Photographs by Benjamin Swale

This time, besides the traditional wishes festooning the stalks of bamboo harvested from our very own ‘back yard’ up behind the von Zedlitz Building, there was a virtual bamboo set up on the LLC noticeboard too – students were invited to share with each other their favourite Japanese words, phrases or expressions by pinning them to the 言葉の七夕飾り (kotoba no tanabatakazari) or “word bamboo”.

From poetic words through uniquely Japanese concepts to manga characters’ pet phrases that have achieved meme-like status, students of Japanese shared a huge variety of beloved vocabulary, along with an explanation of why they liked them.

Wishes, just like last year, centred on personal hopes and aspirations – a new job, good health for family members, teaching English in Japan, or going on exchange were some of the themes emerging from people’s wishes.

This year, besides inviting our own students to participate, the organisers also reached out to a group of students from Japan’s Meiji Gakuin University, who are scheduled to arrive on their exchange in New Zealand in the middle of August. Some of them sent their own wishes and favourite words to be added to those of their future fellow students here in Wellington – we hope that they felt a little bit welcomed into our university’s community even before getting here!

So what’s next? The organisers have been thinking of recycling, both literally and figuratively – the bamboo stalks have already been returned to nature so that they can break down and help produce new shoots; and as for the favourite words, well, keep an eye out for a special student challenge designed to get everyone to recycle some of those words and give them new life in 2020! お楽しみに！