Provided by
SUISA Newsletter Team& Center for Promotion of International Exchange, Saga University

Welcoming Party 2022
After 2 years of restrictions imposed by Covid-19, in 2022, Saga University is back again towelcome more international students and SUISA finally held a face-to-face welcoming party.

International Week 2022
“International Week” was held to deepen our understanding and knowledge of other cultures andget to know people. We participated in some events.

Friendly Visit from Universitas Negeri Malang Indonesia
On July 22nd, 2022, Saga University welcomed guests from Malang University, a partner universityfrom Indonesia. One of SUISA Newsletter team members from Malang National University luckily
joined the part of the courtesy visit.

Welcoming Party 2022
After 2 years of restrictions imposed by Covid-19, in 2022, Saga
University is back again to welcome more international students.
The university has resumed most of the activities that have beensuspended for a long time and the “Welcoming Party” was oneof them. After a long wait, on 3rd June 2022, SUISA (Saga UniversityInternational Students' Association) hosted a welcome party incollaboration with the Center for Promotion of International
Exchange.

For SUISA, this was the first face-to-face event attended by morethan 50 students from China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, Myanmar,Kosovo, Lithuania, Zimbabwe, Benin, Cameron, Indonesia, Nepal,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, France, and the host country, Japan since
the coronavirus pandemic. The event was held on the first floor of
the international house building A.
The event started with an opening speech from Professor MISHIMA,
the Director of Center for Promotion of International Exchange.
After that, Rami Derbel, the co-founder of SUISA gave a cheeringspeech which was followed by the presentation from the mainorganizations; SUISA, LIFE, and Global Supporters. The main
purposes of those organizations are to serve as a bridge between
Japanese and International students from all over the world, toprovide a broader community where students can enhance theirunderstanding and appreciation of diversity, and to create ahealthy environment, and a helping hand to students to facilitate
their life and studies in Japan.

Playing games is the most effective way to make participants ofthe event interact with each other, warm up the conversation,and get closer in a short time. Therefore, after welcoming andsharing information about Saga city and Saga University, weplayed “Trivia Games”. Participants were divided into teams andeach team had to compete for the correct answer to win. We
played for one hour and all the teams were brilliant. Everyone wasso happy and excited about the quiz questions. The team with thehighest marks was selected as the winner.
After warming up with the “Trivia Games” activity, we went out of
the event room and gathered at the frontage. Then, we danced
together to the Indonesian Song “Lagi sayantik” and the SouthAfrican Song “Jerusalama”. We could feel the happiness, unity,and warmly welcoming sense of the event.

To sum up, during 2 years of strict rules and social distancing due
to covid, “Welcome Party” was held online each year. Studentsjoined the event from their respective countries, hence, there wasno conversation and meeting up after the event. Therefore, this“welcome party” made the university alive again and it also
brings back all the memories before corona.
(Written by San san)International Week
From the 11th to the 15th of July the “International week” was held.
“International Week” was held to deepen our understanding andknowledge of other cultures and get to know people. I attended
a couple of events to see and tell you what they were like. There
were insightful seminars held in Japanese such as “How to learn
practical English” and “Exchange Study Abroad Report Session”.

(Presentation by Povilas (left) and Justina (right))

Apart from the academic seminars, there were also events heldby “Global Supporters” for international students and Japanese
students to get along with. On Tuesday the 12th, “InterculturalWorkshop” was held. At the beginning of the event, Justina andPovilas, exchange students from Lithuania and Jane, an
exchange student from South-Korea gave presentations about
their countries. There were very interesting facts that we didn’tknow before. It is interesting to know that Lithuanian language
comes from Sanskrit language since my language, Thai, also roots
from Sanskrit despite being very far from Lithuania, but we doshare similarities. Out of all the tourist attractions, The Castle ofTrakai got my attention the most. How the castle stands on an
isolated island really gives a wonderful scenery. I also wanted totry the Lithuanian sweets called Tinginys. It’s a traditional
chocolate dessert. It looks like it will go very well with coffee forbreakfast.

