Research Presentation for Fiscal Year 2008



The research presentation of the Atsumi International Scholarship Foundation for fiscal year 2008 was held from 2 to 6 PM of March 7, 2009 (Sat) at the Atsumi Foundation Hall in Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, with the 13 scholarship recipients of the Fiscal Year 2009 making the presentations. There were about 50 who joined the affair consisting of RaccoonKai members, Foundation officers, and visiting guests.

The affair was initiated by greetings from Chief Directress Itsuko Atsumi, sending a warm message to all the scholarship recipients. In particular, it was quite interesting to listen to the Chief Directress briefly talked about the Dolls Festival, which is one of Japanese Spring season celebrations, and about the dolls decoration, which was sent to Italy where she was born in 1920s. This was followed by the presentations, where everyone made full use of PowerPoint, and attempted the task of making a presentation of their research within 15 minutes in terms understandable even to a child. Managing Directress Junko Imanishi introduced each presenter in a unique way, at times flattering the scholarship recipient. There were 4 from the natural sciences and 9 from the social sciences for a total of 13 presentations, which continued up to 6 after a brief break. The audience was kind enough to listen through the whole session.

After the presentations, Professor Shigehiko Kaneko of the University of Tokyo, and Professor Hironao Kobayashi of Asia University kindly made comments. Both professors, with their wide knowledge going beyond their field of specializations, gave very useful comments about the presentations. Special notice was given on the researches about Esoteric Buddhism and Japanese traditional culture. Meaningful points were also raised not only about research themes but also about research itself.

After the conclusion of the presentation proper, a cocktail party was held in the same hall. Making use of the opportunity, old and new scholarship recipients, Foundation officers, and special guests enjoyed chatting with each other about various matters, including opinions about the research presentations.

(by Nemekhjargal, translated by F. Maquito)

Photos by Kwak Youngjoo

Photos by Tanihara