On the bustling Miracle Mile, tucked away towards Building 26, sat a booth with a colorful display of items. From model kits, manga and various culture wear were showcased for all to see. The club that it belonged to? The Japanese Language and Culture Club, one of the many clubs present during Sept. 9-11 during the campus’s Join-A-Club event.
The JLCC has had multiple iterations, with the most recent dating to 2024, though unfortunately has laid dormant because people were signing up, but not attending meetings for unknown reasons. “I think that might just be like…there were conflicts of interest about what people wanted from the club, what people wanted the club to be about, but we’re looking forward to meeting new people this semester and bringing people together,” Gio Hanoum said, a club officer with the JLCC.
While the JLCC hasn’t had any meetings this semester, they have plans for what they would like to do, ranging from cultural activities to more lighthearted activities like trading card game tournaments.
“We’re planning to do some anime screenings, some traditional crafts like origami, maybe some kanji writing,” said JLCC officer Dagny Goren, who was manning the booth. “Oh, and Pokémon stuff — we’ve had a lot of people come up interested in Pokémon.”
”Such as tournaments and stuff. We are also distributing information about Japanese programs at Mt. SAC, such as the Study Abroad program to Osaka that was this past winter. I was on it, we were both on it.” Hanoum said, finishing the rest of what Goren was saying..
Taken from their experience abroad, multiple members bring firsthand experience that one might not get otherwise. They’re able to answer questions not only pertaining to the Japanese language, but also about daily life in Japan, giving insight beyond what’s taught.
“We have the experience of a couple of people who have been on the program, and other people who have been to Japan to help people out with any questions or any curiosities they might have about going to a foreign country,” Hanoum said. “Another big part of our club is we have a lot of Japanese language learners at Mt. SAC, we have a really extensive Japanese program. We have people of all kinds of different Japanese levels as part of our club and as part of our officers, so whether you’ve taken four or five levels of Japanese, or are starting to to be interested in it, there’s going to be someone you can try to shake the rust off of your skills with.”
While the club does have a focus in the Japanese language to some degree, that isn’t the only thing they concentrate on. The club wants to push more out about Japanese culture to get people to understand more about it, rather than the surface level things they get from various media types.
“Also, just a place to learn more about Japanese culture. I feel like a lot of people only know what they’ve seen in anime and may not know more about the traditional culture, like traditional instruments like the Shamisen and the Koto, so our goal is to feel out what people want from a Japanese Culture Club and try not to be an anime club. That has happened in years past and we want to shake that off, Hanoum said.
As it stands, the club hasn’t officially declared any meeting times, as they would like to get a gauge for what members would like. “We’re either thinking of beginning meetings Tuesdays – Thursdays from 3:00 to 5:00, or Monday – Wednesday after 5:00 p.m.” Hanoum said. “We’re going to run a poll in our club Discord, which you can get the QR code from, but we’re also going to be distributing flyers in the language building with our information, like our Discord and Instagram.”
Club officers can be found at the Language Learning Center in Building 77, where future club meetings are planned to be held. They are available to answer any questions, whether about the club itself or learning Japanese. For now, the sky is the limit for the club, and only time will tell how things go.
