|
22 Japanese friends will rush to Busan,
Korea to
cheer for Oman
- Football game between Oman &
Korea on 30th September -
The Oman Olympic
football team will play a match against Korea on 30th September at the
quadrennial 14th Asian Games to be held in the South Korean city of
Busan . Twenty-two members of the Oman-Hiroshima
Friendship Association will visit Busan from Japan in order to cheer the Omani
team who will play on the rival’s home ground.
Korea established excellent results in the World Cup and its supporters
have been well known for their enthusiasm since last June.
On the occasion that several
Omani Olympic sports’ teams will participate in the Asian Games in their
neighboring country, the Hiroshima-Oman Friendship Association has planned to
visit Busan and has formed a delegation of 22 members headed by Mr. Kazuhiro
Fukushima, President of the Association, to support the Omani Olympic
teams. The delegation will arrive there
September 29th and attend the Opening Ceremony on the same day. In addition to watching and cheering the
well-matched football game, they would like to pay a courtesy call on the
representative of the Omani contingent to present a traditional memento of
Hiroshima.
The memento is a good-luck ornament in the shape of a rice scoop; the
pronunciation of “scoop rice” and “win” is the same in Japanese. Hiroshima was a port town a hundred years
ago and when the people left Japan for foreign countries, they dedicated rice
scoops to a famous shrine, writing their names on them and bringing new ones
home as souvenirs. Some of the
dedicated scoops are huge and the biggest is 7.7m long and 2.5 t in
weight. The rice scoop of Hiroshima is
also famous as its citizens use two scoops as a musical instrument while
cheering. The scoops make a click sound
that is pronounced “kachi kachi” in Japanese, and “kachi” means victory.
When the city of Hiroshima hosted the 12th Asian Games in 1994, each
area of the city supported one of the countries participating in the regional
Olympic games. Since Asaminami town of
Hiroshima cheered the Omani teams, the Hiroshima-Oman Friendship Association
was established and has actively continued cultural-exchange with the Sultanate
of Oman.
The head of the delegation is Mr. Kazuhiro Fukushima, President of the
Association, and Secretary General Mr. Tomoyuki Takenaka will be the second
delegate. Mr. Hiroaki Tamaru (Permanent
Director), Mr. Nobuo Ryu (Permanent Director) and Mr. Yasuo Kajiwara,
(Director) will join the delegation with other members as well.
Mr.
Kazuhiro Fukushima, President of the Association, hopes their moral support will be of assistance to the Omani football
team and wishes good luck to all participating teams from Oman as stated in his
letter to the Embassy of Japan. He also
hopes that their visit to Busan will contribute to the improvement of existing
and future cultural-exchange between Japan and Oman and also to the success of
the Asian Games which will be held in Korea, their neighbouring country.
For more information, please
contact:
Embassy of Japan (Information & Culture Section)
Embassy of Japan in the Sultanate of Oman
|
|