International students share Chiba's charms from their own perspective! ~Connecting Chiba with the world through social media~

On Monday, August 6th, six international students from Vietnam and China studying at our university, along with two students from our university who are supporting them, participated in a Japanese cultural study trip. The purpose of this trip was for the international students to visit tourist spots in Chiba and convey the attractions of the prefecture to their home countries in their own language. After enjoying Chiba's unique tourist attractions from a foreigner's perspective, the participating international students shared the information on social media. (The photo shows the Facebook page of Do Xuan Hien, who conveys the attractions of Chiba to his home country.)

The international students' first visit was to Kamogawa Sea World (Kamogawa City). They enjoyed Japan's only authentic killer whale performance, watched sea creatures, and took part in a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium. Afterwards, they experienced making hand-baked rice crackers using mainly Chiba-grown glutinous rice at Takanashi Shoten (Kamogawa City), a hand-baked rice cracker shop. They enjoyed their first challenge, following advice from the shop staff that the trick is to turn the crackers over and over multiple times before baking. At the end of their training, they visited the Great Buddha at Mt. Nokogiri (Futtsu City) and enjoyed the view from the top of the mountain on a ropeway.

After the training, the international students shared the attractions of Chiba in their own language or Japanese through their own social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Student Voices

Q. What did you find attractive about Chiba through this training?
A. I usually spend a lot of time near the university, but I was able to discover a new charm of Chiba, being close to both the mountains and the sea.

Q. How did you share the appeal of Chiba that you felt on social media?
A. I thought that killer whale performances would be interesting not only for children but also for adults, so I recorded videos on my smartphone, edited them in my own way, and posted them. I posted them not only in my native language, Vietnamese, but also in Japanese to reach my friends living in Japan of various nationalities, including China, Nepal, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

Q. What kind of reaction did you get after posting on social media?
A. On Facebook, about a week after I posted it, I got about 40 likes and six comments (see the image in the text). A friend from Vietnam who lives in Japan asked me how to get to Kamogawa Sea World and where it is, and a Vietnamese friend who has been to Japan sent me a surprised message saying, "I didn't know there was a place like this in Chiba! I'd love to go!" I was happy to see all kinds of reactions. Since I'm lucky enough to live in Chiba, I'd like to continue spreading the word about Chiba's attractions from my perspective as an international student.

Do Xuan Hien (from Vietnam), 1st year student in the School of Policy and Information Studies