A group of 40 teachers and students of Yokohama Overseas Chinese School in Japan visited National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in the afternoon today (July 17) and paid tribute to the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen to express the respect and memory from the overseas Chinese. The visiting group was warmly received by the hall. Besides watching the guards of honor changing, they were also guided to Sun Yat-sen’s history and the building of the hall, recalling Dr. Sun’s fraternity in leading the revolution and founding the country and learning about the hall’s architectural beauty of simplicity and elegance.
The 40-person visiting group is composed of the Mandarin summer camp of Yokohama Overseas Chinese School, including 32 high school and elementary school students led by Director Chen Chih-wen of Student Affairs Section and Ms. Tsai Mei-hua of the high school division, and the visitors from Ming Chuan University Mandarin Studies and Culture Center, including Director Qin Zi-hong and 5 Mandarin teachers. The Mandarin summer camp of Yokohama Overseas Chinese School has been held since 2015 except for the three years during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year is the sixth year and the first time for the teachers and students to visit Taiwan after the pandemic. The rich content of the summer camp not only includes the custom-made Chinese class but also collaborates with Department of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language of Ming Chuan University to arrange a series of cultural experiences, such as dough figurine making, swimming, and Chinese opera mask painting. Among them, the most important is the visit to Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Director-general Wang Lan-sheng said he had visited Yokohama Overseas Chinese School last year. Through the visit to the newly completed lecture building, he understood the school’s spirit of internationalization and its deep relationship with Taiwan. Besides giving each member of the visiting group exquisite gifts, Director-general Wang also expected the teachers and students to learn more about the footprints and influence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in Taiwan and welcomed them to visit Taiwan often and come to the hall every summer.
Yokohama Overseas Chinese School is also called “Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial School.” It is the first overseas Chinese school established in Japan in 1897 to educate the overseas Chinese children. After Yokohama Overseas Chinese School qualified as a school legal person in 1968, it was also approved of by Overseas Community Affairs Council, R.O.C. in September of the same year. At present, it is a complete school consisting of senior high school, junior high school, elementary school, and kindergarten and teaching in three languages: Chinese, Japanese, and English.
For more information, please call the Research and Acquisition Division, (02)27588008, ext. 526 or visit the official website of National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, www.yatsen.gov.tw.