私はCoFesta Student Ambassadorですよ！

So, I am currently trying to keep the momentum going with my blog entries in order to avoid months of silence....

Anyways! a few weeks ago, by chance, I was handed a flyer about something called CoFesta Student Ambassadors when I was leaving the welcome party for international students at my school. Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to what I am handed (I am ashamed.. orz), but this caught my interest as it was about recruiting foreign students interested in spreading Japanese contents outside of Japan and offered a chance to attend amazing events, such as TIFF (Tokyo International Film Festival), Tokyo Game Show, Japan Game Awards, TIMM (Tokyo International Music Market), Tokyo International Anime Festival, Digital Context Expo and many more, as a student ambassador. Being a great fan of Japanese contents, this seemed like a golden opportunity to me and I decided to try my chances and apply.

And what do you know! I got an invitation for the Orientation (which was a couple of weeks ago). I was ridiculously excited. xD It really was an amazing evening for me - I got to meet a lot of new people from all over the world, who shared my passion for Japanese contents, and even spent some time talking in Japanese instead of English.

Turned out this was actually the first time CoFesta (Japan International Contents Festival) and the ministry were doing something like this, so I have to say I felt even luckier to be there. The basic idea of this Student Ambassador venture was to harness the power of foreign students in promoting Japan to potential buyers from abroad, since we'd know better what they wanted and could sell Japan in a different way than Japanese people could and to also share our opinions and opinions from our countries. I thought it was really wonderful that Japan is reaching out like this, since I believe that Japan has so much to offer the rest of the world due to its unique culture and contents. I also believe that turning to foreign students was a great move, since I am sure most of us are here because of our love for Japan, so we have the drive and passion to make this happen.

Now then, last week was my first adventure as a Student Ambassador. I was one of the fortunate ambassadors who got invited to the CoFesta Grand Ceremony (there was room for only 50 of us, as it was VIP :3). I wasn't able to attend the tour of events before the ceremony though due to having a rescheduled class in the afternoon. Oh well. The Grand Ceremony was really interesting in itself! They had a couple of musical performances there to promote Japanese pop culture, Man with a Mission and Nogizaka46 (official rival group of AKB48) to be exact, which showed really different sides of Japanese music - maybe too unique for foreign buyers to absorb? xD haha.

On another note, I found that my year of working at a bookstore came really handy that night, as I was able to use my customer service tactics to find myself a buyer to talk with for the whole duration of the ceremony. I learned many interesting things from the buyer and in turn shared my own experiences, opinions and ambitions. When Nogizaka46 was performing, I even thoroughly explained the concept of pop idol groups in Japan and how they work and to be honest I was actually quite shocked at how much I knew considering I am not a fan. At the start of the ceremony I was a bit worried about being able to find anyone to talk with, but looks like it was for naught. One of the CoFesta staff even asked me afterwards about what I was talking with the buyer since our conversation seemed so intense and lasted so long. xD Maybe I am suited for this kind of stuff after all.

So, conclusions! Having Student Ambassadors is a very good idea. However, there are quite many things to develop further. That's okay though, since I think that is one of our purposes anyway, to give suggestions on how to improve the ways that things are currently done and on what should be done in the future. For one, quite many foreigners who attended the events did not show up at the Grand Ceremony (most of the people were Japanese) and something definitely needs to be done about this. Also, the performers could've used a more thorough introduction telling what segment of j-pop culture they represent in order to make foreign buyers appreciate them more, for them to seem more approachable. My own personal suggestion would be to have an anison singer next time, since they could represent two different parts of Japanese contents at the same time, namely anime and music. All in all though, I think Japan is on the right track and this Student Ambassador thing has all the potential to evolve a lot further and become a powerful tool in promoting and spreading Japan across boarders (my latest posts seem to be about things that have much potential xD). I look forward to the next events I shall be participating in! I feel like ever since I came to Japan I have somehow gotten involved in many cool and unique opportunities. I hope things will keep going this way!

Last but not least, here is the link to the CoFesta site, if you want to read in more detail what it actually is: http://www.cofesta.jp/2012/en/

IMPORTANT EDIT:  Forgot to mention this when I initially posted the entry, but! If any of you have some opinions on what Japanese contents you'd like to see in your country, or ideas on how Japan should promote itself abroad etc etc do share them here! I can take them forward to people who actually decide this stuff and they are more than eager to hear what we all have to say!