Experience Japan Youth Culture Event Chester Beatty Library

With the Experience Japan festival we ran our first event a seminar series dedicated to youths. It was a joy to have the Japanese Saturday school and the Embassy of Japan involved in this event. It was also nice to run the event in the historical Chester Beatty Library which is one of Dublin's popular spots with tourists. The Chester Beatty Library were very good in helping us out if we needed anything. From my experience running events and conventions it always makes things easier and run smoothly when the venue staff are approachable. This was Experience Japan's first time running this type of event and the aim was to promote Japanese pop and traditional culture through education targeting youths.

This was the poster to use for advertising. It was designed by artist and Animation student Lucy. Lucy's work can be seen here.

The Embassy of Japan presenting “Hello Japan” which was a fascinating presentation on contemporary and traditional Japanese culture.

Dublin City University Japanese exchange students talk about high school life in Japan. The Irish students get to see how similar and different Japanese high school life is to their own.

They screened an entertaining video which people found amusing.

The Japanese Saturday School presented a talk on "Studying Japanese for Second and Third Level" and opportunities it offers.

Accompanying Karen were Eoin a second level student sixth year from Firhouse Community College, Abdullah and Luke final year students from Dublin City University. They shared their experience on studying Japanese to the attendees. Abdullah (centre) made a very good point that nowadays the Japanese language is offering a lot of job opportunities such as IT, Engineering and Web Development.

Oliva Rohan a PHD student presenting “Anime and Manga in Japanese society and amongst teenagers” This was a fun talk as she talked about events, cosplay ect. She talked about anime fan community and creativity such as AMVs, anime music videos and fan subbing. This reminds me when I read academic book "Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World."

Olivia screened a video on Anime vs Reality which was enjoyable! 

We didn't just have seminars we also had a fashion show. 

The models who took part in the fashion show from left to right; Madison, Matty and Claire dressed in Lolita fashion, Lauren cosplayed as Mirai Kuriyama from Kyoukai No Kanata and Jolanta was dressed in traditional bridal kimono which was kindly supplied by Dublin retailer specialising in traditional Japanese antiques Global Japan original known as Kactus. Do you recognize the Mirai Kuriyama cosplay?

The Taiko Drumming which was well received in the library by the public. This is the Experience Japan Taiko team who perform at the festival and at other Experience Japan events.

I was very pleased how the event went. It was excellent that the Embassy spoke to students who were interested in travelling, working and studying in Japan and offer them information. As I mentioned a while ago in my facebook I am glad that I finally ran an educational seminar series especially in an area I Love. This event reminded me of the GRADChances seminar IT event I was involved with while interning for gradireland last year. I am really happy through Experience Japan, I can put my Event Management Postgraduate and experience from my events internship into practice, opposed to swaying away. :)

I really feel this event in Ireland has big potential and I started planning for next year. I typed up an Event Report to be circulated within the committee (things that went right, wrong, to change for next year) and will begin a marketing plan. I really would like to run this event on a bigger scale next year. :) Lets hope it becomes more frequent.