In Japan, February 3rd is the day called "Setsubun". This word traditionally means "a day between two seasons", and after this day is considered spring.
Every year we prepare various Setsubun related tasks for students in each class level. But this year there were those who forgot about the task to do some research outside the classes as homework, and they flooded into the teachers' office during break time to ask the questions to instructors who were in the office at that time.
In class we also took time to exchange information about not only Japanese "Setsubun" but also about that in the students' home countries. Even though students have been seeing their countries' annual seasonal events all their life, probably many of them needed to do a small research in advance in order to properly share the information with those who don't know about the events and customs. We believe that this kind of activities provide good opportunities for students to know and think about cultures of both Japan and their home countries!
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