Sharing the language of sport
By Chris Kerr
Sports Editor
August 5, 2009
More than 40 Japanese students recently visited Windsor to celebrate cultural traditions.
Among these traditions was an emphasis on Japanese and Canadian national sports.
The students of the all-girl Catholic middle-school in Fujisawa provided archery and kendo demonstrations. Kendo is a type of martial art fencing based on traditional Japanese swordsmanship.
The sport of Kendo, practiced by these young school girls of Fujisawa and throughout the rest of Japan, is a physically and mentally challenging activity that combines strong martial arts values with sport-like physical elements.
At the end of the impressive Kendo and archery exhibitions, the young Japanese students turned to a packed Freed Orman Centre, gracefully bowed, and then thanked their audience for watching.
It was characteristic of the Japanese to be polite and disarming, even though they were armed with bows, arrows, and swords.
The Windsor students highlighted their own national contact sport by relaying local hockey success stories topped with a demonstration by the Sun Parlour Female Hockey team, the Wildcats.
The all-girls team demonstrated their stick-handling skills in front of an attentive Japanese audience, and provided their own equipment for the visiting students to try on and take pictures with. Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis was in attendance to take part in the festivities and welcome the Japanese students to their sister city of Windsor.
The Japanese/Canadian Cultural Celebration is an indication of Windsor’s growing and inclusive culture.
“This is a great way for our city to display what we have to offer,” said Francis, “And it also shows that Windsor is progressively granting permission to include the traditional sports and customs of other cultures within our community.”
Francis recognizes Windsor’s uniqueness in its multiculturalism and progressive cultural inclusions, but he also says that the city has much to be proud of in terms of its accomplishments in hockey.
“Windsor has a hundred-plus cultures which make for unique cultural behaviour,” said Francis, “these events act as an excellent opportunity to display Canada’s salvation for hockey.”
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