Welcome Ceremony of the Winner of the Japan-EU English Haiku Contest
September 20, 2011
Japanese
- On September 19, a Welcome Ceremony for the Winner of the 2nd Japan-EU English Haiku Contest was held. At the ceremony, the winner on the EU side in the 2nd Japan-EU English Haiku Contest, Ms. Federica Bertacchini of Italy, received a commendation from Matsuyama City. Ms. Bertacchini is visiting Matsuyama City, which is said to be the center of modern haiku at the invitation of the contest organizers.
- During the Welcome Ceremony, a deposition ceremony for the Matsuyama City Tourist Haiku Post Box from Matsuyama City to MOFA was performed. This post box will be installed at the Mission of Japan to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. Cultural and people-to people exchanges between Japan and the EU are expected to develop further in future.
[Reference]
1. Japan-EU English Haiku Contest
2. Matsuyama City Tourist Haiku Post Box
(1) Matsuyama City, which has associations with the origins of modern haiku as the birthplace of the poet Masaoka Shiki, has installed special "Haiku Post Boxes" at 90 locations throughout the city since 1966. Moreover, for the purpose of publicizing Matsuyama City's attractions as "Matsuyama — the city of Haiku" throughout Japan, similar Haiku Post Boxes have also been installed outside the city itself, for example, in places appearing in the novel "Saka no Ue no Kumo" and the TV drama series based on the same (as of September 2011, at 11 locations in 8 regions in Japan). The Haiku Post Box installed this time in Brussels is the first to be installed outside Japan.
(2) Among the posted haiku poems, the best poems will be selected every three months and introduced into the haiku collection, and Matsuyama City is also planning to present commemorative gifts to the writers of the winning entries.
- (*This is a provisional translation. The above date denotes the date of the issue of the original press release in Japanese.)
Related Information(Japan-EU Relations)