Shams El-Mutwalli 

DUBAI: Dubai’s popular Japanese restaurant, Fujiya, not only serves customers quality izakaya style dishes but recently began offering a calligraphy workshop to customers every Tuesday from 6pm to 8pm at their newest downtown branch.

The workshop will be held by the restaurant’s partner Akio Hayakawa, and an experienced Japanese calligraphy instructor.

Attendees are taught “how to use the calligraphy brush and how to write Japanese characters as beginners,” he told Arab News Japan.

The concept also changes weekly, and they even teach people how to write their names in Japanese at no cost.

Hayakawa decided to launch the workshop to offer customers a unique dining experience not obtainable at other restaurants in the region.

Hayakawa shared how Japanese culture is so rich and given that he lives outside of Japan he hopes to pass down elements of the culture “to the world,” he said.

Japanese calligraphy is a traditional part of the culture, and “nowadays we’re not writing with a pencil or a pen a lot like before because of mobiles and PCs, so we’re keeping up our beautiful culture and handing it down to the next generation,” Hayakawa continued.

The calligraphy workshop will take place weekly for the next three months, and after that Hayakawa is considering holding a tea ceremony or flower arrangement workshop.

Fujiya opened in Dubai in Nov. 2018 and was launched to offer Japanese food in its purest form catching the eye of Japanese residents and UAE locals.

Given its success, a new branch was opened in 2021 where he serves various dishes including Japanese BBQ, Japanese hot pot, tempura and sushi.