On Friday 28 July, 32 high school students as well as accompanying city officials and teachers from Ishinomaki city (located in the Miyagi prefecture) spent the day with our school's Year 10 and Year 11 Japanese language students.

This year’s visit by the group known as The Onigiri (rice ball) ambassadors was a joyous event with many exchanges of culture. This included rice ball making and students participating in a traditional Japanese dance called soran bushi. The soran bushi is a dance that's meant to encourage local fishermen in their catch. The movements in the dance includes scenes of crashing waves, fishermen throwing and retrieving their nets. 

The day progressed with the students participating in language games and art lessons with Ms Pegrum and Ms Lumkin. They also enjoyed a lovely lunch together.

Dulwich High School Student Testimonies

During the Onigiri visit, I was nervous about speaking Japanese to native speakers. But eventually we found a rhythm of speaking a blend of both English and Japanese. My buddies, Mako and Nana were both really nice and very good at English. I am really glad I got the chance to meet them. (Opal Angus in Year 11)

At first, I was nervous but my buddy was super nice and friendly. She taught me how to make onigiri and they were very delicious. She spoke more English that I could speak Japanese which was very helpful for communicating. We exchanged gifts and had lots of fun. (Zahra Jaffer in Year 11)

I wanted to introduce popular Australian games to the Onigiri group’s students like the game ‘saw macadora’. They also taught us a Japanese game called ‘saito san game’ (Japanese hand clapping game). Everyone had a lot of fun. (Sally Le in Year 11)

During the Onigiri Ambassador’s visit, I had the opportunity to MC the opening ceremony in both Japanese and English. In addition, I had three buddies called Sena, Haku and China who study English at their schools. This gave me an opportunity to practice Japanese and learn some new words. (Milla Nikolova in Year 11)