by Harry Yamamoto
Sunday, May 26, the IAK Annual
General Meeting was held at Karuizawa Chuo-Kominkan. Sevety members including
their families were present to discuss the meeting agenda and enjoy the tea
party afterwards. As of March 31, 2013, IAK has registered 149 regular members
(86 individual, 60 family and 3 corporate) and 8 supporting members (2
individual and 6 corporate). The actual number of members is 240 since its
foundation on May 27, 2012.
Annual General Meeting
approved as follows:
| 1. Fiscal Year 2012 Activity Report : as per described in IAK Newsletter # 2. | |
| 2. Fiscal Year 2012 Revenue/Expenditure Report | |
| Revenue | ¥244,500 |
| Annual Member Fee and Admission Fee of IAK Opening Ceremony | |
| Expenditure | ¥122,223 |
| Communication, printing, events arrangements, etc. | |
| Balance | ¥122,277 |
| With change of the auditor, Mr.S.Yokoyama, its successor made the audit report to the above. | |
| 3. Fiscal Year 2013 Forecast of Revenue and Expenditure | |
| Carried over from Fiscal Year 2012 | ¥122,277 |
| Annual Fees | ¥200,000 |
| Event Admission fees | ¥226,000 |
| Total | ¥548,277 |
| Expenditure | |
| Event arrangements | ¥226,000 |
| Newsletter (4 issues X 300 copies) | ¥100,000 |
| Questionnaire | ¥50,000 |
| Other activities | ¥100,000 |
| Total | ¥476,000 |
| Balance | ¥72,277 |
Some members proposed to
raise annual dues to be used towards other IAK activities. However, as we are only in our second year, IAK should give priority to the
publicity of activities to obtain more members and let each event go on
self-sufficient basis by charging admission. AGM agreed in maintaining the membership rates.
News
★ IAK
dispatched 6 volunteer interpreters to Karuizawa International Curling
Championships 2013
As an inauguration event
of Karuizawa Ice Park the international matches were held between April 17 to
21 among the teams from Switzerland, China, New Zealand, Korea and Japan. IAK
cooperated with the event to provide interpreters in English, French, Chinese
and Korean languages.
★ IAK
holds the open event, “Bhutan Day”.
On Sunday, June 23 IAK
presented residents in Karuizawa, members and non-members, the program of
introducing the country “ Bhutan” at Chuo-kominkan. Mr. Tshering Norbu, a Bhutanese
living in Karuizawa shared his culture and customs by using photos, video and PowerPoint.
50 attendees enjoyed his presentation having home-made cookies of Bhutan, tried
on Bhutanese clothes and expressed desire to visit Bhutan.
★ Hiking
fans get together.
Lovers of hiking enjoyed
outings to Ikenodaira on June 9, Hanareyama on Jun 22, Asamayama on July 15 and
Takaiwayama on August 9. Bad weather cancelled plans twice to Karamatsudake.
★ Barbecue
party
On June 30, forty IAK members
gathered for a barbecue party at Hoshinko Pension. The cost was 1,500 yen each
for great food and drinks.
★ Japanese
language lessons
Hirakawa-san and
Okura-san gave Japanese lessons of daily expressions to six foreign adult attendees
on Sep 14. The first lesson was the
basic phrases for telephone conversation and hotel reception, and the second
one was for shopping such as how to count the number of tuna fish and conversations
at the cashier. After class, everyone went shopping at Tsuruya supermarket for
practical use.
★ IAK
Town Survey
As of August 31, sixty
members responded to the IAK town survey. These responses have been well-documented
and are being analyzed for comments by IAK Support Division.
★ IAK
team entries the curling match sponsored by Karuizawa S.C.
The games started on September
10 with the final match on October 27. Keep your fingers crossed!
★ Please renew your annual IAK membership today
This year IAK has issued
member ID cards for use at IAK-sponsored events and to be used as a name
tag. If you haven’t renewed this year,
please pay according to the following chart.
