JASO receives Award of Excellence from ASO

At the Twenty-Second Annual Asia Society of Oklahoma, Inc. Awards for Excellence, Saturday, November 6, 2010, at the Sheraton Oklahoma City Hotel, 1 North Broadway Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK 73102, Mari Lesli received on behalf of JASO, ASO's award of excellence for JASO's participation on ASO festivals, workshops, and activities.

LET"S HAVE FUN: On a Paper Crane Tomoko's Adventure, Nordic Library, September 14

From pictures and comments I heard that the presentation was a great activity and over 30 people attended.  Participants viewed the film at the main theater at the Nordic Library.  After the film, participants went to a designated room where they were greeted by a wonderful meal prepared by members of the Japan America Society of Oklahoma City.  While sharing the meal, participants made paper cranes with origami paper donated by the Consulate General of Japan.  Thank you to Dr. Gigi Hu for her guidance with the featured film and for her willigness to share her knowledge with the participants.  Picture from Dr. Gigi Hu from the event are forthcoming.

Peace Origami film receives permission for public viewing

Thank you to the Consulate General of Japan for their donation of Origami paper to make the 1,001 cranes to take to the Hiroshima Museum in the summer of 2011 and being a resource for the permision to do public viewings of the film, On a Paper Crane, Tomoko's Adventure at Casady School on September 12, and at the Nordic Library on September 14.

The paper crane making was part of Casady's Peace Education activities for the month of September.

Food for thought...The Secret Powers of Time, and the Power of the arts for social change

Two interesting videos related to the last JASO discussion on Peace Education. The first video is searching for translations to other languages. If you click on subtitles, you will find Chinese. If anyone is interested, follow the subtitles link to other languages until you get to wanted translations.



Casady School headmaster was the source of the following video on Time and History

An Origami Peace Hope Project Begins

This is a picture of a Origami Peace Tree Project created by a Russian family. Check their website at http://www.peacetree.info/main.php

Make an Origami Peace Crane

What about encouraging participants to create a paper crane to keep and a peace dove to send or viceversa. This is a 3-d site for paper cranes: http://www.origami.org.uk/origamicrane.htm

Let's Have Fun: Manga and Anime Part II, Tanabata Festival

6:30-7:00 Summer Festival in Japan, July 7th Movement of male and female stars which occurs once every 7 years. Japanese people write wishes. July/August 7
Star Festival (tanabata): Tanabata is a festival rather than a national holiday.
Tanabata (七夕, tanabata?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, related to the Chinese star festival, Qixi．It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). According to legend, the Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night

To celebrate this festival, Masayo had a Show and Tell of Japanese Food, part of which came from her personal garden. Soba noodles, Edamane/Traditional Rice crakers eaten like chips with beer. She also brought several equivalents to chips, some made of fish and seaweed. Masayo also brought samples of several Japanese drinks. Foods can be purchased at Super Cao. We had an idea to talk to Super Cao owners to give discounts to JASO members. We will need to issue a JASO wallet membership card for that purpose.

The discussion also brought to light that even numbers are bad in Japan and Russia, but not in China. #4 sounds like death and people even in China avoid saying that number.

For dessert, Masayo brought Poki and Gigi brought delicious fruit and a seaweed based dessert.

Masayo introduced old manga and anime shorts from You Tube, and Gigi brought the Manga and Anime movie we started to watch in June. It was a very nice way to end the day watching the Tokyo Godfathers film and Tetsujin 28 on YouTube

Participants: Masayo, Jeremy, Gigi, her husband, 2 friends of Gigi from Catholic Charities, Carmen, and the lady from Russia whose name I do not recall.

Masayo received payment for two tickets to the ASO Taste of Asia and she announced that the ASO scholarship application is available for college and high school age members.

ONE OF OUR LAST PICTURES WITH BELOVED DR. BROWN

News from Clydia

I look forward to what I can learn from you and others in this organization and to what I may contribute on behalf of international awareness, understanding, and peace.

I leave Tokyo in about an hour for a small farming village on Hokkaido island. Tobetsu is about an hour from Sapporo. We have been told we will not have internet connections while we are there.

I will contact Dr. Ineko Tsuchida and see if we might meet when I return to Tokyo on July 2. I will be here until July 5 and am hopeful a meeting might be possible.
Thank you again for welcoming me into your group,

Clydia
Assistant Director, University of Oklahoma Confucius Institute
Director, Oklahoma Institute for Teaching East Asia

BLOG BECOMES JASO BLOG

I will use this blog to promote the Japan America Society in Oklahoma City through reflection of time spent with such a lovely organization. We are proud that the work JFMF fellows have done with the re-emerging JASO prompted NAJAS to invite a member of the board to attend the National Conference under special sponsorship by the Japan Foundation. We are trying to raise funding for JASO's Manga and Anime expert to attend since the conference has special connections to that area this year, but we are not too hopeful. But we are more motivated than ever to plan a great 2010-2011 calendar of activities and promote JASO in the Oklahoma City community.

Special thanks to Dr. Maria Domoto, who has been JASO's cheerleader from the time she met the organization and its members. We wish Dr. Domoto great luck as she leaves the Laurasian Foundation to create her own non-profit. Also thank you to

Oklahoma Teacher/Administrator Goes To Japan

Clydia, wrote:

My trip to Japan is funded by UNESCO, IIE, and Fulbright with the express purposes of 48 American and 48 Japanese educators exploring concepts of "educating for sustainable development". The three principles of ESD are:

1. partnerships among community organizations (schools, foundations, universities, businesses, museums, symphonies, parks. . . )
2. contextualized--not just in classroom--learning. This may mean
natural--outdoor--contexts or cultural ones
3. self-designed learning formats. ith this in mind, your "green" statement in the email to which I'm responded, as well as the partnership opportunities, is perfected suited.



I, too, am interested in ways that OKITEA might partner with JASO and JOI, including this grant opportunity you are promoting.

As I survey teachers who have been included in OKITEA projects for some time, they tell me of their interest in sharing with their students that Asia is more than China. This was also the rationale that supported my submitting--and winning--the grant that will send me to Japan this Tuesday.

That said, currently much of OKITEA's funding comes from Chinese specific organizations. Please let me know the following:

If my participation in the grant is a possibility...YES>

When the deadline is: Rolling, I think, but I have not started to investigate the grant itself yet, until all JASO officers are on board...Avoiding wasting time!!

What is needed from me to facilitate the grant writing? Your ideas and knowledge of grant writing