Girls’ Festival 2017

The ica Girls’ Festival was held at Kansai International Center on March 5th. There were around 90 Japanese and 40 foreigners who participated. It was a spectacular display of pageantry as kimono dressed participants enjoyed drinking tea and playing traditional Japanese games.

  • This is the fourth year of children’s songs from childcare groups. The children are quite grown up now. They also worked hard at managing the?cat’s cradle and origami booth.
  • For paper sumo wrestling this year, opposing players competed with paper wrestlers that they had painted.
  • Hosts?Natalie (Panama) and Han (Vietnam) said “We were happy that we were able to moderate. It turned out to be Japanese practice.”
  • Participants took enjoyment in yesteryear’s pastimes with activities such as origami, doll making, Go, Shogi, paper balloons, Beigoma, Mizuhiki, Kendama, and Daruma.

People’s impressions…

Although I was busy getting people dressed, it was fun. It was nice talking with people from different countries. (Fujimoto / Japan)

Beigoma (top spinning) was pretty difficult but I was able to do it well.
(Yuto Amino/ 6 years old / Japan)

Plate spinning was fun. It was my first time but I was happy to be able to spin plates successfully. (Reilon Katsuta / China)

Making paper dolls was fun. (Kachobun / China)

I did origami and watercolor painting. It was fun to wear a kimono. (Salam / Liberia)

It was fun to be able to wear a kimono. It wasn’t as hot as I thought it would be. Japanese wedding kimonos are very heavy. (Tier / Indonesia)

My mother and father taught me how to do origami in my country so I had done origami before. It was my first time making a crane.?It was fun watching sumo wrestling. I enjoyed the plate spinning as well. I was taught how to do it so I got pretty good at it. I also love tea. In addition, I also love matcha and Japanese sweets. Japanese culture is quite interesting. (Lucy / Armenia)

(In cooperation with Soroptimist International Osaka – Rinku, 3rd Place, and Art Mizuhiki Musubi Association)