Year-End Celebration 2022
Yesterday, December 29, the NPO Vietnamese Association in Japan (the “Association”) hosted its year-end celebration with strong turnout from members and friends across the Kanto region. The venue was once again our familiar Vietnam Garden restaurant. The event started at 5:00 PM and ran until close to 9:00 PM.
The evening opened with a graceful “Hello Vietnam” dance performed by two members in flowing ao dai, followed by an opening address from standing committee member Mr. Quang Nguyen, who spoke about the meaning and history of bonenkai (year-end gatherings) in Japanese culture. In both Vietnamese and Japanese cultures, the year-end celebration is a chance to come together and reflect on the year past. During the program, the Association also recognized five young members who had contributed substantially to community-building activities — across the Phan Boi Chau Japanese Language School for technical interns, employment-support work for international students, media and publishing efforts, administrative-system improvements and chapter expansion, and outreach to promote Vietnam’s image in Japanese society.
Looking back over the year, through our community programs for young people — modest in scale, but meaningful — the Association is becoming a healthy gathering ground for the Vietnamese community in Japan. Tradition-keeping events like the “Lunar New Year Get-Together” and the “Hung Vuong King Memorial Day,” together with community activities like “Cherry-Blossom Viewing,” “Food and Performance Exchange,” and the “Ket Noi Summer Camp,” have grown into magnets for energetic young members. Yesterday’s year-end gathering — where roughly nine out of every ten attendees were around 30 years old — was another such convergence.
Stepping back, 2022 saw Japan’s gradual recovery after two years of the Wuhan pandemic. Within that, the Vietnamese community in Japan also showed remarkable resilience. More and more young people are launching their own ventures, building brands and services tailored to fellow Vietnamese, right here in the Land of the Rising Sun. Fortunate to have these talented young people on our side, the Association has been working — and will keep working — to help build a better image of Vietnam in Japanese society. Bit by bit, replacing the bleak news about Vietnamese that the press has covered too much in recent years — from technical interns running away to administrative corruption and abuse.
The bonenkai closed with the familiar Ippon Jime (一本締め). Four hours may sound brief, but they offered a precious chance for Association members and friends to talk, deepen friendships, and share the youthful drive to take part in meaningful action that gives back to community and society. As we close out a turbulent 2022, the Association plans to keep rolling out activities to grow our voice in defending the dignity and rights of Vietnamese in Japan — moving ever closer to representing patriotic Vietnamese living in this faraway land called Japan.
