International Association of Chigasaki (IAC) and the Gender Equality Section of the city held an International Understanding Seminar on Saturday, September 7th at Gender Equality Promotion Center Ikoria. The guest lecturer was Ms. Ma Kanshu (Mǎ Hánqiū) Itoh. She is from Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. She is a member of Japan-China Friendship Association of Chigasaki and a Chinese teacher. She has been living in Japan for 26 years, and can speak Japanese fluently.
The title of the seminar was “Traveling around Northeast China – Northeast China Yesterday & Today.” Ms. Ma showcased Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang and Dalian, the 4 major cities in 3 provinces of Northeast China, displaying beautiful pictures on a projector screen. It made us feel like we were travelling in Northeast China.
In the break time, we enjoyed Chinese tea and sweets. We also played quizzes about Chinese words such as names of celebrities, countries, shops, services, facilities, Olympic sports, and so on. Ms. Ma showed Chinese words and we guessed the meaning. We thought it might be easy because we also use “Kanji” Chinese characters in Japan, but it was much harder than we expected.
We also had a question and answer session at the end of the seminar. Various questions were asked and she answered each question very nicely.
Nearly 50 audiences came to the seminar to learn about our neighboring country. They were all listening attentively to Ms. Ma.
