Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

11/11/2004, An important lesson... about ice cream

In the international relations class, we exchange video letters with other schools.  Right now, we're creating a video letter to send to a high school in the Czech Republic.  Our students answer some questions (in English) that were asked in a previous video letter from the other school.  Then, our students talk about some interesting areas of Japanese culture.  One such area is ice cream.

Today, we made a video about ice cream in Japan.  I bought a bunch of different kinds of ice cream that are unique to Japan (or at least uncommon in the United States).  We video taped the students fighting over who got the prized (and somewhat expensive) cup of melon Haagen Dazs.  They did a massive series of matches of rock-scissors-paper.  This game is ubiquitous in Japan.  Finally, a winner of the melon ice cream emerged.  A couple students talked about the social, cultural, and meteorological (weather) significance of ice cream in Japan, as well as the ubiquitous availability in vending machines.  And, we videotapes the students diving into a big pile of ice cream.  As they ate the ice cream, they explained in English what they were eating to the camera.  It was fantastic.  They even let me take some pictures for this web site.

Students sitting around a table eating ice cream.

A couple students enjoying some stringy "Turkish" chocolate ice cream.

Same students, same ice cream.  They liked this picture better.

Sherbert and sweet red bean (azuki) ice cream bars, the leftovers they weren't so fond of.

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