International Day

This is another International day held in Tokyo in middle of Nov. Haitham was the one who organized the Syrian corner along with traditional clothes and lots of Syrian stuff that I would never expect that they exist here in Japan.
The Syrian embassy in Tokyo nicely provided the posters, the brochures and a CD about Syria.


So, thank you Haitham and thanks for the Syrian embassy.

International Day

Every year the Tohoku University Foreign Student Association held an international day. In that day around 33 countries around the world participate and show their own culture, mainly through the food. The huge communities here like Chinese, Korean and Indonesian also participate in traditional dancing group. Last year, I and some Egyptian friends here participated in that day in two tents. This year it was on Sunday the 29th of November. Again I and the Egyptian friends participated in this by two tents: Syria and Egypt.
In the Syrian tents we served Shawarma along with French fries and Basboosa prepared by the Egyptians of course.

One day before that day, we went and made dough (A'jeen) then we made the bread in the next day. Some Japanese volunteers helped us.

Of course for them it was their first time to do such thing. Since we do not have all the needed tools, we applies the Arabic saying ( AlHajja Um Alekhtra'a) , the inventions came because of the need, we used the frying pans to prepare the bread in it.

For the meat we used a flatting baking tin, on which I prepared the chicken.

Last year it was our first participating with Shawarma, at that time we sold around 315 meals out of 400 we prepared/were allowed to prepare. That made us in the fourth place behind Germany, China and Vietnam.
This year we sold "officially"374 meals out of 350 meals we prepared. Yes we prepared only 350 pieces of breads. Because a shortage of the A'jeen. During the day it self we finished all the 350 "breads" and still the people coming to us. So, I told the Egyptians to bring the rice from their tent (they sold only 248 meals) and lets start sell Shawarma with rice. By this step, we finished all the chicken we were cocked, finished the extra rice and chicken from the Egyptian tent.
When it was the time for seeing who sold more, we came in the FIRST place , Iran came second at 373 , yes just one meal, Turkey third 317 meals.
Actually, I saw people whom came to our tent last year, came this year seeking for the Syrian dish. One lady came to me asking if there is any Syrian restaurant in Sendai???? I said "Only me"!!!!!!
Another lady was in Syria and ate Shawarma there; she thought she will never be able to eat it again. "Oh My GOD, you were sent from GOD to me", she started to argue that she does not want neither the French fries nor the basbosa. Instead of them she wanted two sandwiches of Shawarma. Of course we gave her as she wanted. Both ladies were Westerns. During the selling time , I and another Egyption friend kept shouting ( irashimaseen, irashi ,shria no Shawarma tapetakudasai,ban wa coco de dakea ) and other statements. It was like a competition to speak slang Japanese.
The only thing that I wished to do last year and I did not do even in this year is to eat my Shawrama. I could not manage to "sneak" even one sandwich. Frankly, we did not have any free time at all. The selling starts at 11 AM and it should stop at 3 PM. Of course no one stopped at 3 PM, but for our case and since we do not have any thing to sell, even after the extra supply from "Egypt".
The reason why I said "officially" we sold 374 meals is because that we thought that we sold 400 meals and we stooped putting tickets in our box. The extra tickets we gave them to the Egyptian tent. At least ten tickets.
In the same time, I already prepared a poster containing pictures from almost all parts of Syria.

Most of our "customers" were eating their Sahwarma and watching the pictures. After I finished selling and started to have some free time I went through several talks about Syria with Japanese people. Actually they know nothing about Syria. They were surprised that the Silk Road was passing through Syria and Palmyra was a major city on that road. Some of them knew about Syria from the movie Kingdom of Heaven where our great actor Ghassan Masoud played the role of Al- Naser Salah Aldeen. Other people also knew about Syria from another movie they mentioned it to me but I can not remember.
In the next day, the main local news paper in Tohoku area published short news about the festival. The only picture published was for the Syrian tent showing some Egyptian friends.

It said: the chiken meat dish prepared by the Surian students in their tent was so popular.
Lastly, it was hard work really but now when I am looking for the result, in somehow I feel satisfied. At least I try to deliver a good image about Syria. I hope I succeed.