Our Final Group Thoughts On Karaoke Castle

Overall, our group is happy that we picked castles and karaoke because they are a part of Japanese culture. Learning about Goryokaku and Matsumae has been a wonderful experience, because even today, these places are still important in Japan. We learned that first hand as our group got to witness and even be a part of the Goryokaku Festival and parade on Sunday May 20^th. Even though the battle for Hakodate ended in 1869, Japanese people are still remembering and teaching the next generation about the history of this province, and we are very glad to know a little more about the history of this beautiful country now.

Going to Matsumae was an incredible experience where we were able to understand a little more how people lived in the Edo Period. As we said in the start of our project, our group has never been to a castle before, and it was a very surreal experience to be able to witness such a beautiful piece of history in Japan. We did not know that the Ainu people initially were in control of Matsumae, nor did we know that Matsumae is actually a people group that took control of the castle in the early 1600s.

I think we wanted to survey more people about Matsumae and to see how much they know about the history of it, but because of the language barrier, we found it slightly difficult to question people about what they know. Even though 2 of us in the group speak some Japanese, it can be hard to have a deeper conversation with someone who we are maybe not comfortable with being around. Overall though, now that we have all been to a castle, we are more interested in going to more and learning about the history behind them, whether we are in North America, or Asia!

When it comes to karaoke, singing culture is much more ingrained in the Japanese people than with  Calgarians. You can see this by how well the junior high students sang at the school. This was also apparent when Kodama sensei and Yuna sang at karaoke. We are a lot more foolish and free spirited at karaoke; We don't  care if we sound good or not, we are mostly just there to bond and have fun. The Japanese are maybe a little more narcissistic when it comes to karaoke, they treat it more like an individual performance and it is taken pretty seriously so they try to sing to the best of their ability. Karaoke is a great way to bond and create a closer friendship, kind of like how Japanese people bond together in the onsen. We have concluded three social significance about karaoke, including strengthening relationship with others, improving cooperation and collaboration in the group, and resulting in social approval and validation.

Overall, we believe karaoke can help develop new friendships by facilitating conversations. Singing together as a group increased the perceived important or values or collaboration and the cooperative behaviour in the group. We feel that we are more connected and united as a group after the karaoke experience. Also, there was cheering, praise, and positive comments about the karaoke performance, regardless of how well we sang. We believe these positive audience responses can result in the karaoke singer feeling appreciated, respected, and accepted by others in the group.