Vancouver, February 2016

From Feb. 20 to Feb. 25, I was in Vancouver.

It was a kind of business trip to visit Langara College, where Reitaku University sends our students each semester. Since last year, I have been assigned to take care of this exchange program with Langara, and my trip was to see the college and the programs they offer to our students. I also visited some other institutions and companies in consideration of our future exchange programs.

Mr. Jun Sato and others at JAN-Link, who now help us taking care of our students' homestay etc., helped me very much. They took me to Langara, UBC, VIC, and, actually, from and to the airport, too. I feel I owe them very much. We enjoyed discussing varieties of things. Among the topics were the new exchange programs--like, making our English-major Chinese-submajor students stay with Chinese Canadian families, offering Chinese buddies at school as well, and visiting Chinatown both in downtown and Richmond. It will be a unique opportunity to our students experiencing the North American Chinese community as well as the English environment in Vancouver. Hoping we can realize such a facsinating program.

As a researcher of Canadian Studies, it is shame I couldn't visit Canada for 5 years since coming back from Edmonton in the summer of 2011. Literally, I was too busy for university administration works in the recent few years. And this was a great opportunity for me to refresh myself.

Unfortunately, I had almost no time to do my own research, but it was great I could be there even for a short while. The highlight of my trip was, personally, the opportunity to talk to Dr. Stephen Phillips, a political scinentist in Langara. It was fun drinking with Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Phillips: from the conversation, I could learn a lot about Canadian political situation today.

Well, I believe I will revisit Canada soon (hopefully in a few years), and looking forward to it!

(The photos are: Coal Harbor [above], Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Park, JAN-Link Office, Nikkei Place and Suzuya in Burnaby, Nikkei Heritage Centre next to Suzuya, and the view from the 6th floor of Vancouver Public Library.)