Warrnambool - Miura Sister City Association
Across the Pacific
Incorporating Sister City News
December 1999 -- Volume 3, Issue 4

Editorial

SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THIS ISSUE ARE THE WINNING ENTRY AND SEVERAL SECOND PLACE ENTRIES FROM THE 1999 MAINICHI DAILY NEWS HAIKU COMPETITION. YOU MIGHT LIKE TO COMPARE THESE HAIKU WITH THE WINNING ENTRIES FROM OUR OWN COMPETITION PUBLISHED IN THE LAST ISSUE OF THIS NEWSLETTER.

ANY MATTERS WHICH YOU FEEL MAY BE OF GENERAL INTEREST SHOULD BE SENT TO
The Editor, JOHN O'BRIEN, 40 MERRI STREET, WARRNAMBOOL 3280.
Telephone: (61 3) 5561 3070 or EMAIL: johnob@deakin.edu.au

Lantern

ACROSS THE PACIFIC

A lot has happened since the last issue of "Across The Pacific". A student group from Brauer College has visited Miura; there is currently a student group from Fukuoka in Warrnambool; Geoff & Dot Read have completed 3 years of teaching in Japan and returned home; as has Andrea Sampson with her 2 children returned home after a year teaching in Japan; Mr Tsuneo Suzuki, Principal of Kamihara Junior High School in Miura will visit Warrnambool at the end of July with his wife and friends; and of course our resident ambassador in Miura, Michelle Ansell has had important visitors herself from home. Some of these events are reported in this issue.

Of particular interest is the account of the Fukuoka Connection in Warrnambool This Connection is probably not commonly known about ; it was only a chance meeting of the Editor with one of the Group supervisors from Fukuoka that her informative article appears in this Issue. Maybe our own Association could look into the possibility of making contact with the Fukuoka Society, and even consider putting a visit to Fukuoka & Kyushu on the itinerary for our next Group tour to Japan.

On a more pessimistic note, the City Council has made no provision for further development of the Sister City Japanese Garden in its recently approved 1999- 2000 budget. But it did contain a statement that the whole project be reviewed.

Annual Visit of Miura Students
Shizuka Kandori

On August 7th in 1999, we welcomed our annual young visitors from Miura. During their stay for 11 days, they enjoyed Australian life through staying at their host families, going to Brauer College and also visiting Sovereign Hill.
These young ambassodors seemed enjoyed Warrnambool, but we were not sure what they saw in Warrnambool and what they thought about the city. We asked them to answer some questions at the end of their staying. We could get the answers from 9 students and 2 adults.

Those questions and answers were as follows.

Q1. What was your host family like?
Most of them (8 out of 11) answered that their host family members are good friends and they always talked or discussed what they were doing. In Japan, it is sometimes pointed out that Japanese families have lack of communication between parents and children. Miura students might have found the differences of the ways communication in the family.

Q2. How was Australian house?
8 out of 11 answered "BIG!" which was easy to guess beforehand. Also, "lots of nature" and "lots of animals" were listed. "It was like a dream" was an interesting opinion. "The door knobs are put on higher on the door" , which no one would have noticed before. Is it just because Japanese people are shorter?

Q3. What is your impression of Warrnambool?
"Clean", "Confortable" and "lots of nature (green)" were the main impressions from them. Some of them answered that the shops are ???????. "Warrnambool is like Disneyland!" was the most impressive answer. We are living in the Disney land!

Q4. How was Australian School?
Even they couldn't understand the classes, they enjoyed the school life with friendly students at Brauer College. They easily noticed the differences from Japanese schools, for example the students can choose what they study in Australia, Australian students are much serious in the class, and the facilities are excellent. The approaches of teachers are different, too. The teachers were friendly, they sat on the table (which rarely happen in Japan), and the classes were communicative. The Miura students liked Recess with snacks, which they don't have in Japan.

Q5. Did you enjoy the excursions to Dunkeld and Sovereign Hill?
They quite enjoyed the excursions. They could see wild kangaroos and enjoyed Flying Fox in Dunkeld and enjoyed the scenary which is unlike in Japan, and they understood Australian history at Sovereign Hill. There were some requests which they wanted to have more time, or they wanted the host family or students to come with them.

Q6. What is your best memory of your staying?
It was very nice to see the answers "Making friends". We suppose they made lots of friends during their staying in Warrnambool. We hope they will visit us again and our friendship will last long.

There were some students mentioned that they couldn't understand Australian English. One of them said that the pronunciation they learn at school is very different from what they heard in Warrnambool. It can be noticed that American English is still strong in English education, but we wish that these young people will understand Australian culture and introduce more to Japanese people.


 

ASSOCIATION ON THE INTERNET

Thanks to the expertise of the late Max Preece, the Warrnambool/Miura Sister City Association now has a presence on the Internet. Several pages of Sister City information, including extracts from this Newsletter, can be found on the recently launched Warrnambool web site. Address is : http://www.warrnambool.org The specific information can be seen by clicking on "community" then clicking on "Sister City", Hopefully this presence on the web will supplement our Newsletter, and bring our Sister Cities to the notice of a much wider audience of "web surfers".

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