Date of activity: June 28th
So the big day has finally come, the arigato event day, the last day where we are together with our host families. We are training hard all day and revise the parts we feel insecure about, like the song in Japanese sign language. In between breaks people are revising their Japanese speeches. Step by step we get more confident. We already performed a shortened arigato event in the school, but perfecting this is our goal. I, myself am amazed at how beautiful the Chinese dance looks that Ying performed on stage. Ellery asks the Dutch people to sing a happy birthday in Dutch for his little host sister with him, because it´s her birthday today. A very touching and nice idea. My host family and their niece were there as we entered the room holding flags, opening the event with a great flag-dance.
Everything goes well, people enjoy themselves on stage and the audience has a blast. Every chair is taken and LOC people keep bringing in more chairs so that everyone has a place to sit. I don´t remember such a huge audience in my last 20 arigato events. I feel relieved when the arigato event is finally over. I am still no fan of singing and dancing on stage but the people always looks so happy and some even get very emotional. This makes me feel like it was worth learning dances and lyrics, even though I don’t like it that much.
Daniel Gallion – Luxembourg
