Blog

On February 23, Japan Center displayed the ” Character Obento” – Mother’s Hand-made Character Lunch Box- at the Al Zahra School in Sharjah. It was a part of “Your Health First” exhibition of Sharjah Ministry of Health. 

Charactor Obento is very popular in Japan. Many mothers spend a lot of busy time in the morning to make cute lunch boxes. Its purpose is just to stimulate children to eat more. It usually takes about 45 minutes or more to make each Obento.  But Japanese mothers love to dedicate their time to make their children happy.

Two Japanese ladies displayed 6 different Charactor Oento, such as Picachu & Hello Kitty, etc.

One lady demonstrates how to make Picachu from the rice, cheese and vegetables. There were huge crowd of local ladies and  ministry & school staff to see the craftsmanship of making Obento.

Another lady display how to make “Anpanman & Baikinman Obento”. Many local ladies were astonished to see how fast & beautiful they make each charactors.

Since this March, Japan Center offers “UAE’s National Study” Course to Japanese ladies on every Thursday.

Themes are all related to UAE’s Cultural & Social aspect, such as UAE’s History and Union Day,  Ramadan and  Celebrations,  Dress Code, Women and Work, Marriage, etc. In cooperation with Zayed University Carrier Office, lecturers are self-nominated Zayed University students whose majors are maninly international relationship and education.

It is quite interesting how young UAE people present their own country. So far 2 classes have done and many Japanese ladies enjoy their presentation & lecture.

Japan Center visited esteemed “Camelicious” – Camel Milk Products Factory in Dubai on Feb 25th.

This state-of-art facilty is owned by H.H.Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.  Its high standard of hygienic & quality controll impressed us so much. The tour, led by Mr. Mohamed, sales supervisor of  Camelicious, started from tasting the various types of Camel Milk products such as milk, flavored milk and leban. Those products are much more nutrient than normal cow milk products. Then he took us through each stage of the processing. Before entering any room, each visitors has to step on & cross “hygienic mat” which takes away the dust and dirt from our shoes.

Second half of the tour was to see the camel farm outside. There are almost 3000 camels, each categorised and kept in group such as Male, Female, Pregnent, Just-delivered, Mother & baby, etc . Camels are from all over the world. Mr Mohemed explaind how to distinguish camel by its feature. But it seemed difficult for Japanese to recognise. All camels are cleaned and health-checked every day.

The tour has ended at the Chocolate shop in the gate. We tasted different types of chocolates & coffee.

Firstly this facility impressed us so much with its high motivation to intoruce camel products into the world. But not only by its intention, we are impressed with its standard of high quality, its cleanness, its good order, worker’s commitment, and of course, the scale of investment. We thank all the staff of Camelicious factory.

First Cultural Course of 2012 started with “Arabic Reading & Writing Course” with Teacher Aisha.

Mrs. Aisha has been teaching in Japan Center since 2010. She loves Japan and Japanese people.

This course concentrates only on Reading and Writing, but not Arabic Grammar. Because to understand Grammar needs a lot of effort and time. Most Japanese ladies stay in UAE for a few months, then leave for Japan for a few months. So they do not have time to take long course. That is why Japan Center made this special course of 5 classes to learn Arabic Alphabets.

However, Japanese ladies are well educated. So they quickly learn how to read and write Arabic alphabets with short vowels and  long vowels. They try to read some basic words in first 3 classes. Then they start writing their own name, their husband’s name, their hometown name in Arabic alphabets. It is wornderful experience for them to be able to read signboard on the streets, too. 

JapanCenter held “New Year Day 2012” on January 7th at Sharjah Library.

New Year Day is a popular annual event of the Center. Participants enjoyed many different games such as Fukuwarai, Karuta, Sugoroku etc. Also presented traditional toys like Daruma-otoshi, koma, hagoita. etc. Each guest enjoyed Kakizome-the first calligraphy of the year- that you write your dream or objective of the year.  

Celebration cuisine “Chirashi-zushi” was offered to all the participants with Japanese green tea.

The heart-warming short film was played at the theater, too.

Quiz show brought the most excitement to the participants. There were 7 teams, mixed with UAE/Arab and Japanese, competed each other and challenged many questions related to Japan and UAE. Winning team got nice gifts!

Japanese Language Course will start from January 14th.

This is the second semester of the courses in this year. New “Beginner Course 1” students will start from Lesson 1. Previous “Beginner Course 2” students will continue same text from Lesson 7. (You will finish this text during this course.) Whoever has a little knowledge of Japanese Language can join in this course, too.

New “Intermediate Course 1” will start with text  “Japanese for Young People 2”.

Details are as follows:

Schedule: Every Saturday morning from January 14th-March17th (10 weeks-20 hours)

Timing: 10am-12 noon (2 hours a day, every Saturday)

Place: Sharjah Library (next to Quoran R/A, Sharjah)

Courses: Beginner (shoko-sensei) & Intermediate (Kaoru-sensei)

Fee: Dhs1200/ person,  Dhs1000/students (upto undergraduate)

Registration: online to uaejapancenter@yahoo.com and payment at the first class  on January 14th.

Waiting for you to join our new course!

Happy New Year 2012!

UAE-Japan Cultural Center wishing you a very happy & prosperos year. 

Our yearly schedule is as follows:

January: New Year Event (on 7th),  New Japanese Language Course (from 14th),  Arabic Reading Writing Course (from 18th)

February: Field trip to Camel Milk Factory & Falcon Hospital (on 4th)

March: Arabic Calligraphy Course, Cultural Tour of making disdash,

April: New Japanese Language Course (from 7th),

May: Field Trip to Jumeirah New Mosque

June: Summer Camp

We are always looking for new staff who can introduce UAE/Arabic culture to Japanese residents, lecturer, guide, etc. Do not hesitate to contact us. We can always adjust the schedule according to your convenient timing.

Akemashite Omedetou!

Do you know this greetings? It means “A Happy New Year!”.

Japan Center celebrates 2012 New Year with local communities on January 7th, Saturday 2012. Please come and join us on our New Year Celebration. There will be many different traditional games (You can learn immediately), Japanese Calligraphy, Japanese New Year Cuisine with green tea. In addition, the heart-warming short movie will be played at the theater. You can also challenge your knowledge about Japan & UAE on quiz show. You have chance to meet Japanese Community at this event, and to try your Japanese Speaking skill to talk with them. Details are as follows:

Date & Timing : January 7th, 2012 at 11am to 13pm 

Place : Sharjah Library (near Qur’an R/A)

Entrance Fee : Dhs30/adult, Dhs10/children (with snack and drink) 

Content : Japanese Traditional Games, short movie, quiz show, Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese ladies have visited “Museum of Islamic Civilization” in Sharjah on November 16th, 2011.

In cooperation with Dubai Women’s Association, 18 ladies and have been studying Islam for past one month. At the end of of course, Japan Center took these students to the museum  to experience Islamic Art and Science.  

It was one hour tour with English guide through Islamic Faith Section, Hajj Section, Islamic Architecture Section, Islamic Science Section, in addition to many historical displays of crafts upstairs. They are impressed with beautiful embroidery of Kiswa. It was short but meaningful field trip to understand Islam for Japanese ladies.

Japan Center has offered “Islamic Course” in Japanese Language during October 2011.

It is the second course since 2010, now it doubled the number of the participants. The director and Founder of the UAE-Japan Cultural Center has given the lecture. About 20 students have taken this course with many interests and enthusiasm for Islam.