Artistes playing traditional Japanese drums and demonstrating a ninja performance at the Japanese festival at NUML. PHOTO: EXPRESS
ISLAMABAD: To foster closer cultural ties, a month-long Japanese Festival commenced in the federal capital on Tuesday with a special martial arts demonstration and other contests portraying the Japanese culture.
Japanese Ambassador Kuninori Matsuda, who inaugurated Japan Festival 2019 at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) on Tuesday along with the varsity’s Rector Major General (retired) Muhammad Jaffar, said that since Japan and Pakistan share many cultural similarities, the festival will definitely provide a window of opportunity for locals to discover many facets of Japanese culture and its age-old traditions.
The ambassador reiterated that 2022, when Pakistan and Japan celebrate the 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations, will be fully celebrated through a variety of events.
Matsuda stressed upon the need to make continued efforts to further strengthen the bonds of friendship between Japan and Pakistan.
The festival began with a Japanese Speech Contest amongst students of NUML’s Japanese language department.
It was followed by traditional Japanese cultural performances such as kendo — a traditional Japanese martial arts form to demonstrate Japanese sword fighting, taiko — traditional Japanese drum-beating — performance, karate and judo demonstration, a ninjutsu performance, an origami workshop, bonsai and ikebana demonstrations.
The robotics department of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) presented a robotic performance which greatly entertained students. The festival also offered scrumptious Japanese cuisines such as Tempura and Sushi.
As a part of the activities organised to celebrate Japanese culture, an exhibition of photographs to show ‘Japan through the lens of Pakistani photographers’ will be inaugurated on November 21 at the National Art Gallery of the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA).
Around 35 photos captured by photographers associated with the Photographic Society of Pakistan (PSP) will be displayed at the exhibition. The display will comprise photos the photographers took during their recent visit to Japan.
Moreover, Japanese films such as ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, ‘His Master’s Voice’ and ‘Samurai Cat’ will be screened at the Islamabad Club auditorium on November 22, 27 and 28 during a special film festival being organised by the PNCA during the Islamabad Art Festival.
On November 24, a Japanese music show titled “Nihon Unplugged-Cultural Music Performance” will be held at the PNCA auditorium where artists arriving from Japan with local musicians would demonstrate their talent.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2019.
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