Rob Cowen (Engineering, 2003-07)

Japanese student Kazuhisa Fukatsu If you attended Mildert in the last twenty years, you will probably have hazy memories of ‘The Kazu’.

This ritual, started by a Japanese student named Kazuhisa Fukatsu in 1997, involved a can of coke being thrown, kicked, rolled and/or slapped, then sprayed over the head of a JCR election winner. The inaugural Kazu in early 1997 was witnessed by drinkers leaving the bar, creating a buzz around College and prompting both Kazuhisa himself and Kazu copycats to recreate the event over the following weeks.

Crucially, this coincided with the conclusion of JCR elections. As the election results were declared, the gathered crowd spontaneously erupted in a chant of ‘Ka-zu! Ka-zu!’. Although the Kazu has varied over the years, the core requirements seem to be as follows:

After the results declaration, the winning candidate climbs the foyer staircase and is handed a can of fizzy drink.
The candidate kicks the can down the staircase towards the baying crowd below, before running down after it.
The candidate tosses the can three times over their head.
Finally, the can is opened overhead, spraying the candidate and the gathered crowd with soda.

Mildert’s 34th JCR President, James Mackenzie, has the proud claim to be the first to perform the Kazu in March 1997. Since then, the tradition has been performed by 20 other presidents. For more than a third of Mildert’s history, a strange ritual initiated spontaneously by a Teikyo student in a time before social media or camera phones has become a unifying absurdity between generations of Mildertians.