It has been a custom in Japanese Universities to hold a big event once a year—festivals. Not only festivals in temples, places or to celebrate special days, but also this festival depicts the pride of Kyushu University as the best university in the Kyushu Island, to open up and let the local communities to visit and enjoy the atmosphere of Kyushu University. In this 2015 year, it has been the 68^th year since the very first time Kyudaisai—Kyushu University Festival—has been organized. Kyudaisai took place in the Ito Campus center zone, 21^st to 22^nd of November.

 

          The theme this year that has become the tagline in posters all around the campus and in some sponsors’ places is “Let’s color”, which suited the stages background, decorations, graffiti boards and posters. They invited 2 main entertainers coming to Kyushu University, which were comedian Go Jazz and actress Saki Fujita. The whole center zone was mainly crowded by tents and guests buying street food happily. In particular, IUPE (International Undergraduate Program in English) students, in behalf of ISU (International Student Union) also took part for the second time in Kyudaisai, introducing to Japanese people the existence of international students in Kyudai, specifically the IUPE program (former name: G30 program).



            Last year we had successfully sold Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice), Indian Curry and Vietnamese Harumaki, and this year we continued the fame of nasi goreng in Kyudaisai to promote international delicious dishes served by Indonesian students in our program, also Vietnamese Harumaki made by the Vietnamese students, in addition to the new menu Tteokbokki (Korean hot snack made from rice cake) and Floating mochi which are famous in the Vietnam. Most of the spices used are imported from the origin, so this street food is authentic. Last year we had the place on the back of QASIS, but this year the place was very strategic to visitors, which is in front of Lawson, together with other international food sellers, named International Street.



            Working as a big team, mainly it was the responsibility of the second years to manage the Kyudaisai, having the plan even before October Autumn semester started. We discussed the job desks and division, also what to prepare during the semester break. Moreover, even some of us brought the special ingredients for Kyudaisai from our countries. Apart from the main leaders, we are assigned jobs either below finance, food stall, logistics, or advertisement. We even sold the presale tickets for our start-up budget weeks before Kyudaisai, designing posters, surveying food prices, estimating the price and food tasting to keep the food quality very satisfying for the buyers, not disappointing them. The first year students which just joined the big family of IUPE this October 2015 are also involved in Kyudaisai Team, and our teamwork has finally resulted in making quite a lot of profit! It was very crowded and busy day. Some third year and fourth year seniors also came by to help and bought our food. Nice team work, guys!

  <1st year student in a horse mask>

                 Despite the Kyudaisai’s busy preparation and working days which is admittedly exhausting for some nonstop volunteers, but we have a lot of fun. We did learn how to manage a good teamwork and pursue a small stall using entrepreneurship skills, although our departments are Engineering and Agriculture. We became closer to each other, get used to the Japanese environments, get to know how Japan differs in the system compared to our country, and learn something new as a part of our studying overseas experience. I believe this experience will be an unforgettable one in our lives.

 West 1
More insights into Kyudaisai: http://www.kyudaisai.jp/
Kyudaisai overview recorded by our student: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGilVOwhwdw

Jessica Marvela
2^nd year Applied Chemistry
IUPE 5^th Generation