Individual Member ¥1,000
Family Member ¥1,500
Bank account Yucho-ginkou (Japan Post Bank)
Karuizawa-Kokusai-Koryu-Kyokai (IAK) Account # 0590-2-108934
Karuizawa-Kokusai-Koryu-Kyokai (IAK) Account # 0590-2-108934
Essay from the members
★ Our
garden in Karuizawa
By Toshie Okura
By Toshie Okura
Being located on a
north-facing slope, our garden is damp and cooler than those in town, although
it does get the sun. Four years ago, I planted a young peach tree. It started
to bear fruit two years ago, and a lot of small peaches were on the tree last
year. This year, it produced about one-third the quantity, but each individual
fruit is larger. This poor tree is doing very well considering it gets very
little nutrition. I was truly surprised to see so many fruits on the tree. I
felt sorry for it and now feel that I must take better care of it.
I tried a variety of
plants in the garden, many disappeared, but some survived.
The conclusion I reached
is that the local plants, especially those that grow in damp places survive
better. The local plants are the best ones. It is natural but one tends to grow
flowers that do well in other countries, because we remember them flourishing
in the places we once lived.
What remains the same in
Japan and England is that our garden is always in a very natural state, and I
can find wild flowers in the garden. It sounds lovely - maybe, but the truth is
that I do not have enough time and patience to take care of the garden, and as
a consequence, it goes wild! Oh well, that’s life.
Plants to go (Can any of
you adopt some plants?)
Miniature gardenia (half
shady place is OK, but protected from heavy frost)
Gerbera or African daisy
(red flower) (likes sunny place)
“Nouzen Kazura or great
trumpet-creeper” (likes sunny and warm place)
Please call Toshie on
0267-48-0040, with any inquiry
By Yukikazu Bando
I am greatly delighted
that IAK was inaugurated in 2012 to launch its activities in Karuizawa which
had been pursuing the target to become “City of International Friendship,
Culture and Tourism” since 1951. Over the last decade since my settlement in
Karuizawa I have strongly desired to promote international communication by
understanding the history and the culture of foreign countries. It is, however, a pity
that little progress has been made to my personal experiences of international
exchange due to poor speaking ability of foreign languages. This is not only
because I have made less effort for brushing up, but because I have not paid any
attention to the circumstances and method of learning conversation. I should
have been aware of the fact that speaking ability is better acquired by
listening to the language spoken just like music, rather than studying it by
book. In my limited
experiences, when I started to communicate with Hungarian people more than 20
years ago, they surprised me very much how they were so talented to learn
foreign languages. I have kept thinking over the reason why since then :
First, their living
circumstances favour them. Hungary is a tourism-oriented country to receive a
few times bigger number of tourists from abroad, than its population (9.9
million), similar to the situation of Karuizawa. And in towns near the border the languages of
neighbouring countries are very familiar in people’s daily life.
Second, under such
circumstances, they learn foreign languages through ears as well as native
language. Hearing ability by ears seems
to be matured by the ages 4 to 5 years old to distinguish the difference of
various pronunciation by language. Mr.
S, a friend of mine says he became able to speak German easily when he played
with German kids in his neighbourhood. In
Hungary I often saw working people at car-parking places, cafeterias or
train stations speaking fluently 3-4 languages learned by ears.
In the case of Japanese
language, although local dialects contains various type of vowels, any
pronunciation is limited to express in only 50 letters. This applies when we
learn foreign languages at school, which might prevent us from improving
hearing ability.
Third, we often
encounter the scenes that Hungarians boldly approach foreigners and please them
by imitating foreign words as taught by them. They try to brush up their
conversation skills. This reminds me of
IAK’s speak-easy salon which values to promote speaking ability as well as
friendship.
My comment as a non-linguist is to emphasize Karuizawa is in a position to accommodate the
above three conditions.
When IAK, local
administration and residents mutually support to promote international exchange
and become successful in establishing the community adopting foreign languages
in daily life, I am sure to step forward and advance my speaking ability.
