AIU TOPICS
AIU Voices
AIU Student Voice: Experience in helping farmers – Nazuna Tagashira, Degree-Seeking student (Sophomore year)
In “AIU Student Voice,” AIU students introduce their experiences with student life at AIU that they would like to share with international students. In these articles, you might find some information that only AIU students would know, as well as tips for enjoying your study abroad life at AIU.
Here is a message from Ms. Nazuna Tagashira.
Introduction
Hi, I’m Nazuna Tagashira, a sophomore at Akita International University (AIU). I will introduce you to the best time and place that you can experience AKITA.
Helping farmers
I belong to AUWA(会う輪), one of the club activities at AIU. The club gives you opportunities to meet and interact with local people. The locals are always pleased when AIU students come to interact with them. You can enjoy talking with each other about your dreams or wishes and ambitions. These stories are so interesting that I can get a lot of energy. You can also build a relationship with other university students. Even if AIU life is excellent, I sometimes feel I need to hear different perspectives from outside of campus.
This is a picture from when I participated in rice planting. Rice planting is not easy work, and you may be tired afterward. However, what I want to introduce in this article is the accomplishment from this activity.
For this activity, farmers prepared lunch; rice balls with miso paste, miso soup, and iburi-gakko (Smoked pickled daikon radish).
The farmers made the miso paste by themselves, and so we had an opportunity to experience making miso. Iburi-gakko is one of the famous traditional foods in Akita. The farmers built the cabin used for smoking the daikon radish by themselves with help from AIU students.
These are the things you should prepare for this activity
- clothes that are comfortable to move around in
- towel
- water bottle (If you have one)
You can borrow shoes, and the farmers will even give you a cup of water.
Lastly
When you focus on the work, you can forget about your school assignments for a little while. AIU students always have a lot of homework, but they need some rest from time to time.
If you are interested in AUWA (会う輪), you can contact us through this Instagram account!
https://www.instagram.com/auwa_aiu/?hl=en
From the Center for International Affairs
In addition to helping with the farm work, AUWA’s club activities range from renovating old houses to tea gatherings with the local people. Through interaction with the local community, we hope that you will not only become aware of new values and ways of thinking, but also experience a sense of accomplishment by challenging yourself to do something new with AIU students.