Message from the President
One year has passed since I assumed the duties of President of the Japan Foundation in October 2020.
To the present, the Japan Foundation has fostered bonds with the world by comprehensively undertaking international cultural exchange programs in countries worldwide, centered on the three major fields of Arts and Cultural Exchange, Japanese-Language Education Overseas, and Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange. Nonetheless, the Japan Foundation faced its greatest challenge since its establishment as the impact of the global-wide spread of COVID-19 from the beginning of 2020 inevitably forced us to cancel or postpone the implementation of most programs involving the movement of people across national borders and the gathering of large numbers of people.
While repeatedly seeking ways to continue conveying the appeal of Japanese culture to the world and to unceasingly implement exchanges with people in every country under these adverse circumstances, the Japan Foundation actively implemented programs online. These included STAGE BEYOND BORDERS – Selection of Japanese Performances –, a program featuring the online distribution of outstanding Japanese stage performances with multilingual subtitles, as well as the livestreaming of roundtable discussions among Japanese writers and translators in multiple languages. At the same time, in countries where conditions permitted, the Japan Foundation held actual traveling exhibitions of art works and screenings of Japanese films while implementing all possible measures to prevent COVID-19 infections.
Turning to the field of Japanese-Language Education Overseas, the Japan Foundation enhanced the content of Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan, a web-based teaching material for enabling foreign nationals to acquire the basic Japanese communication skills needed for living in Japan, and promoted the use of JF Japanese e-Learning Minato, a Japanese-language learning platform. Of particular note, Irodori has been able to meet the wide-ranging demand for at-home learning of Japanese by making available all teaching materials and audio data for download on its website free of charge. Additionally, the Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese (JFT-Basic) for measuring the level of Japanese-language proficiency required to obtain the residency status of "Specified Skilled Worker (i)," which was newly established in April 2019, has been steadily implemented in Mongolia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and Nepal, and commenced in Japan in March 2021.
Additionally, we launched emergency support projects in consideration of the many non-profit organizations that lead the way in fostering exchanges with Japan, such as the Japan America Society in regions across the United States, that are being economically affected by COVID-19. We also undertook online follow-up projects for participants in collaborative research workshops for scholars in Japanese Studies that have been implemented since fiscal 2018 with the aim of fostering next-generation Japanese Studies scholars. In making these efforts, the Japan Foundation focused closely on what it must do at the present time and worked to implement programs in a timely manner taking a long-term perspective.
Presently, there are emerging signs that various pandemic restrictions are being eased in countries worldwide along with an increase in vaccinations. That said, there are still many countries suffering from a growing number of cases and the situation remains unpredictable. While carefully monitoring the circumstances in each country, we would like to start from wherever we can and proceed with the resumption of irreplaceable real programs such as those involving face-to-face interchanges among people and stage performances where we dispatch artists to the actual location of venues. Amid these unique circumstances resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, online communication has rapidly permeated the world and is now part of our new everyday lives, with a sense that national boundaries and physical distances have been eliminated abruptly. As we further expand and enhance initiatives for online programs that have proven their worth in allowing the participation of people from countries and regions that were previously difficult to reach, we will continue to value unchanging person-to-person interchanges even under such circumstances and strive to realize new forms of exchanges in the post-COVID period through an appropriate balance and combination of face-to-face and online exchanges.
The Japan Foundation will continue its creative initiatives for making a huge leap forward in the run-up to 2022, when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our founding. I look forward to your continued understanding and support.
UMEMOTO Kazuyoshi
President
The Japan Foundation
November 2021