Inquiry Blog Post #1

Welcome to my inquiry blog!

For my inquiry blog, I am going to learn more about Japan and Japanese culture! This spring, I am completing my 6-week practicum at a Canadian international school in Tokyo, Japan. There, I get the opportunity to teach grade 7 and grade 8 students. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity and want to prepare myself as much as I can. Therefore, I am going to dedicate my inquiry blog to learning more about Japan. I plan on learning some Japanese as well as learning more about how to be a conscious and informed tourist.

This week, as part of my learning journey, I attended a Japanese ink painting workshop at UVic. The workshop was facilitated through UVic’s History Department and its “Landscapes of Injustice” project, and was taught by the incredible artist Michael Abe.

I first heard about UVic’s “Landscapes of Injustice” project while taking  UVic’s History 119: Exile and Deportation in World History during my undergrad. The class’s professor, Jordan Stanger-Ross, is the project’s head and has done some incredible research. The project explores the unjust internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and the repercussions that those inhumane acts have on the Japanese Canadian community to this day. The project is worth looking into, and you can find the link here: https://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/capi/research/home/projects/landscapes/index.php. 

Michael Abe taught us the beautiful art of Japanese ink painting. He showed us how to grind ink, correctly mix ink with water, and properly load ink onto brushes to get the desired brush strokes. The process was tedious but so fun and definitely worth it.