International Visitors

Kasama City is located in the center of Ibaraki Prefecture, about 100 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, and is famous for being the largest chestnut producer in Japan and for its unique pottery, Kasama-yaki, which is popular because of its lively and unrestrained style.

 

On December 9, 2022, Mr. ONUMA Hiromichi, Superintendent, Board of Education; Mr. KITANO Takeshi, Senior Public Policy Administrator; Ms. SATO Ayaka, Officer, Project Planning / Public Policy Division; Ms. KINOSHITA Chika, Director of Representative Taiwan office of Kasama City; Ms. HO, CHIA-JUNG, Assistant, Representative Taiwan office of Kasama City, and Ms. HUANG, WEI, Assistant, Representative Taiwan office of Kasama City, and were received by Prof. Yi-De Liu, Vice President for International Affairs, and Ms. Yu-Chen Hsiao, Global Partnership Manager. The reason for this visit is that Kasama City has close cooperation with Tsukuba University in Japan, and our university is one of the key sister schools of Tsukuba University in Taiwan.

 

During the meeting, VP Liu first welcomed the guests and said that they were the first foreign guests after Taiwan’s travel restrictions had been lifted, and mentioned that NTNU is planning to go to Japan twice next year for enrollment promotion. Then, Ms. Hsiao shared the photos of NTNU’s exchange with the University of Tsukuba. Since 2010, NTNU has had a close relationship with the University of Tsukuba. Therefore, we hope to promote more mutual exchanges through this visit of the Kasama City delegation.

 

Superintendent Mr. ONUMA also mentioned that he was glad to have the opportunity to visit NTNU, especially because the historical buildings of NTNU are just like the buildings of the Japanese government offices where he used to work, which made him feel close to NTNU as soon as he stepped into the university campus. Then, Senior Public Policy Administrator Mr. KITANO introduced Kasama City to the university. Since Kasama City established an office in Taiwan in 2018, it has been actively promoting various exchanges with Taiwan in the areas of administration, education, and industry. Although there is no university in Kasama City, the city government has been actively promoting industrial-academic cooperation projects with neighboring universities, such as collaborative research on social welfare and sports with our partners Tsukuba University and Tokyo University of the Arts. Lastly, he also mentioned that there are three high schools in the city and that they welcome visits from NTNU to promote enrollment.

 

After the meeting, the delegation also visited the Mandarin Training Center. Ms. Shu-Hua FANG, Leader of Student Affairs Division, and Ms. Hsin-I WANG, Research Assistant of Academic Affairs Division, introduced MTC’s teaching methods, student activities, and learning facilities to the delegations.