With their slogan “Japanese Art & Culture from the Centre of Utrecht!”, a Dutch group of Japan enthusiasts is currently conquering the virtual world of people interested in the Land of the Rising Sun. What started last November as an app group of friends who knew each other from a dojo in Utrecht, the Netherlands, has quickly become a Facebook phenomenon in Japan-related cyberspace. “Of course there are bigger groups, for example about famous pop and film stars, but until now we had not seen such growth of a group focused on the promotion of a specific country’s art and culture,” a Facebook representative stated. 

In their group, the “Japan Fans”, as they call themselves, create and share a wide variety of content related to Japan: from calligraphy to karate, and from poetry to international politics, everything passes in review. With especially many beautiful pictures of panoramas in Japan by the local travel agencies (named Edo Japan Travel and Tokio Tours), who quickly found their way to this active group. Currently, more than one thousand active members post an average of five hundred messages per month. The members of the group are as diverse as the content they share. The Japan Fans come from many vastly different backgrounds. Diversity is therefore a high priority in the group, and so is accessibility – all content, including the workshops, concerts and classes, is completely for free.

“In the spirit of Bushido, we welcome all Japan enthusiasts and strive to maintain an open community where people feel connected, supported, and heard,” wrote founder Martine Mussies. “Japan Fans’s mission is to create an environment where we dedicate resources to enrich your understanding of Japanese heritage and traditions through community outreach by educational, social, and recreational programs. […] We envision fostering a collaborative community where people of all ages and diverse backgrounds feel welcome to partake in promoting and preserving Japanese customs and help build bridges between our cultures.” 

Through their educational and recreational activities, the Japan Fans invite and gather people from all walks of life to explore the rich heritage of Japan. Some of their activities include organising digital or on-the-ground events like origami workshops, martial arts demonstrations, Japanese cuisines, sea monster exhibitions, concerts with Japanese musics, and many other planned events. Moreover, they have a weekly study group in the park, where they also hold small concerts, storytelling and poetry events, and “natsu matsuri” – festive summer picknicks. They also regularly organise exciting excursions for their members, like trips to Japanese restaurants, to museums with Japanese art, to the cinema to watch a Japanese movie and to a specific dojo to explore some new Japanese martial arts.

“As a collaborative, community is our biggest asset,” their website states, “we also take into account and respect the many ideas of our community to facilitate more special events”. A quick scroll through the group shows what we can think of. One of the members builds his own dojo, Middengaarde, where the Japan Fans would like to organise workshops and regular trainings. Another member has a shop in manga comics, The Splendid, and suggests a manga drawing workshop and an exhibition of works drawn by members. A third person has a board game shop, Neverneverland, and demonstrates all kinds of Japanese-inspired board games. A fourth one has a space to offer, which is currently painted so that the Japan Fans will have an art gallery at their disposal to exhibit works of art from or inspired by Japan. Founder Mussies turns out to be a jack-of-all-trades, who not only designed the club’s appealing brand identity, but also performs and plays Japanese music, and creates stunningly beautiful ink drawings.

The Japan Fans group appears to be a breeding ground for intercultural creativity. Some Arab members translated Islamic texts for their Japanese calligraphy, and Japanese and “Western” musicians exchanged songs and musical ideas. Following the virtual cooking lessons from a real Japanese chef, members shared their own recipes, for example for sushi cake, and for vegan “tonkatsu” with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and mustard. Judging by his enthusiastic reaction in the group, the authentic cooking chef thinks it’s all quite all right. In the group, they are already working on planning their next workshops in Japanese traditions, such as haiku, origami, taiko, shodo, sumi-e, chado, ikebana, shiatsu, budo, and Japanese yoga. They want to bring Japanese musicians here for live performances and collaborations with their Dutch colleagues. And they are planning public lectures and performances on Japanese art and culture, literature and history. 

Soon they will have a large dojo for Japanese martial arts and they are happy with that – many of the members already practice aikido, iaido, jodo, judo, karate, kobudo, kendo, kyudo and so on, they go along to each other’s dojo, and discuss this extensively in the group. In addition, they have a studio at their disposal – located at the park where they hold their weekly study group – a satellite dojo in a nearby town, a professional kitchen and an art gallery. What more could they wish for?

The group grows every day and the members’ ambitions grow along with it. With the Oudegracht – in the heart of Utrecht – as their base of operations, they fantasise about group tours, their own music festival, a cookbook and their own “hub” – their own building with Japanese architecture and design – where everything comes together. With Japanese language lessons for everyone, and “language buddies” who teach Dutch to people from Japan. And of course with arts and crafts, and budo. Preferably with residency programmes for artists, musicians, academics and budoka. A library, a garden, a coffee and a tea house, a theatre, shops… and many more pieces of Japan in and around Utrecht. And then? Friendship with such centres for Japanese art and culture around the world. To unite and support Japan Fans from all over the world: to inspire, to learn, to teach, to gather and most of all: to have fun!

Japan Fans Utrecht – Japanese Art & Culture from the Centre of Utrecht! 

Virtually Travel invites you to support this initiative and help the Japan Fans to make their dreams come true, by following them via their website and social media