On April 9th and 10th, 2009, 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). This year, it looked like we would not even be able to afford to go, but Ed Wong and the other passionate members of the SC Family and the SCPTSA stepped up and helped us raise the money needed to get to D.C. Because we started preparations late, we literally only practiced for two months before the competitions. This fact will come up later.

After a grueling two days of this Jeopardy-style competition, Silver Creek’s Japanese 2 team ended up tied against The Harker School – a private school from the South Bay. Then after four of the five tie-breaker questions, the Silver Creek and Harker teams were again tied. On the final question of the competition, Harker rang in first and answered correctly. Our team members held their heads high and took the second place trophy with the honor and grace of true champions. The J2 Team also remains proud of the fact that they were the only team in the finals to receive perfect scores from all five judges for all of their spoken responses.

Our Japanese 3 (J3) team members were veterans of last year’s Japan Bowl and they came back looking to improve upon their third place in 2009. Our J3 Team came close to making it back to the finals this year. A couple of tough questions and a few preventable errors kept them out of the finals. They swear that next year, their final year at Level 4, will be theirs for the taking.

The Students and Hall-Sensei would like to thank the following donors for their generous support in terms of time, money, and spiritual resources:

Ed and Denise Wong, Joann DeLaRosa, Lynn Freret, Jerry and Tina Mukai, Dan Juchau, Dan Ketterer, Mary Barrett-Wong, The SCHS Class of 2010, Lou and Karen Kvitek, Michele Madrigal, Ted and June Okano, Al and Debbie Harano, Erick Parker, Nikki Brown, Debra Navaritil, Alan and Joyce Yoshioka, Thelma and Dan Boac, Ralph and Sara Schmitt, Tatsuye Suyeishi, Nancy Goodwillie, Eric Luescher, Setsoko Liao, Margaret Nunes, the SCHS Foreign Language Department, Annie Pham, and San Jose City Councilperson Rose Herrera.

The 2009-2010 Silver Creek High School Japan Bowl Team Members are: