KCC NEWS vol. 64 Aug 2021

KCCNewsletter

8Kashiwa 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: http://www.kcc.kira-kira.jp

2021

The first Food Bank KCC held at Palette Kashiwa (6/27)
It’s been more than a year since COVID-19 infection began to affect our life. Many foreign residents living in Japan aregoing through hardship by losing jobs or having the work hours
reduced.

The 3rd Foodbank KCC
Date and Time:		

Sunday, August 29
9:30am to 12:00noon

KCC established Foodbank KCC to support those having
difficulty. We received food fromTokatsu Kusanone Foodbank, corporations and individuals who visited
KCC.

Place:		
Palette Kashiwa Multipurpose		Space A		
Address: Day One Tower 3F,			1-7-1-301 Kashiwa, Kashiwa

On the Foodbank KCC
day, 41 people from Philippines,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia,
China, and Sudan came to KCC andreceived food packages.

•The event will be over when all the food is gone soplease come early.

•Please bring your own bag to take food with you.

Free food includes: Canned food, noodles, water, sweets

Foodbank

We will hold Foodbank KCC every month and, if you
are willing to donate canned food, rice, noodles, sweets, please

Questions?

Please call KCC office.

Foodbank KCC future schedule: Sunday, 9/26
and 10/31.

Kashiwa Exchange Youth Society (KEYS) stays active online
KEYS previously hosted various foreign exchange events such as aBBQ and singing contest. However, due to the pandemic we haven’t been able
to hold any events for over a year. Despite the difficult situation, KEYS hascontinued its monthly exchange program using Zoom. They have been taking
English conversation lessons with a KCC supporter and English teacher, Mr.
Karl Takauye, and have been talking with guest foreigners in English.
In the July exchange program, a Japanese speech contest participant,
Mr. Eltayeb from Sudan joined the program. Also, in July KEYS started toexchange opinions about SDGs. We still don’t know when we’ll be able to hostan event normally, but KEYS will keep contributing to the foreign exchange
programs of the city of Kashiwa.
KEYS is accepting new members.

Introducing Akebonoyama Park and Fuse Benten Temple
The youth cultural exchange programs between Kashiwa and its sister and friendship cities have beensuspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. KIRA’s Torrance committee members started to talk with the Torrance
Sister City Association members via Zoom. In May, the committee uploaded a Soba noodle making video to share
Japanese culture with friends overseas. And now they completed another video introducing the beauty of Kashiwa:
Akebonoyama Park, Hakusentei tea house, and Fuse Benten temple.
They shot the video in April, edited the video, and for the firsttime, added narration and subtitles. The video starts with showing
flowers of Akebonoyama Park in different seasons. The chief priestof Fuse Benten temple introduced the temple in an interview andshowed the areas of Fuse Benten temple main building and inside
Kanetsukidou (bell tower) where no visitors were allowed to enter. We
learned about an owl family that came to visit the temple, and about
the beautiful wood carvings of zodiac animals placed in Kanetsukidou.
The video shows the serene side of the temple that is packed with people during the New Year holiday. We hope to have a fun Zoom meetingwith our friends in Torrance in August.

Fuse Benten Main Building

Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center

KCC NEWS vol. 64 Aug 2021

Universities in Kashiwa with international exchange programs
We sent the following questions to the three universities in Kashiwa that have an international relations office.
Q1

What is the percentage of foreign students and research fellows per department?

Q2

What do they do after graduation?

Q3

Which country or region do they come from?

Q4

What facility or program do you offer for foreign students/fellows?

Q5		

Do you have study abroad programs for Japanese students?
If you do, what is the number of students or which country do they go?

Q6		

Please let us know if your foreign students/fellows experience any difficulty due to
COVID-19 pandemic.

Q7		

If there are any students/fellows having a hardship, what do you do to help them?
Is there anything that Kashiwa citizens can do to help them?

University of Tokyo Kashiwa Campus
A1

About 30% of students in Kashiwa Campus.

