第9届东亚四大学论坛东京会议 / BESETOHA

Feedback From Students／Peking University

◆Tokyo Impression

The streets in Tokyo are quite narrow, the road between buildings seems like a glimmer of day in the deep valley, and the highways are crowded among the skyscrapers, even the widest highway is just as wide as an ordinary road on Peking suburb. In the busiest section of town, the distance from the building and the automobile road are just a few centimeters. The roads go with the lay of the land. Although there are at most 2 driveways in the same direction, there are seldom any traffic disorders in this metropolis and everything is all well-arranged.

The streets in Tokyo are very beautiful, regardless of busy streets or quite avenues. No matter in the central business districts or in the suburban area, there are tall trees, red flowers and green grass along the roads. Many houses have little baskets with all kinds of flowers hanging on their fences. When walking alongside the streets, there are only asphalt roads, side pavement, grassland and woods, no dust or mud can be seen.

The buildings in Tokyo have different styles. Some of them are designed westernized and modern, especially the skyscrapers in Ginza, the famous brand shops from all over the world always make us have the impression that we are walking in New York. There are also some buildings in Tokyo which are full of Japanese traditional styles; they are not too high, but unique, refined and compact. Maybe to our foreigners these buildings are more like a kind of Japanese culture’s symbol. From these different styles of buildings, I think we can learn something about Tokyo, about people in Tokyo.

People in Tokyo are always very busy, whether it is morning, noon or evening. Walking in the street, every passerby walks quickly just like they have some emergencies. It is said that Japanese have the faster pace speed in the world, maybe it’s true. We strongly have the feeling that how important time and efficiency are in Japanese mind. Thinks for the today’s Tokyo is a beautiful and modern city, today’s Japan has already become a developed country. I think Japan’s development experiences are really worth studying.

BESETOHA Forum…
The theme of BESETOHA is about “Environmental Problems and Tradition in East Asia”. With the rapid speed of economy increase, environmental problem becomes an international issue which attracts the whole world’s attention, especially when global warming, desertification and acid rain begin to affect people’s life. In the East Asia, this problem is much more serious. Environmental conservation becomes a meaningful issue to discuss, which stimulates our passion to work on it. What’s more, each country must have their traditions to coordinate the relationship between human and nature, which also offers us a basement to develop our mind. Therefore, it is necessary and very significant for elites among university students from China, Japan, Korea and Viet Nam to discuss and share respective experience together.

During the forum, each country’s delegation addressed their speech on environmental problem and conservation in limited time. Japanese students prepared a short movie of PiPa Lake and introduce one of their tradition called “もったいない”. Students from Viet Nam started from their country’s own environment ended in listing some actions on conservation. Korean students emphasized their university students’ behaviors on protecting environment, such as “Green Campus Plan”.

We Chinese delegation made the speech second. In order to show people the seriousness of environmental pollution influent more lively, we put up a short play to start our talk. Our whole speech mainly can be divided in four parts, which included the status quo of Chinese environmental problem, students’ attitude and action, support and some policies of government and Chinese traditional culture on environment.

The entire process was in proper order and every country made some highlights which gave us deep impression and a few thinking. This part of forum rendered our four countries’ students understood each other more precisely and enlarged our vision which made a good preparation for us to discuss and communicate on some interesting issues.

The second part of forum is discussion. This part was the most exciting stage which gave us much thinking and gained most. After our humorous short play and logical statement, the atmosphere suddenly became enthusiastic and active. The other three countries expressed their interests to our speech, government policy and traditional culture in particular. Fortunately, we made good preparation for these two respects. We involved the speech by Hu Jintao to the 17th National Congress which emphasized the importance of ecological balance and recourses saving to strengthen our ability of sustainable development. I remembered one of Korean student concerned sand storm in China. In fact, our government has taken measures, such as increasing vegetation of northern China. All the members were satisfied with our answers and surprised that Chinese pay such a high attention on environmental problem. In the end, we penetrated into Chinese traditional sense on environment with a discussion which focused on harmony of human and nature. “Can environmental problem be solved absolutely?” is the result of our debate.

This forum really benefits us in many kinds of ways and renders us to think more to act more. One of a Japanese professor’s word impressed me so much. He said at the end of the discussion “China has changed greatly in ten years even beyond my imagination. We can see China’s future from these four students, who are sensitive, acute and full of passion….What’s more, globalization is the main character of our century. International relationship becomes more and more important, for lots of problems, such as environmental conservation, relate to many countries. Therefore, communication is significant to each country. BESETOHA sets a very good example which offers every one a very good opportunity…”

Although BESETOHA has ended for some time, it left us much to memorize including Japanese culture, Japanese environment, more understanding of other three countries and so on. At last, we would like to appreciate Tokyo University and your students’ considerate reception sincerely. Thank you for giving us such a memorable opportunity.