The spring season has approached and with it comes days of rain, and warmer temperatures, but more importantly, cherry blossoms will bloom throughout this time. For many cultures cherry blossoms are of great importance, as they hold various symbolic meanings, especially for the country of Japan. 

In order to create more awareness of the cherry blossoms and demonstrate their significance, the Rowan Anime Club collaborated with the Asian Cultural Association and the Japanese Culture Club to hold their annual Spring Festival event. The festival was held on March 29 and went from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Students can find this event at the Business Hall room 104. 

The event showcased a lot of Japanese cultural foods such as Hanami Dango, and sweet rice flour dumplings that are skewered onto sticks. Yakisoba is a noodle stir-fried dish that is made from wheat flour, which can taste salty, sweet, and sour based on the sauce. They also served rice balls, fruit, and matcha lattes as well. 

Lucas Vu, the president of the Asian Cultural Association presented a portion of a slideshow where he describes why cherry blossoms are so important during this time that they bloom. 

“Spring is seen as a time of renewal. So with all the flowers blooming, it’s kind of nice, it’s about showing growth and prosperity. Asian cultures usually emphasize being harmonious with the outside world and the natural world,” said Vu. “Cherry blossoms are an important symbol of Japanese culture because they only live for a very short amount of time. It’s meant to symbolize the fleeting beauty of life in a way because they only last about a couple of weeks.”

He gives an explanation that cherry blossom season also coincides with when lots of Japanese students are in school, which in turn has created the symbol of new beginnings. This period of time is known as Hanami because in Japan, the beauty of flowers is important, they gather around to hold social gatherings under these cherry blossoms. 

Attendees of this event were able to learn more about this season, while also obtaining free food and the possibility of winning free prizes. Anyone who attended this event could play in the club’s Jeopardy-style game in order to win different prizes that have to do with Japanese culture, but also to learn more about Asian culture within the Rowan student community. For the secretary of the Anime Club, Andrew Ogunjimi, the decor of the room also showed appreciation towards Asian culture. 

“In Asian culture, it is very popular to have a festival for the coming of spring and one of the things that are very closely associated with it is the color pink,” said Ogunjimi. “We decorated the room with a lot of pink stuff and per usual as last semester, we had a cosplay convention.” 

Attendees at this event could also look forward to a cosplay contest, many of them were encouraged prior, to show up in cosplay in order to enter the contest. There were a lot of members dressed up in different costumes that are associated with Asian pop culture, more specifically shows, like Demon Slayer, a popular Japanese animated show. 

Francesca Lombardo, the president of the Japanese Culture Club, was a part of this event for the first time, so this was something very new to collaborate on with the two other organizations. 

“The Japanese Culture Club has never been a part of it, so this is like very new for us. I’m very happy to be a part of this. We mainly focus on doing the decor so we got the backdrop, the props, with the backdrops and then sort of like the cherry blossoms,” said Lombardo.

The reason they decided to also co-host this event was because, for the president of the Japanese Culture Club, networking is very important. Lombardo is hoping to connect with these clubs and also by hosting large events like these, obtaining more people to join their organization. The president has seen that throughout the years the membership has increased from 10 active members to 30 now. 

The Spring Festival gave insight into Japanese culture and their grand appreciation of cherry blossoms. This allows for students to create a better understanding of cultures that are different from theirs, which in the long term allows for more open-mindedness. The three organizations will be hosting a few more events as the semester comes to a close. 

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