NEWS

On Sunday, October 31st, APU's annual event, the Tenku Festival, was held for the 19th time. Since the first event was held in 2003, the students have been the driving force behind Tenku Festival, managing, performing, and organizing activities. Like last year, this year’s festival was held online, displaying the diversity of the APU campus not only to the local community but also to the world.

This year's theme was "NEW NORMAL -A new style of travel-.” Due to the spread of COVID-19 since last year and the resulting restrictions on entry into Japan, many international students, who make up about half of the APU student body, have been forced to stay in their home countries and study online. This has had an impact on students on campus as well, as they are no longer able to interact with each other face-to-face as before. Nevertheless, APU continues to be home to a diverse student body of international and domestic students from 95 different countries and regions. This year's festival was designed to express the international nature of APU to the best of its ability during this time, and to provide an opportunity to travel the globe from the small world of the APU campus. In place of the festival’s popular international food booths, staples of Tenku before the pandemic, were videos and SNS posts introducing Beppu restaurants and shops affiliated with APU students and alumni. Stage performances by student groups were live-streamed along with various other events, including quizzes and bingo competitions hosted by the Tenku Festival Committee.

Tenku Festival website: https://en.apu-online.jp/tenku-fes
Tenku Festival Instargam: https://www.instagram.com/tenkufes_apu/?hl=ja

Yuka Takiguchi (College of Asia Pacific Studies 3rd year student), head representative of the 48 members of the Tenku Festival Committee, has been a member of the committee since her first year. Since this year’s festival preparations starting in May, she devised ways to bring together the multinational members who had never met before online. Moreover, with the decision to hold the event online being made in September, she continued to cooperate with all members and provide support to the performers to make this event a reality. Seeing the expressions on the faces of the organizing committee members and the students who participated in the event, she felt a sense of accomplishment.

Head Representative　Yuka Takiguchi (APS, 3rd year)
Vice Representative　Ryu Takazawa (APS, 2nd year)
Treasurer　Nagomi Endo (APS, 2nd year)
Stage Performance Department Leader　Kosuzu Kajiwara (APS, 2nd year)
Food Booth Department Leader　Takuya Kawabe (APS, 2nd year)
Food Booth Department Sub leader　Chinbat Anujin（APM, 3rd year)
Student Organization Performance Department Leader　Yuno Shiaku (APS, 3rd year)
Event Planning Department Leader　Kim Yoojin （APM, 2nd year)
Public Relations and Decoration Department Leader　INOUE Ruka (APS, 2nd year)