On Sunday, February 12, 2006, exchange students from universities over the Hiroshima area visited a nursing home in Mihara and met with the residents as well as many locals from the area in an exchange meeting.



On the day of the exchange meeting, 34 exchange students from 12 different countries and regions studying Hiroshima Prefecture, including students from Hiroshima University, visited Mihara as the "Kokkyou-naki Tankentai" or the "Explorers without Borders." That Sunday was also the first day of Mihara's Shinmei Festival, or the "Festival of the Gods," which the students went to see before visiting the Care House Sunrise (Minato-machi) Retirement Home. At the meeting luncheon, the exchange students, surrounded by the elderly residents, did their best to express and explain in Japanese their home countries and their experiences in Hiroshima, and in turn, the elderly listened patiently.



Next, in the meeting plaza at the retirement home, retirement home staff, local volunteers, and people in the region participated along with the eldery and the exchange students in traditional Japanese culture and games such as origami (the art of paper folding), tea, cup-and-ball, spinning tops, kimono wearing, and learning about daruma making from daruma craftsmen. Later, there was a kagura (Shinto traditional dance) performance by the Ozera Kagura Club and the exchange students watched the mystical movements of kagura with deep interest.



This enterprise was planned and put into operation by the Hiroshima Region International Student Exchange Promotion Council (Headquarters: Hiroshima University International Affairs Bureau) and made possible by a grant from the Nakashima International Exchange Memorial Foundation.