食べ物を作るとか日本の伝統的なゲームを主催するとか音楽を弾きます。学生だけでなく、大学の以外の人々も学園祭に参加できます。エジンバラ大学の日本語の学生として私達も二月の二十二日に学園祭を行いました。しりとり、けん玉、メンコなど日本の伝統的なゲームを持ってきました。ニンテンドースウィッチも持って、スーパーマリオヴィデオゲームをプレイしました。誰かがゲームに勝つと賞品としてお菓子を受け取りました。
Gakuensai is an annual event that takes place in Japanese universities. It is an event organized by all the students. Senior students and junior students collaborate to prepare it. Usually, students cook some foods, prepare traditional Japanese games and play music. Not only students, but also people outside the university can participate to Gakuensai festival. As students of Japanese of the Edinburgh University, we also prepared the Gakuensai for the 22nd of February. We brought some Japanese games like Shiritori, Kendama and Menko. We also used a Nintendo Switch to play Super Mario videogames. When someone won at a game, they received some sweets as prize.
面接でまいとさんをインタビューしました。若者の間に人気がある政治的なトピックについて教えてくれました。 まいとさんによると、環境問題とか政治の選挙とか東京率問題は若者にとって大切だと考えられていると言っていました。学園祭の政治的な要素について尋ねてから、今のがあまりないんですが、過去にあるかも知れないと言っていました。
For the interview we interviewed Maito-san. She told us about political topics that are popular amongst young people. According to Maito-san, topics such as environmental issues, political elections, and overpopulation in Tokyo are considered important to young people. After we asked her about the political elements of Gakuensai, she said that there aren’t really any now but there may have been in the past.
私たち見た、今年の学園祭は政治が関係ない、代わりにスタンドについてだった。私たちのスタンドは良かった。人々は参加して楽しんだ。私たちは主にゲームとアニメについて話しました、世辞については話しませんでした。誰もが日本のメディアについて何か知っていた。人と話すのは簡単になります。彼らはあなたの話を聞いたり話したりするのが好きです。
From what we noticed, this year’s Gakuen-sai had no political elements, instead it was very much about the stands present. Our stand did good, people came and participated in all our activities, and we managed to give out prizes too. It was nice to talk to people, as we had the chance to talk about the games we offered and what experience we have with them, we taught participants how to play the games, and while we were playing we would talk about various things, but none included any political aspect. What we talked about instead was current interesting games, we talked about manga like Ghost in the Shell (a manga volume was part in the prizes), and we gave our opinion on which anime we like and why. Overall, you could feel the interest for Japanese media, everyone had something to say about it, I think everyone can get involved in discussing with people if they wanted to.
一日に終わりには、学園祭の参加者全員がさまざまな屋台を歩き回り、お互いの親睦を深めました。それが学園祭の重要なポイントの一つです。学園祭は、生徒達にとって、1年生とのお手伝いや交流を通して、先輩と後輩の関係を体験する良い機会となりました。最近の学園祭は、以前ほど政治的なものではなく、祝って楽しむための手段になっているようです。ただし、学生が政治的または社会的活動に利用される可能性は常にあります。
At the end of the day, everyone who attended the gakuensai had fun going around all the stalls and interacting with each other. Which is one of the important points about gakuensai. Gakuensai has also been a great way for us to experience having a senpai-kōhai relationship, as we helped and interacted with the first years. Gakuensai might not be as political as it once was, as it is more of a way to celebrate and have fun these days. However, there is always the possibility that it could be used for the students to be politically or socially active.
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