2020 年　明けましておめでとうございます！
I hope you are having a good start for the New Year! In Japanese we say “Ichinen no kei ha Gantan niari” 「一年の計は元旦にあり」this means “New Year’s Day is the key of the year.” So Japanese traditions for the New Year are full of customs and formality, “First of things – Beginning of…” is very important.

Here are a few examples…

●初詣（はつもうで）Hatumoude
People go to a shrine or temple to pray for happiness for the new year.

●初日の出（はつひので）Hatsuhinode
People would like to watch the sun rise on the first day. This is a very significant experience for welcoming the new year and provide motivation for a better year or to pray for good fortune.

Oh before that, many people have a special cleaning day “o souji- 大掃除“ at the end of the year. This is meant to purify the place. Moreover, you clean your place so you can welcome God in the new year.
お正月Oshyogatu (New Year’s) in Japan is very important so we have a lots of traditional activities. There are too many to explain here so you should try and visit during new year’s in Japan, and you will be able to experience all the interesting ceremonies and customs in the towns and neighborhoods.

●書初め（かきぞめ）Kakizome
Our first Benkyokai activity this year was Kakizome.
Kakizome is Japanese calligraphy as a new year’s activity. I remembered when I was a kid, our Japanese class always had this event at the beginning of the year.
We each had our own calligraphy set and we would learn how to use them in elementary school. So if you are Japanese, almost all everyone as a child learned this in the class room. In our activity, the Japanese students help Canadian students write something they’d like to express.
Usually you write your favorite word or an important word. Some students were writing their new year’s resolution, and some were writing their feelings or a word representing what they were hoping for.

During the event we had three tables. One table was used to try out Calligraphy. Another was a prep table to help each other find their word (phone were useful as well, using Google or a translation app), also here you could practice how to write the Kanji.

The last table table was just a little game table to do カルタKaruta (Card Game for the New Year). It is a word matching game, and this card game is very traditional. It originated in the Heian era, however later it was merged with a Portuguese card game from the 16th century, then became the Japanese card game we enjoy today.

Now I would like to show how everybody did. The words they chose were interesting. Can you read these kanji, and do you know the meaning? If you’ve never tried this type of calligraphy, you should, it is a really fun way to learn Kanji. You’ll get to feel like you became an artist!

These are very popular – writing as art, many of the students like these ? Very artistic!

Finally, we had a contest at the end. We picked the best 5 calligraphy from everyone ‘s work.

And we voted on whose was the best looking. Here is the winner – Hiroko! She just applied for a part time job recently, so she was wishing to get that position – that important feeling is expressed with these words: “Yuki-勇気（ゆうき）meaning COURAGE. This is a really good word!

If you would like to join our Benkyokai (Language exchange event), please register yourself either on our website or Facebook to participate. You don’t need to worry about your level, you will be helped by all the different levels of our students together, everybody has experienced various stages of learning a new language. TRY SOMETHNG NEW this Year!