KKC News vol.68 Nov 2021

KASHIWA CROSS-CULTURAL CENTER

Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center
Palette Kashiwa
2-7-1-301 Kashiwa, Kashiwa
Chiba,
Japan 277-0005
Tel: 04-7157-0281 Fax: 04-7165-7321
e-mail: kcc@kira-kira.jp
URL: https://www.kcc.kira-kira.jp

KCC
NEWSLETTERDECEMBER, 2021

Kashiwa International Festival 2021 Held Online (October, 24th)
This time, we made the online event look like it’s being held at the street near
Kasiwa Station by setting a virtual venue on our website. It was our first time totry this.
At the actual venue, each of our committee introduced their activities and held agallery showing KIRA’s activities in addition to live performances in several
different places. Also, the online international exchange event, connecting the twosister and friend cities Camden and Torrance with Kashiwa, was held. Thanks toeveryone’s cooperation, the number of visitors increased several times compared

Online Meeting withfriendship and sister cities

to last year, and the event finished successfully.
Please look forward to next year. We will improve it evenmore by answering everyone’s voice.

←Entrance of the virtual venue

Balloon art

Calligraphy performance

Lecture on how to use Furoshiki

Peru dance

Erhu and guitar performance

International Exchange Week 2021 (October 25th-31st)
The purpose of this year’s event was to accelerate the international exchange
activities in Kashiwa by interacting with organizations in the city throughevents. Discussions were held to cooperate well with Kashiwa UNESCO
Association, Girl Scout Chiba Prefectural Federation Team 17 , Team 12 , Kaichi
International University and Reitaku University. During the event, activities ofeach organization were displayed online and at the gallery. The content was
highly interesting with the refugee seminar, talks about SDGs and ghosts inGuatemala.

International Exchange Week

<Announcement>
Play by Foreign Residents “Three Little Pigs”
Date: December 18th, Saturday 3pm-4pm
Location: Palette Kashiwa Multipurpose Space A
Content: Foreign residents do the play in Japanese. Stagesetting is handmade.
Capacity: 10 parents and children
Fee: Free
Application: Directly at the KCC reception or email. “boshu1@kira-kira.jp”

The 7th Food Bank KCC for Foreign Residents
Date: December 26th, Sunday 9:30-11:30
Place: Palette Kashiwa Multipurpose Space AFood: Canned food, dried noodles, water, snacks are free of charge.
※Those who wish to get the food are advised to come early since
the event finishes when we ran out of food.
※Please bring your own bag to take the food.
Inquiry: KCC reception<Request>
Please make sure to write the name of an event, your name and phone number when applying by emails.

Kashiwa International Exchange Week 2021(10/25
1. Exhibition of Kashiwa UNESCO
Association Activities (10/25 10/30)～The exhibition introduced that UNESCO is anabbreviation for United Nations Educational
Scientific and Cultural Organization, and thefounding Philosophy of UNESCO, as well as its
activities in Japan, and the ones in Kashiwa UNESCO
Association founded in 1967. The main activities ofKashiwa UNESCO are as follows:“Citizen Karuta
Tournament”, “UNESCO Exhibition at CulturalFestival”,“Youth Development Activities”,“Interaction with high school students in sister cityTorrance”, “English conversation classes”, “Supportfor Reconstruction,Worldwide Terakoya Movement”,
Kashiwa UNESCO Youth activities for the 5th gradeand 6th grade of elementary school and junior highschool students, fund-raising activities andcollecting of miswritten postcards as international
cooperation that we can do. At the exhibition, it waseasy for visitors to understand UNESCO’s activities
with detailed explanation and photographs.

～10/30) in Palette Kashiwa & Online

2. Refugee Seminar (10/28, 10/31)
The Refugee Seminars #1 and #2 were held bothonline and face-to-face.
At the #1, continuing from last year, Mr. Shuichi
Nakao, the Refugee Division of (FWEAP) Foundation
for the Welfare and Education of the Asian People,
talked about the current situation and problems ofaccepting refugees in Japan.All participants had
opportunities to think about the definition ofrefugee by answering quizzes.
At the #2, Ms. Momoko Douku, who is engaged inrefugee support activities, told us what made her
start providing refugee support. And a male Syrian
refugee student living in Japan shared the current
situation of Syria.
The refugee problem is not familiar to many
Japanese. We have realized the importance ofunderstanding the refugee problem and helping
refugees through support activities.

