I attended the Japanese Student Organization’s Undokai event. This is a Japanese sports festival where a diverse set of people come together to compete against each other by being a part of the red team and white team. I attended this event, because of my Japanese cultural heritage. I have never been to school in Japan, so I have never been able to experience the true “Undokai”. I learned that many people who were not Japanese were interested in Japanese culture as well.
I think that the president of the JSO club did a great job trying to explain the cultural importance of Undokai. He helped make everyone feel a part of the event. A Japanese teacher also came to give a small speech before the festivities began. We all stretched to the Japanese song “Radio Taisou”. In this stretching, many childish stretches left us laughing. Undokai is a family-friendly event and every Japanese child grows up experiencing it each year.
There were many activities such as the two-legged race, relay, tug-a-war, jump rope, mystery race, and Japanese dodge ball. In Japanese dodgeball, the rules were slightly different. The American players including myself learned these slightly different rules and played the game. At first, I didn’t accept the different rules and thought of them as strange. But slowly, as the game progressed, I realized how much fun it was to learn to play the same game but in a different culture’s perspective.
One event I found interesting was the “Mary-batsu-Quiz”. In this event, every participant stood in the middle of the field. The president of JSO asked us questions about Japan and we had to go to the side that said “true” or “false”. My red team’s strategy was to make sure we had about half of our members on each side of the field per question. This way, even if we missed a question, we would have lots of people remaining.
My favorite event was the calvary race. The red and white team had to create teams of 4. Three people were on the bottom while they held up on person on the top. The object of the game was to steal the opposing team’s hats. My team’s strategy was to have a lightweight person on our heads while we ran away from all the other teams. This was a success and we helped the red team gain points.
Although in the end my team, the red team lost, I had lots of fun and gained Japanese cultural experience with my OSU classmates.
Diversity and Inclusion impacts STEM, my classmates, and our daily routines because each person has a different cultural background. We need to respect each other to be successful and collaborate ideas. I think there is enough diversity at The Ohio State University. There are many cultural clubs such as the Korean Student Organization(KSA), the Chinese American Student Association(CASA), and the Asian American Association (AAA) to name a few. To gain more cultural insight, it is important to branch out and experience new cultural events.