A2

Some get a job or go on to higher education in Japan.
Some get a job or go on to higher education in other country.
Some get a job or go on to higher education in their original country.

A3

China, Korea, USA, Philippines, and others.

A4

Dormitory, Japanese language program, exchange program with Japanese, Japanese culture program, free recycle market, and others.

A5Yes. Number of students unknown. Countries unknown.

A6Less opportunity to speak Japanese.

A7

We host frequent online exchange meetings to make sure foreign students are not left alone. If you see any foreign students having problems, please talk to them. The experience of receiving kindness fromlocal people in a foreign country stays in their heart.

Reitaku University
A1

International Department 17%, Foreign Language Department 3.7%,
Economics Department 9.8%, Graduate School - Language Education Department 73%, Economics and Business
Department 81%.

A2

Get a job or go on to higher education in Japan, or get a job in their original country.

A3

China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, and others.
Also, exchange students come from Germany, USA, and others.

A4Dormitory, Japanese language collaboration center, conversation partnership program (support of exchangestudents, exchange activities with Japanese students).

A5

We have 44 partner schools in 16 countries and regions. We usually send about 270 students overseas. Although
we couldn’t send any last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted online exchange activities withpartner schools, online study abroad program, and classes by collaborating with foreign universities using anonline program, COIL.

A6Getting a job in Japan has become harder (Recruitment of foreignstudents has reduced).
Some lost a part-time work or have work hours reduced due to thepandemic.
Due to the pandemic, parents’ income and remittance has been
reduced, resulting in difficulty to pay tuition.

A7

We supported foreign students by using Emergency Student Support Handout from federal government, and we created our own
scholarship.
We created an environment to give a guidance to them any timethey need it.

Kaichi International University
A1

Foreign students: 50% (Only one of two departments accept foreign students.)

A2

They get a job in industries such as service and retail where they can utilize multi-language ability.

A3Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, France, Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea, China.

A4Japanese language marathon (Give Japanese education during lunch break weekly), programs hosted by International Exchange Center (e.g. Introduce their countries in an exchange program with Japanese.)

A5

Student exchange program with a partner school, online study
program with oversea universities.
Number of students study abroad annually: 15Study abroad destination: Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, Australia,Philippines. (in 2019)In a class titled Field Study Trip, all freshmen must attend language lesson in a partner school, Green International TechnologicalCollege in Philippines.

A6

Some students are experiencing financial hardship by losing parttime jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A7

With the help from Foodbank Chiba, we were able to give them foodsupport several times. Also, we fundraise on campus for them.

Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center

KCC NEWS vol. 64 Aug 2021

People who support ICT of KCC
Interviewed by Noriko Fujita(ICT: Information and Communication Technology)

Yoshimi EnomotoMr. Enomoto was familiar with foreign travels since he was working to develop and commercialize TV broadcast receiverand visited over 70 countries mostly in Europe and Asia on business. When his daughter was in wind ensemble club in highschool, the family hosted a foreign student of wind ensemble from Singapore. His son was enrolled in the international course inhigh school and the family hosted foreign students from Torrance, CA, Chengde, China, andShenton, Australia. Through hosting students Mr. Enomoto became interested in foreignexchange programs and joined the Torrance Committee in KIRA.
Having ICT knowledge and experience, he became busy helping KCC events during
the pandemic. Last year, instead of hosting a normal crowd-gathering “Kashiwa de International Exchange Fiesta” event, we tried live streaming to avoid a crowd. There always is an
issue of Wi-Fi environment when it comes to the Internet event, but we tried live streaming
again later in the Cross-cultural Tea Time. In the Japanese Speech Contest, Mr. Enomoto
uploaded the participants’ message video to YouTube.
Mr. Enomoto contributed as a member of KCC website renewal project to make ita gateway of Kashiwa’s international relations and make it more effective for foreigners toutilize.
Mr. Enomoto says, “There are about 10,000 foreign residents in Kashiwa, most ofthem young students. It is ideal if we become an organization to provide an environment
where young foreigners can communicate easily with us, and to give full support to foreign
residents in trouble.” And as to video streaming, he mentions, “I teach video shooting andediting in a study group. I want everyone to do live streaming right by learning about imageright, secondary use, and copyright.”

