Ehime University held an online program for students at Orenburg State University, Russia, on Sustainable Development in Japan from Dec. 7 to 11 for two hours each day. 33 OSU students, participated along with OSU academic staff and 26 Ehime University students (including 6 international students). This program was organized by Ruth Vergin of the Institute for International Relations, and included presentations on social, cultural and energy issues in Japan by Shimagami Motoko of the Institute for International Relations, Sou (a Japanese traditional dancer who will be teaching at Faculty of Education next year), and Itagaki Yoshiteru, of the Graduate School of Science and Engineering. The program itself was a joint project with Ehime Prefecture and Botchan Gekijo.
One goal of the program was to promote exchange between OSU students and Aidai students. Each day Japanese students gave short presentations on Japanese culture and taught origami, shodo, radio exercises and okonomiyaki as interactive activities. For the okonomiyaki session professional chefs from an Orenburg restaurant joined the class and cooked it following the directions of the students here. They said the result was delicious. Several of the OSU students tried it at home, too. ‘Japanese language time’ was led by lecturer Adriana Hidding for the OSU students who wanted to practice speaking Japanese.
Originally it was planned to invite 10-15 OSU students to Ehime U. for a 5-day program, but plans changed with the pandemic. However, this way twice as many OSU students were able to join. The program coincided with the OSU Japan Information Center annual Days of Japan program. Several sessions of our program were offered as part of it, including the ones on traditional Japanese dance and okonomiyaki. Dr. Liudmila Dokashenko, the director of the Japan Information Center reported that as many as 500 people watched our sessions. She wrote: ‘It was a very interesting for our students, great experience for us.’
This program was also used as an opportunity for staff development. A young staff member of the International Relations Division participated each day gaining experience in holding complex online programs.
-
- Culture introduction
-
- Orenburg student presentation
-
- Teaching how to cook okonomiyaki
-
- Calligraphy lesson
