170603 10A group of NAU (Northern Arizona University) students paid their annual visit to Abiko City in June, 2017.   (No.17-5)

They are Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Adachi and her 8 students, and are scheduled to stay in Japan from June 1 through 28.

On June 2 and 3, AIRA dispatched some staffs and volunteer interpreters to coordinate with such activities in Abiko as visiting Abiko city hall, organizing welcome party and exchange meeting with Japanese students.

1.    Courtesy visit to the Mayor

170602 1Held on June2 (Friday) 11:00 – 1300 at Abiko City Hall
Mrs. Adachi and 8 students, along with AIRA staff, Mr. Misuru Hayasaka
and 2 volunteer coordinators (Mrs. Rie Hama and Mr. Mitsuru Satoh)
made courtesy visit to the mayor, Junichiro Hoshino, who kindly spared his time out of his busy schedule to welcome them, citing that this was the best season in Abiko and they would be able to enjoy beautiful scenery around Lake Teganuma, also stopping over at Water Museum and Birds Museum couldn’t be missed. After meeting with the mayor, they extended their trip to Sugimura Sojin-Kan Memorial Hall, where they were briefed about well known Sojin-Kan’s great achievement as a journalist. At the entrance to the hall, they were required to take the shoes off and in the hall, they took a look at the old Japanese furniture on display there. They enjoyed having chance to feel and sense a part of Japanese tradition and culture.

2.    Exchange meeting with local students and welcome party

  Held on June 3 (Saturday) 10:00 – 13:00 at Chuo Gakuin University.
  Attendants from Abiko : Chuo Gakuin students (10), Kawamura Woman’s
  College student (1), 7 Host families (Yamaguchi, Kimura, Kosaka, Takahashi, Tabata, Yoshida & Hayasaka), AIRA staffs  (Hesaki, Sato ) and others.

 170603 1 At 10 AM, the exchange meeting with Japanese students from Abiko was started. They introduced each other by themselves and then were divided into 4 groups to play games and dance.

Surprisingly, NAU students proved themselves to be good at using Japanese chopsticks in soy-bean pickup games and also showed their skillful movements in rhythmical Awa-Odori Dancing. All in all, they had a lot of fun and nice time in this exchange meeting.

170603 11 Following the exchange meeting, welcome party was held with attendance of host families. AIRA’s Mr. Hesaki chaired the party and introduced
 each student to the host family to stay at. Mrs. Adachi gave an address,
 expressing her appreciation for welcoming them to Abiko, and this was the
 third year of their visiting to Abiko and she hoped the mutual relation would go from strength to strength. Most of NAU students tried to speak Japanese in their self-introduction message.
 Among attendants, there happened to be foreign students studying at Chuo Gakuin ( they are the one from China, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia) and many children from host family members. In this regard, good will relation across the generation and beyond the countries were made possible through this meeting.

 NAU students will stay for sometime in Abiko and experience variety of Japanese tradition & culture (such as tea ceremony, kendo, Japanese kimono, calligraphy, Shamisen and so on).

After these, they once go out of town to Kansai for sightseeing and come back to Abiko and stay at each host families in late June.       (Translated by Yukio Yoshida)

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