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2018.9.20 vol.100

Fure

ai T

sush

inNishinomiya Cit y International Association Newslet ter

Congratulatory Message

公益財団法人 西宮市国際交流協会〒662-0911 西宮市池田町11番1号 （フレンテ西宮内）TEL（0798）32-8680FAX（0798）32-8678

ホームページhttps://www.nishi.or.jp/shisei/seisaku/tabunkakyosei/nia/

E-mail : nia@nishi.or.jp

Congratulations for your publication of the com-memorative 100th issue of

the Nishinomiya City International Association’s “Fureai Tsushin” newslet-ter. I would like to express my deep gratitude and respect for the great contribution made by its chairperson of the Board of Directors, Kyoko Tanaka, staff members, supporting members, and volunteers constructing a multi-cultural society and promoting international cultural exchanges for the past 25 years. Now, our government regards that it is necessary to educate and raise global human resources for our global-izing world. And people in general may have the image of this “globalization” as developing an English speaking abili-ty. However, I should say that “global-ized people” does not mean English speaking people. There are many people working for global or universal values, although they may not neces-sarily be good English speakers. I think that “global human resources” refer to

Congratulating the 100th Newsletter Issuance:to Continue to Offer Appropriate Information

Kyoko Tanaka, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NIA

those people （1） who accept differences, （2） who respect others, （3） who under-stand Japan’ s good points and （4） who can communicate with others. Thinking of education in our global age, we must reexamine the purpose for our children becoming global human resources. The purpose must be that they are going to inherit a sustainable society as the citizens of the Earth, learning how to share the limited natural resources and to enjoy co-prosperity as much as possible. What is essential is to have a positive attitude to accept “differences” and to communicate with others. What is sought in the era of globalization is not mere superficial linguistic ability but having the ability to challenge oneself for what one can do, instead of being closed in one’s own shell, and the willingness to work on long-term perspectives with an open mind. I would like to thank NIA for pro-moting the broad, multi-cultural exchange activities on grassroots levels to enable citizens to understand

and respect different cultures and traditions, while supporting foreign residents on one hand with Japanese language courses and cultural intro-duction events and on the other hand, helping Japanese citizens deepen their understanding of the international, multi-cultural reality. As Mayor of Nishinomiya, I hope to promote our policies to generate “global human resources” from among Nishinomiya’s children and citizens in cooperation with NIA. I would appreciate your continual cooperation very much. Finally, I would like to conclude my message with my sincere wish for NIA’s further development and active social engagement.

Our Newsletter, “Fureai Tsushin” pub-lished by the Nishinomiya City Interna-tional Association, celebrates its 100th issue. This has been made possible owing to the understanding, cooperation and guidance given to us by our members, volunteers and related organizations. I

would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to everyone. We have seen great social changes since the time of its first issue. The situations which surround foreign residents have also been greatly changed. Amidst such changes in our soci-ety and in the living conditions for foreign residents, we sent

off various types of information on our steady grassroots-level events and activities and also on supportive activities by our volunteers, local communities, and foreign residents. We will continue our work together with our volunteers and will give information and reports through our news-letter on multicultural society, our international exchange projects, other activities and the people involved in these activities. We hope you will enjoy reading our news-letter and will continue to support our multi-cultural community activities.

Toshiro Ishii, Mayor of N

ishinomiya

100th

Congratulation

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10 0 th memor ia l number ❖Looking Back 100 Issues NIA’s newsletter, “Fureai Tsushin” is issued four times a year. The NIA staff and volunteer editorial committee members collect news, do research, and write up articles. The Japanese articles are translated into English, Chinese and Korean by volunteer translators and are completed in four language versions. They are edited again by native speakers. With the help of mailing volunteers, the printed copies are mailed off to the addresses of supportive members, volunteer members, and foreign resi-dents registered with NIA, public institutions and schools. Some copies are delivered and placed at businesses by delivery volunteers.

The Nishinomiya City International Association was founded in 1987 as a volunteer organization. Later in 1992, it became a corporate organization. A year later in February, 1993, its first newslet-ter, “Fureai Tsushin” was published. The first issue told about the association’s projects, Nishinomi-ya’s sister cities and friendship affiliated cities on an A4 sized, colorful 8-page newsletter. The second issue was published in November in the same year. Since the 3rd issue, it has been published every 3 months reporting on activi-ties among sister cities and affiliated friendly cities, and a series of interviews with foreign residents in the city. After the 6th issue, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred and we were obliged to halt this project for a while.

