Asian Culture Camp teaches children how to make sushi, origami

“Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nana, hachi, ku, ju.”

Ten children from ages 6 to 12 recited Japanese numbers after their teacher Tokako Kojima on Friday during the morning session of the Asian Culture Center’s Culture Camp for Children.

From July 13 to 24, children from the Bloomington area can participate in the culture camp, which offers two sessions from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2 to 4 p.m., each day about a different country.

This year, the countries include Japan, China, India and Nepal.

Friday’s class was led by Kojima, the coordinating teacher, and began with a lesson on Japanese numbers. For the lesson, Kojima showed the children an online video that taught the numbers through song.

Kojima then taught the children how to make fish origami. At first, the children followed the origami steps intensely but soon caught on and asked for more paper.

While making a fish, 9-year-old Shahzadi Upadhyay jumped from his chair.

“I made a lopsided fish,” he said.

The final lesson taught the kids how to make sushi. They paid close attention as Kojima made an example.

“Take two scoops of rice and spread them evenly on the dried seaweed,” she said. “Pick your favorite ingredients and place them nicely on one side of the rice. Roll up the bamboo mat and press forward to shape the sushi into a cylinder. Press more firmly this time and remove the bamboo mat from the sushi.”

Most of the students succeeded in rolling the sushi without the help of their teacher or other program assistants, and the sushi rolls were then cut by the coordinators and given to the children for lunch.

At the end of the program, 10-year-old Emily Huff said she enjoyed the camp.

“I like the paper crafts most,” she said. “And I was in the Chinese session yesterday making dumplings.”

Kojima, a volunteer teacher for Japanese classes at the ACC, said she feels happy to share her culture with the American kids.

“When I was in Japan, I did not think of Japanese culture literally,” she said. “But here, I think about it more because I have to explain the Japanese culture, and it is good for me.”

Kojima said she especially liked teaching the sushi lesson because she feels the kids really want to know how to make the popular dish. She said looking at the excited faces of the students during the lesson made her feel proud of her country’s culture.

In past years, children have been taught to make bracelets with turquoise beads, make paper lanterns, cook sesame balls, do calligraphy and play a chopsticks game.
The ethnic activities at the camp cover anything from hands-on arts, traditional games, music, language exploration and cooking demonstrations.

Priyanka Dube, the student coordinator in charge of this year’s culture camp, said she gives herself a mission of spreading the culture when organizing the event.

“We recognized that it’s important to foster awareness and appreciation for culture within the global community,” Dube said, ”especially with our
children.”