AIRA interpreters supported “15th JBF-Japan Bird Festival-2015”

Date/time: October 31 and November 1, 2015. 9:30a.m.-4:00p.m.

Location: Teganuma Shinsui Hiroba (Aquatic Park) and other secondary locations

Voluntary interpreters: R. Hama, Y. Hesaki, S. Hujii, M. Kurata, K. Nakayama, T. Sugano, and Penny Lie)

　The annual Japan Bird Festival (JBF) was held on October 31st and November 1st 2015 in Abiko. To meet the successful operation of the project, an executive committee was formed by various organizations such as Abiko City, local municipality offices, NPOs, students and citizen groups.

　This year, the festival was featured by the participation of international ornithological organizations from Lithuania, Mongolia, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Brunei with respective distinguished exhibits. The event committee requested AIRA to dispatch interpreters to assist the international merchandise booths. Eight volunteer interpreters were assigned for 2 days to support the delegates at booths of India, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

　A great number of bird fans and local visitors came to the two-day event. Each day, volunteers helped their shops by handling questions on birds and goods sales. On the very last day, T-shirts in the Indian booth were almost sold out. It seems this couldn’t have been achieved without the volunteers’ efforts.

　Most birds introduced by the international booths were unique to their global regions. Some of those species were of different colors and had different English names depending on the country of origin. This varied name issue is very interesting, although they are called by different names and even had different features, because they still belong to the same family groups.

　One visitor at the Indian booth said “I have seen 8 out of these 38 species with my own eyes there. Most of them live in Thailand and India. I would love to go there someday.” Beforehand AIRA prepared a Birds Name Translation Table for the volunteers edited at the time of the ornithologists’ visit here in August 2014. Since many birds did not have textbook names and the translation table could not cover everything, volunteers had hard time giving perfect translations to some bird fans. However, volunteers tried their best to interpret conversations between foreign presenters and booth visitors.

　On the first day evening, October 31, a reception was held at the nearby hall “Across” in the retirement home “Creo”. Many participants attended the party and got to know each other by exchanging greetings and information. Volunteer translators assisted the communication between Japanese and foreign people during the greeting time. Beside the Lithuanian ambassador, who had visited Mayor, Mr. Hoshino last April, and was accompanied by his own translator, many other delegates were supported by AIRA members in translation. Taiwanese delegates’ speeches were translated by Ms. Zang Wen Ming, a member of AIRA. Translators for the Philippine participants were not assigned because they formerly had planned to give their speech in Japanese, however, they decided at the last moment to deliver it in English. Then Mr. Yoshida, one of the volunteers, quickly adapted to the situation and covered the problem.

　The nationwide famous annual grand festival was successfully operated for 2 days with hundreds of visitors daily, partly thanks to voluntary interpreters. We are looking forward to participating in the events to come for further support.

(No. 15-12 Translated by Ms. M. Kurata)