NIA also suffered a lot of damage due to the earthquake disaster. However, we real-

ized that foreigners who didn’t have suffi-cient Japanese language ability hadn’t received helpful information. Therefore, immediately after the disaster, we started issuing a multi-lingual newsletter for foreign residents and sent out helpful infor-

mation for how to return to life as normal.. Based on this experience, we restarted pub-lishing our Fureai Tsushin newsletter in July, this time in a Japanese-English bilingual version and Chinese, and Korean versions. We began asking volunteers to help with the translation work. The 7th to 10th issues were tabloid-sized 4 pages in two colors and were issued every 2 months. We had a special column called, “Mental Care Time” for a post-disaster specific topic. From the 10th issue, the Japanese and English ver-sions became separate, making a newsletter with four separate language versions. As NIA developed its projects and activities, the newsletter started announcing and reporting on their activities.

Since the 11th issue published in May, 1996, our Fureai Tsushin newsletter has been an A4 size in 2 colors in four language versions, issued every 3 months, 4 times a year. As for the content, we have had essential articles that report on NIA activities and

volunteer groups’ activities. In addition, our editorial staffs made special efforts to pro-mote mutual understanding between Japa-nese and foreigners. For example, our inter-views with the city’s foreign residents have continued in different forms. We had a column entitled “World’s XX” to report spe-cific customs of different countries, like weddings, funerals and home cooking. We also asked foreigners to boast about their hometowns, and our Japanese counterparts reported their amazing experiences they had abroad. All of them were beyond stereotypes and described very unique aspects of different countries. Another series gave explanations of Japanese cus-toms so that they would help foreigners understand Japan better. And another series helped foreigners get to know fun places to visit in Nishinomiya. We will continue to send diversified infor-mation so that our citizens and foreign resi-dents can know about our projects and activities and will feel happy to participate in them. （Y. I）

The First Issue◆ of Our Public Report ◆

Through the Lessons Learned◆ from the Great Earthquake Disaster ◆

◆ What Our Public Report Aims at ◆

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NIA Information Box INFORMATION

The interviewee in this issue is Ms. Kim Jiwon from Korea, who currently lives in Osaka. She is closely connected with Nishinomiya City as she had joined in an overseas study program at Kwan-sei Gakuin University in the past. She also served as a guest of the NIA event, “Enjoy in Korean” session in August.

On a hot mid-summer’s day, we inter-viewed Ms. Kim Jiwon. She has been work-ing at a design company in Umeda, Osaka. All of a sudden, pink fluffy cotton candy popped into my mind. Her first impression inspired this image. Throughout the conver-sation, she kept a gentle smile on her face and talked in a friendly manner, giving the impression of a girl-next door, rather than a business woman at an international cutting edge office. She first came to Japan when she was in junior high school. She applied to the inter-national exchange program at Swon City,

her home town, and came to Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture. The host family at that time treated her so graciously, even though she was scarcely able to express her feelings. She was moti-vated by a strong desire to communicate with them. This prompted her to study the Japanese language. She majored in Japanese

at university in Korea, and studied at Kwansei Gakuin University for six months. Even now, she believes this was the great-est time in her life. During those days, she often hung around the Nishinomiya-Kitagu-chi area and fell in love with the town. The reason she chose to work for a Japanese company was because she wanted to live in

Japan. She felt this desire due to the good impression left from those days. What made her comfortable living in Japan were that landscape was lovely, that the people were friendly and gracious, and that the daily wares or dishes were colorful and cute. There were so many little different things that pleased her about Japan. Different from her school days, she has been facing new challenges living in Osaka City. Despite her expectation, her income barely breaks even as the cost of living is so high there in the big city. The bank pro-cedure is more complicated than that of her home town, having caused her to make mistakes many times. The cost of eating out bothers her quite a bit. The heat wave of this summer almost killed her. However, Ms. Kim overcomes any hurdles in an effortless way with smile. Her life policy is quite interesting. She has no big dreams or goals in the future. She simply wants to live peacefully and safely continu-ously. Then, she wants to be a “Gracious Old Woman” many years down the road. She seems like fluffy sweet cotton candy. （M. M）

