SJA/SETCOM hosts information booth at the 2023 Sakura Matsuri
by John McLaughlin
SJA hosted a booth at the Sakura Matsuri "street festival" sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Washington DC at the end of the month-long National Cherry Blossom Festival. SETCOM coordinated a couple dozen volunteers who managed an information table with hundreds of travel brochures in English for traveling in Japan and a chance to practice travel Japanese language with fluent or native speakers over the two days.
Approximately 1,000 people visited our booth where other SJA volunteers also served green tea, ran a quiz game with prizes and hosted an origami table and art project. Many visitors from the DC area expressed an interest in having chances to learn and speak Japanese in person or online. We referred them to our monthly online Japanese classes for adult beginners, weekly in-person Japanese conversation classes, monthly online Setagaya-Arlington Youth Exchange, and monthly SETCOM Happy Hour Social in Arlington.