(Presentation by Jane)
Then, Jane made very attractive and cute slides about SouthKorea. We got to know that South-Korea people don’t like towaste time and do everything quickly. This is called the “ppallippalli(빨리 빨리=hurry hurry)” culture. Apparently, the city hall inSouth Korea gives a very quick service. You have to wait only for
15 minutes to get something done. That’s very fast! We also
learned that the “16 personality type (known as MBTI)” is very
popular in South-Korea. Many television programs containcontent about it. It is also a very popular topic for ice breaking.

(Activity after presentations)
After the presentation, we had activities such as an ice breaking
game and a gesture game. The event was really knowledgeable
and exciting.
On Friday the 15th, the last day of International Week, ''Saga
University Walk Rally” was supposed to be held outside.
Unfortunately, it was a rainy day, so the event was changed to anindoor event instead. However, with Global Supporters
preparation, the activities still went on smoothly without any issues.

(Activity of Saga University Walk rally)In the first half, we did photo walk rally activities inside of thebuilding. In this activity, we had to find items and take pictures
according to the designated theme with a team. It was fun totake photos with team members doing all the funny poses. We
then had a fun game of tongue twisters. In each round, eachteam had to send out a representative to do a tongue twister infront of the room. Some of them sound really difficult but everyone
did a really good job. Lastly the day ended with a mind
stimulating crossword puzzle. I was surprised by how quickly someteams completed the puzzle. It seemed that some of our friends
have done crossword puzzles frequently in the magazines before.
What a great way to spend time when the internet was lesspopular.

It was such an interesting week that I got to know many newfriends. If any reader wants to join the fun next time, please keep
updated with the Center for Promotion of International Exchange!
(Written by Peem)

Friendly Visit from Indonesia

The meeting brought them many topics and new activities todiscuss.

Hi guys, a couple weeks ago, 21 July 2022, Universitas Negeri
Malang (State University of Malang) from Indonesia visited Saga
University. The president of Universitas Negeri Malang, Prof. Dr. AH.
Rofiuddin M.Pd. along with other professors and the head of theInternational Relation has come to Saga University to discuss theactivities that are possible to happen between both universities.
Those activities include exchange programs, double degree
programs and adjunct professor programs. The exchange
programs have been continuing since 2015 when Universitas
Negeri Malang sent some students to Saga University as SPACE
program students until now, as well as Saga University sent somestudents to Universitas Negeri Malang as participants for
UMiCamp since 2017. Such a collaboration!!

Time flies fast and it was already time for the professors from UM
to go back to Saga Station. Before a good-bye, we took a picture
in front of Saga University with the “C pose” standing for“Cakrawala (horizon)” which is the UM mascot name.
(Written by Jevri)

Edited byOn the day, the professors from UM arrived at Saga Station, thenwe picked them up with Saga University staff. The professors fromUM looked so excited for this visit that they took many pictures ofSaga University. Their excitement kept going. On the way to Saga
University we passed some spots of Saga city while Ms. Otsubo, astaff of Center for Promotion of International Exchange, explained
signature places such as the Saga Prefectural Office, Saga Castle,
rivers, statues, and so on. Those short drive tours got them moreexcited. They were interested in Saga at first sight. The head ofInternational Relation of UM, Ms. Evi said “Saga is a good place tostudy since Saga is not that crowded like Fukuoka.” because she
stayed there the previous day. In addition, Prof. Hadi, theprofessor and the Director of Integrated Laboratory in UM(graduated from Hokkaido University) said “the smaller city brings
the kind and humble people in it”, and I say YES, that is Saga!

The cars had arrived in front of the rectoral building Saga
University and the meeting was held in the president room. The
meeting was about 20 minutes there and then another meeting
was carried out at the Faculty of Science and Engineering alongwith other engineering professors of Saga University. The meeting
opening was an UM and Saga University profile video playing
which you can see from the link below.
(State University of Malang) https://youtu.be/0o6AFtLuvBM(Saga University) https://youtu.be/dR6ZiP6_GXA.

Peemaphat Buarapha, 2nd Year PhD Student of Science and Engineering
Myat Htoo San, 1st Year PhD Student of Agricultural Sciences
Takayuki Kunihiro, 4th Year Student of Secondary English Education
Jevri Tri Ardiansah, 2nd Year PhD Student of Computer ScienceSpecial thanks to Shiori Kitamura, Office for Student Exchange