On March 21st and 22nd, 2008, six Japanese students represented Silver Creek High School at the annual Japan Bowl National Competition in Washington D.C. This competition pits schools from all over the nation against one another in a Jeopardy-format answering questions about Japanese language, culture, history and politics in Japanese! This year, Silver Creek fielded two teams at the Japanese 2 and Japanese 3 levels (there is not contest for Japanese 1). As always, the students worked extremely hard for more than three months in order to prepare themselves for this special challenge.
This year, results were not announced except for the top five at each level. Sadly, SCHS finished out of the money this year. We were told that we would be able to request our overall scores and rankings later, and I have sent three separate e-mails requesting that information. No response has been received almost a year later, and so we will simply assume that we were 6th at both levels. =P
Regardless of our ranking, the teams had a blast in DC meeting new friends, seeing the town, and pushing linguistic boundaries. Highlights from this year include meeting the inventor of Sudoku, Maki Kaji, being treated to a stellar performance by Shamisen world champion Andou Yoshitaka (?), seeing the Holocaust Museum, eating at the Chilean-Japanese fusion restaurant Wasabi (eh?), and escorting Mr. Capps around the Capitol.
The 2007-2008 Silver Creek High School Japan Bowl Team Members are:
Level 3-- Catherine Amutan (captain), Melissa Ha, and Victoria Le.
Level 2-- Ly "Koramen" Le (captain), Jeffrey "Mr." Capps, and Cecilia "Tanto" Tran.
For the official website of the Japan Bowl, as well as videos and official results, click here.
For 2002 Japan Bowl National results and photos click here.
For 2003 Japan Bowl Regional results and photos click here.
For 2003 Japan Bowl National results and photos click here.
For 2004 Japan Bowl Regional results and photos click here.
For 2004 Japan Bowl National results and photos click here.
