The Japanese Cultural Festival 2025, hosted by the 33rd Japanese Studies Society, was successfully held at the Cultural Square on March 28 and March 31.

This year’s festival featured a wide variety of exciting activities, including yukata dressing, ema plaque crafting, and wish tag writing. The event also offered a series of traditional Japanese booth games such as bean bag toss, yo-yo fishing, and shateki. A selection of authentic Japanese snacks and drinks was available, including takoyaki, grilled mochi, and anime-themed sodas, all of which were very popular among participants. In addition, each participating society thoughtfully designed and produced exclusive souvenirs, such as canvas bags, bookmarks, keychains, and omamori charms, which were available for purchase at the venue.

The festival also featured a special live performance by the Woo Sing Band Society, who captivated the crowd with several Japanese songs on the first day, bringing energy and excitement to the event.

The grand opening ceremony took place on March 31 as the final highlight of the event. During the ceremony, a scholarship was presented to CHAN Long Fan, the recipient of the Mizoguchi Scholarship 2022–2023, in recognition of his outstanding academic performance.

The Department of Japanese Studies would like to express its sincere gratitude to the 33rd Japanese Studies Society for their thoughtful planning, and to the co-organizing societies, the Japanese Culture Society, the Animation & Comic Society, and the Doujin Culture Society for their support, which made this year’s festival a great success.

Special thanks to Ms. Endo of The Yomiuri Shimbun for covering our event. We are grateful for the recognition and support in highlighting our efforts to promote Japanese culture.

We look forward to seeing you again at next year’s Japanese Cultural Festival!