International Student Symposium was held！
On Saturday, December 17, 2022, the International Student Symposium was held at Kumamoto City International Center in person and online. There were 35 participants including international students studying at universities in Kumamoto and Japanese high school students. Under the theme of “Hot news topics in my country”, 6 international students (from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Germany, China and Swiss) including 2 KU students gave presentations about hot topics in their countries in Japanese.
An international student from Indonesia talked about a big earthquake which occurred in Indonesia in November 2022 and other recent natural disasters in the country. When the earthquake happened, people in the country fell into confusion and it is said that there seemed to be some reasons in terms of infrastructure why the damage was so severe. Now people prepare for bigger natural disasters in the future, she said, and she was praying for the people’s safety.
Another student from Switzerland gave a presentation about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia that has started since February, focusing on the difficulty of being the permanently neutral power. Regarding the weapons made in Switzerland, she explained that there happened to be a quarrel between Switzerland and the Government of Germany, which is the country imports the weapons. As a citizen of Switzerland, she said Switzerland shouldn’t have made weapons because Swiss is a Permanent Neutral Country and should pray for world peace. She felt sad that the country thinks only about its own safety.
All presentations were very interesting and they made the participants think critically. The symposium became a very good opportunity to share the news of the world.
