Hello from the ICC. First of all, thank you for finding this.
We have two reports from this event: one from the planner, and another from a supporter.
Making Food: What Connects Everyone’s Mind
Planner’s Report
Yasu (ICC Student Staff Leader)
On December 16, 2021, I organized an online cooking event: “Connect students across cultures through food.” We collaborated with two student supporters, one who had connections to Korea, and the other from the United States, and provided an opportunity for students at Waseda to experience different food cultures through cooking. I’d like to share my experience as the planner of this event.
Background and Objective
When planning this event, I considered the following. I have heard many students say that they do not have many opportunities to actually experience the world’s cultures, such as not being able to travel or study abroad. In terms of this, I’m no exception. I planned to study in Australia for one year from last semester, but the university I was planning to go to stopped accepting international students for six months, so I couldn’t go. This unfortunate experience led me to think deeply about what I can do to provide such students with an opportunity to experience something “real” without actually going to a foreign country.
After brainstorming about what I wanted to introduce, I decided to focus on food culture, which is the closest culture in our daily lives, and plan an event where students can eat food, experience and enjoy the differences between Japanese and foreign cuisines from the comfort of their homes.
Challenges
For this event, we needed the help of student supporters to show us their culture. At first, the event was in danger of being canceled because we could not find supporters, despite the time and effort we put into recruitment. However, we were fortunate enough to have two enthusiastic and committed supporters raise their hands. Then, the recipes were chosen. Our Korean supporter introduced us to kkoma gimbap, and our American supporter proposed many delicious dishes, but we decided on hot dogs.
Kkoma gimbap (image by author)
Hot dogs (image by author)
We had a lot of meetings with them and did tons of tasks that we had never done before, such as online cooking simulations, rehearsals, and creating recipe slides. I’m not going to lie: the fact that I had to communicate with them all in English, and the fact that ICC had never held an “online cooking event” in the past, made it even more difficult for me because I had to think wisely and work on something with no precedent. However, it was also a stimulating and fulfilling experience. Although we dealt with many tasks for the first time, the staff members and I always made sure we updated each other about the tasks done, and never forgot to confirm what other tasks needed to be done. Also, I never forgot to ask veteran student staff leaders for advice when I was stuck on something. This opportunity taught me some fundamental management skills.
The event
I had been preparing for this event with the feeling that it would be quite exciting, but on the day of the event, I was unsure if the participants would show up. After all, I was relieved to see the participants join the Zoom room with smiles on their faces. We had sent participants the recipes a week prior and asked them to purchase their own ingredients in advance. During the cooking process, we asked participants to follow the supporters’ lead by imitating what they saw on their screens. I was a bit worried about whether everyone would be able to follow the procedures and cook the dishes without getting injured. The staff could not easily look after each and every participant through Zoom. But it seemed like all my worries were unnecessary, and the event was a big success. The participants were smiling with satisfaction once they tasted the food they had just cooked. I was really glad to see that they were able to experience the food culture of different countries.
Wrapping up
The most striking thing I felt after this event was that food plays an invaluable role in bringing smiles to people’s faces and connects their hearts, regardless of the “physical” distance. Food plays an important role in our lives, even though we don’t usually notice when we eat our meals every single day. There are many other food cultures in the world, in many other countries and regions, so I would like to spread more food cultures to students by holding cooking events again in the future at the ICC. Nothing better than making people smile!
Once again, I would like to thank our two supporters for willingly taking on the role of teaching us how to make the dishes, and a big thanks to everyone who participated in the event, and the ICC staff as well for their help in preparation and advertising.
After making foods with participants, supporters, and staff members (image by ICC)
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Please see our Instagram post (requires login) about the event!
Cooking event connects Waseda students as one
Supporter’s Report
By Y.K.
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies
“Food is our common ground, a universal experience” – James Beard
What would you say is the one thing that connects everyone around the world together? Good food I say! As you may know, Waseda University is well known for having students from various cultural backgrounds. ICC, which strives to create many opportunities for cultural exchange, was promoting an upcoming event for students to share food from their own culture. I was immediately interested despite my history of poor participation rate of school activities. ICC provided me with this lucky chance to promote the taste of Korea.
The hardest challenge was to choose the right menu that tastes good, yet is easy to make, and, most importantly, represents Korea. After much consideration, the choice became clear. I chose gimbap, rice roll in English and nori maki in Japanese. Because gimbap is unique in its own way, I felt it was a good opportunity for me to introduce the differences from the Japanese nori maki. I must admit that both are super delicious, but the ingredients that go inside the rice can be very different.
Thanks to the support from the ICC staff and enthusiastic participants, I believe the event turned out to be a successful one. The student participants were not only well prepared to make gimbap with me, but also showed passion and interest. Especially, when we were tasting the gimbap we made, I saw many thumbs up! Even though this event was only available via Zoom due to the unfortunate Covid situation, I could feel the close bond with other Waseda students. I sincerely hope we can have more opportunities to introduce and learn each other’s cultural food.
