After two short weeks of preparation and planning, the ChristianCampus House presented its first international dinner of thesemester on Friday.
More than 200 people attended the dinner to experience Japaneseculture. The Campus Christian House has two dinners a semester tobring and introduce people of different cultures together, JoeLieway, campus minister at the Campus Christian House, said.
Lieway brought the dinner idea to Michihiro Takahashi. In turn,Takahashi organized a group of Japanese students to help preparethe dinner.
Kayo Kudo, Nobutaka Takashima and Tomoyo Watanabe joinedTakahashi to plan.
"It was hard to get together [because of scheduling] before andcook," Watanabe said. "We are grateful to Joe [Lieway] and theChristian House."
About 20 Japanese students starting cooking, some a few daysbefore the dinner, to present it to the American and internationalstudents that attended.
Some common Japanese dishes such as maki sushi were served aswell as many unknown dishes such as okonomiyaki, or Japanesepancake.
Okonomiyaki is a mixture of dough with cabbage, vegetables andseafood topped with a brown okonomiyaki sauce and dipped inmayonnaise. Variations of this dish are made because 'okonomi'means "as you like" in Japanese. The seafood can be replaced withother meat.
Another dish served that may have been new to guests wasonigiri, which is a fried rice ball. This dish is a hashbrown-likesubstance with rice inside of the ball.
After dinner, Sotoshi Yamamoto demonstrated Judo. Also, amusical performance of traditional Japanese folk songs, Shimautaand Sakura, was an after-dinner treat.
"We decided to play the song [Shimauta] because the traditionalinstrument [the sanshin] was used in it," Takashima said.
Shimauta means 'island song' in Japanese as it expresses theculture from the Okinawa Island from where it originates.
The next international dinner is a Chinese dinner on Oct. 8 atthe Campus Christian House. The dinner costs $5 and is a fundraiserfor the Multicutural Center.
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