And So It Goes: 'international cooperation' (国際交流)

Friday, November 18, 2005

'international cooperation' (国際交流)

One of my friends invited me to tag along to this event organized by one international club of Kyoto. I went there without knowing how it is going to be like. Turned out that the first session was the speech by 5 international student panelists talking about their experience in Japan. I'm not quite sure what the objective of the event was, but as far as I assumed, most of the audience are members of that club with another portion of foreign students.

There were several questions directed at those panelists (of course, everything was held in Japanese ... I'll do the lame translation of that from now...) Questions were like --
'what are you doing in Japan?'
'How do you think of Japan?'
'What do you like about Kyoto?'
'Where is your favourite place in Kyoto?'
'What are the troubles you encounter living in Japan?'
'Were there any difficulties you had when you first arrived Japan?'
'Do you have any message or expectation or requests for the people from the club?', and so on.

I listened to their talkings and have to admit that a lot of their troubles are really the troubles most of foreign people experience here in Japan. It's not to hard for me to imagine along how their lives are like. But, one moment in there, it striked me how much people asking this kind of questions understand the answers. What are the points of the so-called 'international cooperation' (国際交流）? Is it for mutual understandings between the Japanese and foreigners? Is it for the Japanese to try to understand foreign people? Or is it for foreigners to try to understand Japanese? Good question for thought!

Anyways, the second session was a light refreshment along the talking with 3 famous artisans of Kyoto. I was with the the first group 漆工芸 - the art of lacquerware. The art of lacquerware of Kyoto was originally for the lords who lived in the old capital. So it's quite different from the famous household-used laquerware where I experienced in Wajima (Kanagawa Prefecture) during the Japan Tent program. The other two groups were kimono and sushi. Too bad I missed eating high quality Saba Sushi just only because the 4 of us couldn't work out how to split a big piece of it. Someone thought it was the leftover that noone wanted to eat, so he simply took it just like that!!! huh~~~~~. (T_T)