Mr. Yoshimi Enomoto

Mao Hongbin
Mr. Mao is from Shanghai, China. After studying computer hardware making in a university in China, he came toJapan and worked in a major Japanese electronics company to develop software to regulate robot movement. He is fluent inJapanese now but when he first came to Japan a simple greeting was the only Japanese he could speak. He studied Japanese by
mimicking with his Chinese colleague and reading manuals that contained some familiar Chinese characters. He also studied
Japanese by reading subtitles of English movies on a cable television.
14 years ago, he started a trading company, and 10 years ago when his living situation became stable, he started volunteering to create a layout of KIRA newsletter. In January of last year he helped to start KCC and KIRA YouTube channels
as a new outgoing method to show our activities. He also suggested using QR code for an easy access to information from smartphones.
During the pandemic, when our normal activities were very limited, he shot videos of Kashiwa de International Exchange Fiesta, introducing Japanese cuisines and culture, and uploaded them to YouTube channels.
About the future of KCC activities he says, “Since young people watch videos quite often, using video as an information
source will be very useful. KCC should create a video creation team to send information.”		

Mr. Mao’s photo and video
shooting skills are professional level, and he travels places
in Japan to capture beautiful
sceneries and starry skies several times a year. He uploads
them on his SNS and YouTube
account.

Left:
Right:Mr. Mao filming Fiesta
Kawaguchiko fireworks
by Mr. Mao

Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center

KCC NEWS vol. 64 Aug 2021

AUGUST EventsJapanese Shonan Classes

Online Japanese Kashiwa Classes

ClassesClasses
Online Japanese Kashiwa Classes

Online Classes
Thurs

10:00 - 11:30

Japanese Intermediate and up

Tue

10:00 - 11:30

Japanese for all Beginning I(2nd half)Sun

10:00 - 11:30

Beginning I, II, Intermediate I

Wed

10:00 - 11:30

Japanese Intermediate and up

Wed

19:00 - 20:30

Japanese for all Beginning I(1st half)

Thurs

10:00 - 11:30

Beginning Conversation I(Beginner, Beginning 1)

Thurs

13:00 - 14:30

Beginning Conversation 2(Beginning 2)

Fri

19:00 - 20:30

Japanese for all Beginning IISat

9:30 - 11:20

Intermediate Conversation

In Person ClassesThurs

10:00 - 12:00

Intermediate I
at Shonan Community Center**Summer Break**
July 12 (Mon) to Sept 1 (Wed)**Summer Break**
July 18 (Sun) to August 31 (Tue)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 and documents. Any questions or problems are all right, such as visa, domestic violence, divorce, or trouble at the workplace. Please register beforehand.		Date and Time: Aug 25 (Wed)13:00 - 17:00 				Place:		
Palette Kashiwa A		Reservation:
KCC (Kashiwa Cross-cultural Center) OfficeInformation about COVID-19 for foreign residents
Available in multiple languages
https://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld-blog/100/

Kashiwa information delivery service
Also, please read Kashiwa City
Magazine. It contains information
about COVID-19 vaccination.

Sign up to receive email announcements from the city, suchas information about earthquakes, fires, crime, and infectious
disease outbreaks in the language of your choice. Send a blankemail to this address to register.

Announcement from other organizations“Online Study Meeting” for KIRA members
Date and Time: Thursday, August 19, 2021 8:00pm – 9:10pm
Study Title:
Easy Japanese #3 “Talk Effectively online”			
Lecturer:
Ms. Tomoe Uchida (Easy Japanese Instructor)
Fee:		Free					Capacity:
25
Apply by:Send your name and phone number to boshu-1@kira-kira.jp		
We will provide you with necessary class information.

Questions?
Please contact the office ofKashiwa 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