New Year’s Greeting for 2017
2017/1/1
A Happy New Year!
It has been a half year since I came here as an Ambassador to FSM.
FSM has more than 600 islands and atoll reef and is surrounded by beautiful ocean. It is worth to visit FSM for not only such beautiful nature but also a lot of tourist attractions.
On July 15 in 2016, Nan Madol, consisted of 100 basalt huge rock islands and constructed from 12AC to 15AC was inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage. I could feel the atmosphere of an old dynasty times when I visited this great place. On November 2016, Nan Madol was introduced by Japanese TV program. Micronesia has other ruins such as Lelu ruins and Menke ruins in Kosrae, and unique giant stone money in Yap. You can find vestiges of Japan rule time in Chuuk and some other places in FSM. I found a lot of attractive points of Micronesia, but peacefulness and people’s kindness are the best points. FSM is not so far from Japan, therefore I hope that a lot of Japanese to visit for sightseeing.
Japan had ruled Micronesia for 30 years until the World War II ended and we can see remaining Japanese cultures even now. For example, people in FSM eat tunas and skipjack tunas with soy sauce and it’s called Sashimi, some Japanese words used as their local languages. High school students in Kosrae sang a song named “Gambare Kosrae” when I visited Kosrae. The words, Gambare is repeated for many times in the song. Furthermore, I took part in Inpiokai, an agricultural fair in Nett, Pohnpei. I found the word inpiokai is from Japanese words, hinpyoukai which means a fair in Japanese. One morning, I visited Pohnpei Catholic School and I saw more than 300 students did Japanese exercise called Taiso which means exercise in Japanese. They have been doing it every morning for many years.
Sea of FSM is one of the most important fishing places for tunas and skipjack tunas and a lot of Japanese companies like captive insurance companies have registered and started to operate in FSM recently. I hope that the relationship between FSM and Japan improve more in the fields of not only economic and economic cooperation, but also tourism, cultural and human interactions. The year of 2018 will be the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between FSM and Japan, so I will do my best for making our relations much higher one in the coming two years with all supporters in FSM and Japan.
Thank you very much and best regards,
Ambassador Ryoichi Horie
Embassy of Japan in FSM
It has been a half year since I came here as an Ambassador to FSM.
FSM has more than 600 islands and atoll reef and is surrounded by beautiful ocean. It is worth to visit FSM for not only such beautiful nature but also a lot of tourist attractions.
On July 15 in 2016, Nan Madol, consisted of 100 basalt huge rock islands and constructed from 12AC to 15AC was inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage. I could feel the atmosphere of an old dynasty times when I visited this great place. On November 2016, Nan Madol was introduced by Japanese TV program. Micronesia has other ruins such as Lelu ruins and Menke ruins in Kosrae, and unique giant stone money in Yap. You can find vestiges of Japan rule time in Chuuk and some other places in FSM. I found a lot of attractive points of Micronesia, but peacefulness and people’s kindness are the best points. FSM is not so far from Japan, therefore I hope that a lot of Japanese to visit for sightseeing.
Japan had ruled Micronesia for 30 years until the World War II ended and we can see remaining Japanese cultures even now. For example, people in FSM eat tunas and skipjack tunas with soy sauce and it’s called Sashimi, some Japanese words used as their local languages. High school students in Kosrae sang a song named “Gambare Kosrae” when I visited Kosrae. The words, Gambare is repeated for many times in the song. Furthermore, I took part in Inpiokai, an agricultural fair in Nett, Pohnpei. I found the word inpiokai is from Japanese words, hinpyoukai which means a fair in Japanese. One morning, I visited Pohnpei Catholic School and I saw more than 300 students did Japanese exercise called Taiso which means exercise in Japanese. They have been doing it every morning for many years.
Sea of FSM is one of the most important fishing places for tunas and skipjack tunas and a lot of Japanese companies like captive insurance companies have registered and started to operate in FSM recently. I hope that the relationship between FSM and Japan improve more in the fields of not only economic and economic cooperation, but also tourism, cultural and human interactions. The year of 2018 will be the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between FSM and Japan, so I will do my best for making our relations much higher one in the coming two years with all supporters in FSM and Japan.
Thank you very much and best regards,
Ambassador Ryoichi Horie
Embassy of Japan in FSM