3. Multicultural Coexistence Seminar (10/30)
Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center holds free consultation on legal and administrative
procedures by lawyers and administrative scriveners once a month. Mr. SatoshiTamama, a lawyer belonging to the Chiba Bar Association and in charge ofconsultations, gave a lecture on problems that foreign residents have, and how tosolve them that have come to light through the consultations. Participants at thevenue and online distribution listened intently to his speech and shared information.
We understood that it was difficult to deal with these problems immediately,
because some of them require a review of national policies to solve the problems.

4. Enjoy Japanese Cuisine by Fair Trading~ Hunger Zero (10/31)
A team of three students from Reitaku University proposed a businessmodel that worked on SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). They
illustrated 17 goals of SDGs with examples and took up the goal of zerohunger. They told the following ideas for achieving these goals: The
first idea is to provide jobs to people in the Democratic Republic of theCongo who are suffering from unemployment and hunger due todeclining exports in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second one is that Japan imports from Congo additive-free organic ingredients at reasonable prices using
preferential tariffs, and provides them with healthy Japanese food made from those ingredients.
It was an excellent presentation based on well-studied data. There were a lot of praise for the efforts of theyounger generation in the questionnaire after their presentation.
Fair trade=developed countries buy grains and products at reasonable prices from developing countries
Preferential tariff=low tariffs for the economic development of developing countries

5. Four Yokai(ghosts) in Guatemala (10/31)
Mr. Leonel Antonio, a student from Guatemala at Kaichi International University
where half of the students are from overseas, told four stories about Yokai inGuatemala:a braided horse,a weeping woman,
white and black devil dogs
named Kadeho,
a woman who appears in front of a drunken person when taxis
are gone and takes the drunken person away.
A participant said, “There are also stories about Yokai written by Yakumo
Koizumi in Japan.” It might be an interesting study to find out about the Yokai ofJapan and the ones of Guatemala.

①④②③

6. Keep an eye on the healthy growth of children ~ Girl Scout Chiba
Prefectural Federation Team 17 , Team 12Children who have come into contact with various values through various experiences
acquire the independence that allows them to think, judge, and act on their own. Girl
scouts are doing various activities so that children can have confidence in themselves
and maximize their potential. International exchange activities such as mutual visitswith friendship groups in the United Kingdom, the birthplace of Girl Scouts, andparticipation in training are also popular.
Children experienced how to make disaster prevention supplies at the International
Exchange Week venue. Foreigners also made disaster prevention slippers out of milk
cartons together. Also, it seemed that parents and children had a good time in making
Halloween and Christmas wreaths.

Christmas wreaths made byGirl Scout Team 12

Making emergency supplies byGirl Scout team 17①Let’s encourage delegate students from Torrance– Alternative events for the exchange program
The 2020 youth exchange program was postponed to the following year
due to the pandemic and it was further postponed to 2022. Online
exchanges with TSCA (Torrance Sister City Association) are continuingto encourage delegate students who can hardly come to Japan. We
planned five online exchanges programs in total, beginning in May. We
made groups and each group is in charge of it. On September 4th, thethird online exchange was held, and volunteers from the 43rd year
delegate students also participated in it. We made a video with thetheme of the old Kashiwa(the Former Yoshida Residence) and the newKashiwa(Kashiwanoha smart city). In the video, we talked about Kashiwa
city, which has been transformed into a suburb of Tokyo. Kashiwa’s
senior delegate students also added a message to cheer up the uneasydelegate students of Torrance due to postponement of their visit.

