World Citizens Festival in Matsuyama

I participated in a really cool event in Matsuyama the weekend before last. I was just referring to it as the International Festival, but it was actually called the World Citizens Festival, or 地球人祭り, chikyuujin matsuri. The festival is put on every year by MIC, the Matsuyama International Center. For a small city, not well-known outside Japan and not too famous even in Japan, Matsuyama has a surprising amount of diversity, and about 22 countries were represented at this festival. Aside from the countries you might expect, there were many surprises: Mali, Argentina, Nepal, Thailand, Germany...and of course, South Africa!

I ended up helping out with the South Africa group partially because America didn't really need any extra help (there are quite a few of us, even here) but mostly because I went to the first planning meeting in early December with my friend Safiyya, who is from South Africa. Each country's group consisted of a person/people from that country and Japanese volunteers, and though South Africa wasn't exactly overflowing with either at first, I really think we got the best group in the end. Between Safiyya's enthusiasm and stash of stuff and our wonderful volunteers, Naoko, Yumiko, Yamada-san and Sachiko, we had an awesome booth!


Since I don't live in Matsuyama, I only came to the initial meeting and the last two preceding the actual event, so I wasn't super helpful, but everyone else spent a lot of time finding stuff online, making posters and stickers and props, and coming up with great ideas. In the end, we had 3 boards: general information, culture, and soccer (the World Cup is in South Africa this year, as most non-Americans know well!). We also had rooibos tea and dried fruit & nuts for travelers to sample, a soccer ball game for kids and adults alike, a laptop playing videos like gumboot dancing and the national anthem, and various objects and books for people to look at. I think I can safely say we had the most going on of any booth!







We were extremely busy for the first two or three hours, and then we had some time to look around at the rest of the festival. Canada had samples of pancakes with maple syrup, America had face painting and Twister, China had tea, England had scones, New Zealand had a soccer game, too. North and South Korea were seated together with the line "One Corea" over both flags. Many countries had short quizzes for people to take or a board with a few phrases in their language for people to learn. Every country had a stamp provided by MIC, and festival-goers had passports which they brought around for stamping. MIC estimated the number of attendees at 1,200, which I believe is twice or three times what they had last year. Woohoo!








They also had several food stands and an area to try on costumes from various countries. Possibly my favorite picture is of these two adorable girls at the closing ceremony.


Afterwards, a bunch of us went out to celebrate a job well done!