Japanology Party Lustrum Edition 2022-23
After a successful start of the academic year, our first major event was of course the Japanology Party. On October 5th, all Japanologists, young and old, Professors and Students, etc were invited to the event to celebrate. Besides the usual Japanology Party events we also celebrated the start of our Lustrum year, the 15th anniversary of Tomo no Kai. Every five years, students organizations celebrate their anniversary and we were happy to be able to celebrate it this year!
At 4PM we started to prepare for the event. All drinks and snacks were bought, the hall was being cleaned and we started to hang the decoration in our iconic colours red and gold. Our lovely sponsor, Oh My Sake!, had brought the sake for our event. So for the very first time, possibly in years we were able to present sake on the event. (I sadly do not know much of the history of the Japanology Party before years 2019-2020 as that was the first time I experienced that event myself).
As the tables were set, the pictures and were put on the wall, the balloons were blown into shape and the flags were hung a lovely jazzy tune played in the background as every Praesidium member was highly focused on their task. Soon by 7PM everything was ready, the event could start.
It didn't take long before a long line of first year students stood at the door for tickets for the drinks as well as to register themselves so they could benefit from the perks of our membership! I didn't count the amount of people but I'd take a guess and say about 70 to 80 people had joined us on the event. honestly we were quite amazed. Everyone seemed to enjoy their time. Especially after the covid years, people were finally able to socialize with each other once again in the most normal ways without masks and much distance between them.
Many of our students joined as well as our exchange students! For many first year students this may be the first time they get the chance to interact with a native speaker, for others it may not be the first time. It was lovely to see!
The Japanology Party is of course also the official moment where our previous president gives the word to our new president. They both usually give a short speech before the event continues. And of course, it is also the moment the godfathers/godmothers and godchildren are being assigned to each other. We read the names of the first year students from the list as we grab a random name from the gold koi fish our dearest Professor Niehaus lends us every year for this occasion.
Of course during this party we also take the moment to present our newly designed merch!! Our new totebags, pins, masks and also coming soon: the hoodies!
Seeing all those people interact, drink together, take pictures, and more
just made me so happy. It was a great and successful event in my eyes and I
believe the rest of the Praesidium believes so too.
Kind regards,
Your Webmaster of years 2022-2023, Ekaterina (Katja).