②Indonesian food (11/11)

Because of the pandemic, tasting was not allowed in the cooking roomof the Kashiwa Chuo Kinrin Center, but finally, we came to be able tostart cooking and tasting again. In order to avoid denseness among theparticipants,only the staff cooked the Indonesian food. An instructor,Ms. Anna Ohashi, who has lived in Japan for more than 30 years, madekroket(croquette), Soto Ayam(chicken soup), and fried bananas. Kroket
is made by wrapping ingredients such as chicken and vegetables withsteamed potato skin and deep-fry them. Soto Ayam is made bysimmering chicken bones and Indonesian flavored vegetables andadding harusame (glass noodles). Fried bananas are delicious withpowdered cheese or chocolate sauce on them if you like.
The photos are posted on our website.

Kashiwanoha Urban Design Center

Crockett, Fried bananas, Soto Ayam

③ Refreshing Autumn Exchange Walking Tour (11/14)

The weather was sunny and warm, it was a perfect day for walking.
A total of 30 people from three year-old to the senior walked comfortably for morethan 8 kilometers. This is the third walking tour for us. This year it was changed toa half a day course due to the Covit-19 pandemic. We visited historical temples andshrines such as Kichijoin temple, Himemiya shrine, Tenman shrine, and Ioji temple.
The walking course was full of variation passing through a residential area andcountry roads in Kashiwa-tanaka district. There were favorable comments fromparticipants like “I am glad to know the nearby sights.” or “I am looking forward to awalking tour next year too.” The participants seemed to enjoy interaction with eachother very much.

In front of the statue of Kobo Daishi inKichijoin temple

DECEMBER EventsJapanese Classes
Online Classes
Thurs 10:00 - 11:30
Japanese Intermediate and up

Information about COVID-19 forforeign residents
Available in multiple languages

Sun 10:00 - 11:30
Beginning I, Intermediate I (2 classes)
In Person Classes
Thurs 10:00 - 12:00
Intermediate I at Shonan Community Center

Online Japanese Kashiwa Classes
Tue 10:00 - 11:30
Japanese for all Beginning II (1st of the 28lessons)Tue 19:00 - 20:30
Japanese for all Beginning I (1st of the 14lessons)Wed 10:00 - 11:30
Japanese intermediate and up
Wed 19:00 - 20:30
Japanese for all Beginning I (1st of the 8lessons)Thurs 10:00 - 11:30
Beginning Conversation I (Beginner, Beginning1)
Thurs 13:00 - 14:30
Beginning Conversation 2 (Beginning 2)
Fri 19:00 - 20:30
Japanese for all Beginning II (1st of the 36lessons)
Sat 9:30 - 11:20
Intermediate Conversation

Free legal advice and administrative
procedure support for foreign residents
Lawyers and administrative procedure
specialists will be available to help foreign
residents with legal questions anddocuments. Any questions or problems are
all right, such as visa, domestic violence,divorce, or trouble at the workplace. Please
register beforehand.
Date and Time: Dec 22 (WED) 13:00 - 17:00
Place: Palette Kashiwa
Reservation: KCC (Kashiwa Cross-culturalCenter) Office
Announcement from other organization
Online Study Session for KIRA Members
Date and Time: December 16th, Thursday,
8:00pm-9:10pm.
Study Title: Easy Japanese #5 “Learningsand Plans from Experience”
Lecturer: Ms.Tomoe Uchida (Easy Japanese
instructor)Fee: Free
Capacity: 25
Application: Directly at the KCC reception
or email. “boshu-1@kira-kira.jp”. Write yourname and phone numbers in theemail

Kashiwa information delivery service
Sign up to receive email announcements from thecity, such as information about earthquakes,fires, crime, and infectious disease outbreaks in
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to this address to register.

Also, please read Kashiwa
City Magazine. It contains
information about COVID19 vaccination.

Questions? Please contact the office of Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center (KCC)
Tel: 04-7157-0281 Fax: 04-7165-7321
Hours: 8:30 - 17:15 Closed on Sundays and national holidays
KCC Newsletter Edited and Published by: Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center designated administrator Specified non-profit organization,
Kashiwa International Relations Association General Affairs Committee Public Relations Division