Category: Meeting

Speaker:         Mr. Aditya Kumar

Date/Time:      Sunday June 29, 2008    14：00-16:00

Place:            Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center, Room 1

                  (1 minute from JR Takatsuki Station), Tel.0726-85-3721

                 http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp

Fee:              500 yen for members and students;  1,000 yen for non-members

Language:       Japanese (Questions and Answers in English and Japanese)

 

Description of Presentation

Most Indian residents in Japan used to be either Indian restaurant owners or students. But in the past ten years or so, things have changed, with many IT engineers coming to Japan.  I myself started working for an Indian company which develops IT software since April, and have some Indian colleagues at my work place. Meanwhile, I am still in the PhD course at Osaka University.  My Indian colleagues’ experiences, as well as my own, in Japan have given me new insight into how things are in Japan.  In my presentation, I would like to address several impending topics, such as adaptation to Japanese society by an Indian family, education for children, and medical support.  I will talk about how to cope with these problems. It is my great pleasure to do something to contribute to making Japan an ideal global nation with further cooperation between Japan and India.

 

Profile of the Presenter

Mr. Kumar was born in Buddaha-gaya, India in 1981.  After graduating from the

Univ.of Nehru in India where he specialized in Japanese and Japanese culture, he

came to Japan as a fellow of the Japanese Ministry of Education and studied at Osaka

University of Foreign Languages from 2002-2003.  Currently, he is doing his Doctoral

course at Osaka University.  He served as an interpreter for the summit between Japan and India and has also translated and interpreted for TV, magazines and other businesses.  Mr. Kumar presently works for Indian and Japanese companies as an international advisor and teaches English and Intercultural communication at a technical college.

Presenter:    Ms. Aki Nagane

Date:              November 11 ( Sunday), 2:00pm-4:00pm

Place:         Takatsuki Shiritsu Shogai Gakushu Center

               (10 minutes walk from JR Takatsuki station or Hankyu

               Takatsukishi station),  Tel:  072-674-7700

              http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/bunka/manabi

Fee:          500yen for members and students, 1.000yen for non-members

Lnguage:     Japanese

 

Description of the Presentation

   Only one hundred years and some decades have passed since most of the residents in Hokkaido came to be predominantly made up of those who do not have faith in Ainu gods.  Just dating back to four generations ago, there was a world where people prayed to their gods.  It was not very far from the present.  An Ainu fuchi, an old lady who was born in the Meji Era, introduced me to her (Ainu) world through Ainu stories.  If you immerse  yourself in the story telling, even if you can not understand the language, you might experience some of the cosmology behind the stories.”

（She will tell a story in Ainu language and play the Mukkuri instrument.）

Profile of the Presenter

Born and raised in Chitose, Hokkaido, she started to get involved with Ainu culture in 1993, the special year for International Indigenous People.

It was at this time that she attended an Ainu language course and encountered mukkuri, an Ainu musical instrument.  Under the instruction of Phillpe Dalle, a famous mukkuri player living in Switzerland, she learned mukkukri and became the winner of the fourth Mukkuri competition in Hokkaido in 1999.  Ms. Nagane published her first book about how to play mukkuri in 2000.  Her first solo album titled “Monola” came out in 2001.  She moved to Kyoto in 2004 to pursue other interests.  Since then she has been active as both a mukkuri player and a coordinator of Ainu culture activities.

 

 

 

 

Presenter:     Prof. Teresa Bruner Cox (Soai University)

Date:          October 7, 2007 (Sunday),  1:30pm- 3:30pm

Place:         Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center, Rm 3

               (1 minute walk from JR Takatsuki Station), Tel.072-685-3721

                  (http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/db/kurasu/images/koryu.gif)

Fee:                500 yen for members and students: 1,000 yen for non-members

Language:     English

 

Description of the Presentation

     Each year, many Japanese university students participate in long-term study abroad programs in English-speaking countries.  What challenges do they face, and how well are sponsoring institutions preparing them for the intercultural academic experience?  To see what could be learned from students who have already been abroad, the presenter did in-depth debriefing interviews with students from Kansai area universities who had returned from a year abroad at a university in the USA or Canada.  Selections from these interviews which focused on academic life have been made into a training video, Japanese Students Abroad: Academic Challenge and Strategies for Success(日本とアメリカ・カナダの大学教育の相違と留学成功法).  The video is aimed specifically for Japanese university students who intend to study abroad in the future.

         This presentation will be of interest to international program advisors and administrators. Cross-cultural trainers, and Japanese university students interested in studying abroad.  (The presenter will speak in English but the interview video excerpts are in Japanese.)

 

Profile of Presenter

Teresa Bruner Cox is a professor at Soai University in Osaka.  She has taught EFL and intercultural Communication at university level and to business people in Japan for more than thirty years.  In recent years her research focus has been on the experiences of Japanese ryugakusei and on preparation for study abroad.  She graduated from the University of California,Berkeley with a major in Anthropology, and she received her M.A.T.(TEFL/TESL) from The School for International Training in Vermont.