(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.”
