Yukari Tsuru: Youth exchanges promote Sino-Japanese friendship

As a recognition of Bellpo Organization’s contribution to the people-to-people exchanges between Shanghai and other countries over the past years, Yukari was conferred the Magnolia Award by the Shanghai municipal government in 2015. For her, the award is a very high honor which also recognizes her father’s long-standing efforts of promoting Sino-Japanese friendship in China. In addition, it is an encouragement to Fukuoka citizens who have been supporting Bellpo Organization’s activities back in Japan. She even said, “After receiving the award, I feel our bond with Shanghai is closer.”

As Yukari put it, Shanghai is a window to Chinese culture and Shanghai citizens take the lead in internationalization. Compared to governmental exchanges, folk exchanges play a more important role. “I have investigated the situations of foreign language teaching in many schools. In foreign language teaching, teachers are lacking international background and vision. So in my opinion, exchanges between educators and ordinary citizens should be strengthened.”