The Reitaku International Night held annually took place in a grand manner at Student Activity Center on the night of Dec. 17, 2004. The exchange students from all over the world and the Japanese students of Reitaku Class went all out for their performance, filling the campus with exotic atmosphere on Friday night. Asides from Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Feng Chao-kang, Dean of College of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Dr. Sung Mei-hua, and Chair of Dept. of Japanese Dr. Peng Chuen-yang, a large number of students interested in foreign cultures also gathered at Activity Center to enjoy the great show of these foreign students.
The hosts Hiroko Satou and Shunichi Uehara, who wore the costume of moose, began the show with funny dialogues. They also pulled out some prizes during the interludes. The prizes contain the traditional Japanese Natto and Korean instant noodles, even a suit of Santa Claus. At the instigation of the audience, the winner who pulled out this big prize wore the suit of Santa Claus shyly on the spot and won applause from all the spectators.
The first performance was the traditional Japanese Taiko drum show called “Yu Lan Pen Wu Ta” which made people feel like they were in a rite of traditional Japanese festival. And in the kendo show, Yuji Mukai from Komazawa University and Shunichi Uehara from Reitaku University demonstrated kendo skills with formal accoutrements. Lklingmair Manfred, a foreign student from University of Vienna, Austria, was the only westerner in this kendo performance, which became another topic of the show.
Another amazing show was the vocal solo of Alexander Wibbing, an exchange student from University of Cologne, Germany. He said that his father created both the lyrics and melody of the song he performed, and what he only did was translating the German lyrics into Chinese. Near by was Ryan Skardal from Brandon University of Canada, who played an accompaniment for Alexander. Because Ryan always lowered his hat to cover his face while he played, the show seemed to be a personal concert of Alexander.
Among many marvelous shows, there was a fantastic recitation drama called Crying Out of Love, in the Center of Taiwan, adapted from a Japanese TV drama of the same title. This was a sad love story in which the male leading role traveled all over Taiwan with his girl friend, trying to find back the memory about their past because the girl got an incurable disease. Although the story was a tragedy, it touched everyone deeply in the heart. And the excellent performance impressed a lot of people.
The costume show near the end brought the climax to this evening party. Apart from the occasional costume of Santa Claus, Indian, Chinese, and Korean costumes could also be seen. Many people were captivated by student models’ good figure and graceful stage walk, and they could not help taking pictures during the show. The Reitaku International Night had a perfect ending after all the foreign students sang “Say Forever” and “Love Love Love” together. (~Amanda Yen)
