20 Days to FIUTS CulturalFest 2024!

UW JSA Represents Japan at FIUTS CulturalFest Expo

“I’m not aware of many other events other than CulturalFest where participants can be introduced to and experience multiple cultures all at once.” 

Mia Chon, Booth Captain of Japan

How is everyone getting ready 4 weeks before the CulturalFest 2024?  

Today, we bring you exclusive insight into Mia Chon, the Japanese Booth Captain who’s sharing with us what it means to be part of the CulturalFest Expo, and what we can expect so far from the Japanese booth.

2024 UW JSA Outreach Team

I’m Mia (front row, center), a 4th-year business student at the University of Washington. I’m half-Japanese and half-Korean, and grew up in Germany until I moved to the US for college. We are 7 UW students (Kai, Ayata, Tomo, Arika, Jerry, Sofia, and I) from UW Japanese Student Association (JSA) Outreach Team, where we share a passion for spreading Japanese culture. 

I got to know about CulturalFest through my involvement in JSA. It is a tradition for JSA to be part of it to interact and share cool things about Japanese culture with the larger Seattle Community. We hope to be able to continue this tradition for years to come. Despite the challenges of coordinating the schedules of different people and considering what would be the best experience, I took on the position of Booth Captain given my extensive past leadership experience. 

This year, we are trying something new where we have an activity inspired by a fun game you can often find at Japanese summer festivals – kingyo sukui (goldfish scooping)! Kingyo sukui is a game where players try to scoop out live goldfish from a tub of water with a paper scoop before it gets too wet and breaks. As a child, this was my favorite booth to attend at the summer festival because what is more fun than catching a fish??? While we, unfortunately, won’t be able to supply live goldfish at our booth, we hope to communicate the same excitement and thrill with floating capsules and fun prizes. If you think you have what it takes to skillfully scoop as many capsules without breaking the paper scoop, we’d love to see you at our booth to take up the challenge. 

I’m not aware of many other events other than CulturalFest where participants can be introduced to and experience multiple cultures all at once. I think many members of the community, including myself, really appreciate and benefit from having such event to attend and be able to talk to people who are passionate about sharing their culture. I’m reminded every year there are so many booths representing diverse cultures and I learn so much just by talking to neighboring Booth Captains – I can’t imagine how much you could learn if you went around to each one!  

JSA Japan Booth at 2023 CulturalFest Expo

Are you excited about Mia’s stories and plans? We are! It has been amazing to have the Japanese booth the past years, and we look forward to seeing her ideas come to life at the CulturalFest2024. See you there soon!