Tokyo Institute of Technology: Gardening for International Friendship

The Tokyo Institute of Technology Center for International Education held an event entitled “Gardening for International Friendship” during lunch time on November 2, 2022 at the students’ lounge in West 1 Building on Ookayama campus. Tokyo Tech students, both Japanese and international, joined the event.

Due to the limited number of flower bulbs and planters, only 15 students could participate in the event. Slots immediately booked up when the center started accepting reservations, showing that gardening is quite popular among the students. The event was held in a congenial atmosphere.


Five teams were made for the gardening activity, and each team had students from different countries in the world, including those of Europe and Asia.

At first, each team had a pleasant discussion to decide its team name. The team members came up with numerous good ideas for the names, using team members’ names, their favorite Japanese words, or the color of tulips. When they were finished, the participants wrote their team name on the label of their planter.

Then, it was the time for gardening. Everyone started the activity collaborating with other participants; preparing the soil for the planters, leaving enough space for bulbs, and picturing the colors of the beautiful blooms. It took about thirty minutes to get the bulbs ready to plant in the soil.

The participants talked with other team members regarding where to place the plants to get enough sunshine. The colors of the flowers expected to bloom from the bulbs include red, yellow, pink, and purple.

Participants adding soil to flowerpots
After gardening, the participants went back to the students’ lounge and listened to a lecture about Haiku, a simple style of Japanese poetry, given by Specially Appointed Associate Professor Saho Kawashima from the Center for International Education at Tokyo Tech. Looking at the Japanese words on the worksheet, the students made their own Haiku in Japanese or a free-style English poem. They enjoyed expressing in words the joyful feelings they experienced during the gardening.

Here are a couple of examples:

Haru o matsu nakama to tomoni gadeningu
Waiting for next spring with gardening among friends
(Japanese student from Tokyo Tech)

My coffee is warm The sun shines, the air is crisp Appreciate life
(International student from Scotland)

The event finished after the participants made their plans to water their plants during the winter season in anticipation of the tulips blooming the next spring.


Voices from the participants are as follows:

It was so unique and fun! I really enjoyed talking with the members. I’ve made nice international friends! Thank you so much for the event.

I appreciate you organizing this gardening event. I enjoyed talking with an overseas student from Malaysia in English. Since I usually don’t have chances to talk in English, it was a really good opportunity. And I haven’t chatted with overseas students before, so I was happy to listen to how they feel in Japan.

My teammates and I are from different countries, but we had a good chat. It was really fun.

I enjoyed the event and can’t wait to see the tulip that we planted bloom in spring. So excited!

First, I would like to thank you for organizing the gardening event. Doing events that mix international and Japanese students is very nice. I really enjoyed this. I hope that the team spirit we created during this event will last during the year. It was also very nice to do a gardening activity. In my house in France, I used to do gardening, so it reminds me a lot of good memories. And as always, the staff are very kind, and it’s a real pleasure to participate in such events.