26/07/2017

The farewell party for the spring 2017 international students was held by HUIT (Hokusei University International Team) at the International lounge on July 7. There were 33 students, including international students and Hokusei students, at this event.

The theme of the farewell party was “traditional Japanese summer festival” and it was held for the International students who have studied at Hokusei Gakuen University from September 2016 to July 2017 or from April 2017 to July 2017.

The events at the farewell party included a rubber band gun shooting gallery, fishing for balloons, yukata try-on, and nagashi-soumen, which is a Japanese fun style of eating thin wheat noodles (soumen) that are served in water flowing down a special half-pipe. Not only the international students but also many of the Hokusei students commented that it was their first time to try nagashi-soumen.

After these activities, HUIT held a traditional Japanese summer game called suika-wari, which involves someone who is blindfolded trying to split open a watermelon with a long stick. All the participants consumed the pieces of watermelon afterwards!

In addition, July 7 is the festival of Tanabata (the Star Festival) in Japan, so HUIT performed a short play re-enacting the origin of Tanabata for the participants. After watching the play, everyone wrote their wishes on tanzaku (strips of paper) and hung them on a weeping willow.

This was the last event put on by HUIT in the 2017 spring semester, but we look forward to the events that they are planning for the fall semester as well.