一般財団法人　連帯　東北・西南　RENTAI　TOHOKU-SEINAN

From 6 to 9 pm on February 10th, we held a Chinese New Year celebration together with the Chinese residents, other international residents and their families in Tohoku at the Bellino Hotel Ichinoseki in Iwate Prefecture.

The current relationship with China unfortunately continues to be a difficult one, but on a private level we have a friendly relationship. Through our support activities, our Foundation has become acquainted with a number of wives from China that have married Japanese and are working hard in Tohoku, and they have supported us in our activities such as the curry events at temporary housings by helping us prepare the dishes. With our feelings of gratitude, we together celebrated the beginning of the New Year.

The applications received to attend the ceremony far exceeded the initial 100 seats available, but in the end we had 200 participants at the event. Ms. Saito, the chairwoman of the hotel which we used as the venue was very supportive of our aim in holding this event. Not only did she support us during the initial preparations, she was very flexible in accommodating the huge change in the number of participants.

The Representative Director of our Foundation began his opening speech by saying "I would like to express my respect to you all from China who had left their homeland to marry Japanese people and has put all their efforts to this day." The speech was followed by a lecture by Mr. Hidenori Sakanaka, the director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute. He stressed the necessity to change the social system including education and to accept immigrants, which is the only way to avoid "population crisis" in Japan where the population continues to decrease.

This was followed by a toast, with participants enjoying 10-year-old Chinese rice wine stored in jars, a gift from the president of Kenkoh Trading Co., Ltd. in Tokyo, Mr. Fu, and Japanese rice wine in barrels, a gift from the president of Kakunoshin in Kawasaki-cho, Mr. Chiba, and the president of the Rotary Club in Senmaya-cho, Mr. Ogata. The banquet was given in a buffet style.

Everyone was inspired by the performances by the pianist, opera singer, and harp player from China, and was also surprised by a special Chinese acrobatics show, the mask change performance.

These performances were followed by representatives of China, the Philippines and Japan gathering on stage and singing songs from their respective countries with a piano accompaniment. After the songs by the Japanese team, everyone sang "Kitaguni no Haru (North Spring)" in Chinese and had a great time.

It was impressing to see Mr. Koga, the owner of a music restaurant whom the Representative Director is friends with, replying to various piano requests with his experienced skills in the latter half of the stage performance. The finale song was a cheery "Beer Barrel Polka" requested by the Representative Director and played by Mr. Koga, and everyone got up and marched in a single line throughout the room which was a spectacular sight to see. We hope that even those shy at first were able to join in with all the others and enjoy the march with a smile on their faces.

Together with Ms. Saito, the chairman of Bellino Hotel, we were very excited by the end of the event thinking that for next year, this type of fun event could be grander.

The event was admission free, but we invited all to "donate if you enjoyed the event." Everyone's kindness totaled to approximately \80,000 in the donation box set in the room. We take this opportunity to thank everyone, and would like to report here that we will forward your kindness to the people in Tohoku through the self-reliance support activities of our Foundation.

The Chinese New Year celebration was reported in the Iwate Nichi-Nichi Shimbun.

Article in the Iwate Nichi-Nichi Shimbun dated 11 February 2013