(Cranford,
NJ—March 11, 2016) New Jersey Association of Teachers of Japanese (NJATJ)
President Yoko Fukuda has awarded High Tech’s Anthony Chae and Keyu Sheng, both
residents of Harrison, and North Bergen resident Cindy Wong this year’s
Japanese Language and Culture Study Award, announced Dr. Joseph Giammarella,
Principal of High Tech High School.
Along
with Chae, Sheng, and Wong, students of the High Tech Japanese Program attended
the Japanese Language and Culture Study Award Ceremony, sponsored by NJATJ at
the Orange Avenue School. Yuka Fujino, the
Consulate General of Japan in New York City, directed her congratulatory remarks
to a group of fifty-five high school and college students honored at the Study
Award Ceremony.
“I
hadn’t really paid attention to Japanese culture,” claims Sheng, “before
enrolling in my classes at High Tech.” Sheng’s
interest in Japanese “light novels,” a style of fiction
primarily targeting young adults, and composed of usually no more than 50,000
words in length, served as the catalyst for Sheng to engross himself in
the Japanese language. By osmosis, he
became an interested student of Japanese culture as well.
Following
the speeches at the Study Award Ceremony, the High Tech Japanese Club treated
the audience to an adaption of “The Fisherman’s Dance” (Soran Bushi), a traditional piece depicting the movement of ocean
waves, rope pulling, and dragging nets, all emblematic of the hardscrabble life
of men of the sea.
“I’m
very pleased with my students,” says Akemi Dobkin, veteran Japanese instructor
at High Tech. “My students have made great
efforts in increasing their mastery of the [Japanese] language and in participating
in [Japanese] culture.”