Comfortable Days

Interview ～Ms. Kim Jiwon（from Korea）～1818

Date & Time

Nov. 18 （Sun.）, 2018 13:00～16:00

Jan. 20 （Sun.）, 2019 13:00～16:00 Visa Status

Legal Problems NIA

Conference Room

Subject Place

Free Consultation for Non-Japanese residents

For foreign residents interested in learning Japanese and making friends with Japanese people in an informal setting:Basic: ① For people who have never studied Japanese （limited to 10 people）.Elementary:　② For people who understand hiragana and katakana, and

basic communication in Japanese （limited to 10 people）.Dates and Time: 　Every Thurs. from Sep. 6～Nov. 29（13 lessons） 10:30～12:00Textbook: “Minna no Nihongo ShokyuuⅠ”Fee: ￥2,000 （plus textbook fee）

Japanese Language Chat Square for Foreigners

Practical Japanese language classDates and Time: Every Monday from Sep. 10～Nov. 26（10 classes） 10:00～ 12:00Participants:Intermediates （who finished the beginner class） （about 10 people）Teacher: Japanese instructorsFee: ￥ 5,000 yen （Including course materials）

Let’s Learn & Speak Japanese

For foreign residents working during the daytime:①Basic: For people who have never studied Jap-

anese （limited to 15 people）.②Elementary: For people who understand simple everyday conver-sation, basic Japanese greetings. （limited to 15 people）.③Intermediate: For people who have an intermediate understanding of Japa-nese and want to continue to develop. （limited to 15 people）.Dates and Time: 　Every Wed. from Sep. 26～Nov. 28（10 lessons） 18:30～20:00Instructor: Japanese instructor Fee: ￥ 5,000 （Including course materials）

Japanese Language Course for Foreigners A judicial scrivener and an administrative scriv-

ener will provide consultations free of charge （under seal of secrecy）. English and Chinese interpreters on duty. If your language is other than these languages, please call to make an appointment.

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N I A I n f o r m a t i o n B o x

Keep buildings in good condition.

NIPPON KANZAI Co., Ltd.

Headquarters:2-1-10 Nipponbashi Chuo-ku Tokyo-to 〒103-0027 JapanMain Shop: 9-16 Rokutanji-cho Nishinomiya-shi Hyogo-ken 〒662-8588

Luxury housekeeping services

SearchSunny Maid ServiceFor more info

The Nishinomiya City’s home page has been widely redesigned and the translat-ing function is newly provided. If you click the “Multilingual” sign found at the top center the home page, the following pages are translated by a machine trans-lation system. Provided languages are the following 7: English, Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. Please utilize it by all means.

The Website of Nishinomiya City has❖ become available in multiple languages ❖Events and disaster information etc.are provided in multiple languages.

Nishinomiya CityInternational Association （NIA）

We recommend that you to registerfor our Facebook page.

Facebook

11-1, Ikeda-cho, Nishinomiya City

Worth morethan the price

Specialty Shopsof Frente Nishinomiya

Frente Nishinomiya

Official Facebook Information are now distributed

Official Application Information is now distributed

The gourmet street on the1st floor is open after 20:00.

Business hoursof the

Specialty Shops

Nitori

Nationality Number Percent

Total Nishinomiya population 488,260The percentage of foreign residents in Nishinomiya 1.36％

South and North KoreaChinaVietnamU.S.A.The PhilippinesTaiwanBrazilNepal74 Other countries

Total

※as of Aug, 2018Current Number of Foreign Residents

in NishinomiyaCurrent Number of Foreign Residents

in Nishinomiya ◇Volunteers Wanted◇NIA is seeking volunteers for the following works: ● Newsletter volunteers A: Preparation work before shipping （4 times a year）

● Newsletter volunteers B: Delivery to near-by institutions （4 times a year）

● Volunteer interpreters and translators（Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese）: We are seeking volunteers with different levels of ability. The work ranges from simple interpretation of daily conversation to translation of the NIA newsletter.

◇Sponsor Members Wanted◇To promote activities of the international exchange program, we need your support. ● Annual membership fee: Group: ￥20,000　Individual: ￥3,000　Volunteer: ￥2,000

● Privileges: Books can be borrowed for free. Conference rooms and the exhibition corner can be rented at a discout price. Other privileges include invitations to events run by NIA and discount tickets to Nishinomiya based facilities.

3,4061,1955182241841321161167336,624

51.4％18.0％7.8％3.4％2.8％2.0％1.8％1.8％11.1％100％