A team of second-year Japanese language students from DU won the 10th annual Japan Bowl championship held at DU on March 31.
Three DU students — Larry Gaugh, a junior Asian studies major, Man Man Yung, a freshman hospitality major, and Meiqin Rui, a non-degree seeking student — beat CSU and CU-Boulder in the competition, which tests students’ knowledge of Japanese language and culture. The three DU students are enrolled in Setsu Kawada’s intermediate Japanese course.
“Our students and instructor worked very hard to achieve this goal,” says Michiko Croft, a senior lecturer in the Department of Languages and Literatures.
The contest was hosted by the Japan America Society of Colorado and took place in Sturm Hall. The DU students took an early lead by relying on their knowledge of kanji characters and vocabulary, but towards the end, defending champions from CSU gave a strong effort by correctly producing difficult grammar patterns.
In Japan Bowl, students compete at four different levels, from high school level 2 to the second-year college level. Six college teams competed — including three teams from CSU, two teams from DU, and a team from CU. After preliminary exercises, one team from each school advanced to the final round.
Cultural activities included judo, go, anime (Japanese animation) and Japanese pop culture.