Continued efforts essential for strong bonds between Pak-Japan friendship: Envoy

ISLAMABAD, Nov 20 (APP):Ambassador of Japan to Pakistan Kuninori Matsuda has said there is a need of making continued efforts to further flourish the strong bond of friendship between Japan and Pakistan.

He said this while addressing Japan Festival-2019 here at National University of Modern Languages (NUML) on Tuesday.

After cutting the ribbon to inaugurate the cultural event, he said since Japan and Pakistan share many cultural similarities so these festivities will definitely provide a window of opportunity for the Pakistani people to discover many facets of Japanese culture and its age-old traditions.

He said the year 2022 would be celebrated to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Pakistan and a variety of such events would be organized to commemorate this auspicious occasion.

The festival was organized to showcase the rich cultural diversity and traditions of Japan under one roof and to celebrate ‘A Month of Japanese Culture’ together with the Pakistani people.

The event began with the Japanese Language Speech Contest among the students of Japanese Language Department at the university and was followed by other colorful cultural performances such as Kendo demonstration, Taiko performance, Karate and Judo demonstration, Ninja performance, Origami workshop, Bonsai and Ikebana demonstrations.

Also, a robotic performance by the Robotics Department at NUST greatly entertained the viewers at the festival. The visitors in the festival were also served with the delicious Japanese cuisine Tampura, Sushi etc..

As a part of the activities organized to celebrate ‘A Month of Japanese Culture’ an exhibition of photographs titled ‘Japan through the lens of Pakistani photographers’ will be inaugurated on November 21 at the National Art Gallery of PNCA.

Around 35 photographs captured by the photographers of the Photographic Society of Pakistan (PSP) would be displayed in the exhibition which they had captured during their recent visit to Japan.

Also, Japanese films such as Grave of the Fireflies, His Master’s Voice and Samurai Cat would be screened at the Islamabad Club auditorium on November 22, 27 and 28 during the film festival being organized by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts during the Islamabad Art Festival 2019.

On November 24, Japanese music show titled ‘Nihon Unplugged-Cultural Music Performance’ would be held at the auditorium of PNCA where artists arriving from Japan featuring with local musicians would demonstrate their talent.