[Date & Time] Friday, December 16, at 12:45~14:45
[Spots] Kawasaki City (The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum & the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art)
[Visitors] 2 officials from Shanghai City Government, 1 Chinese male student and 1 Chinese female student studying in Japan
[Staff in Attendance] 2 officials from Kawasaki City Government
[Language] Chinese
[Attendants] 2 KSGG members
We did do our best so that we would not have any problem, as this was the first official request from the Kawasaki City Government to guide visitors.
We started to guide our visitors from the Museum House of the Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum. They were very interested in the farm tools and living wares exhibited there saying that they have similar things in China. Following the signs of the route, we started our guiding from the Suzuki House, which used to be an inn for horse dealers. As it was a day for open house of the Miura House, we could sit by the fireside and enjoyed the atmosphere of an old farm house. One visitor asked me such a question as why Japanese old folk houses have few windows, not like Chinese ones. After we ate warm soba (buckwheat noodles) at the Yamashita House for lunch, we went to The Taro Okamoto Museum of Art through the back gate of the Japan Open-Air House Museum.
First we talked about Taro Okamoto biography with such episodes as his background and struggle in Paris to become an artist superior to Pablo Picasso. Then we guided them around the museum in a hurry, showing his characteristic paintings and sculptures, the miniature of Tower of the Sun made for the International Exposition in Osaka and so on. Then we moved to The Fujiko・F・Fujio Museum. As it was such a tight schedule that our visitors must have felt they really had a busy day. However, we hope they found some attractions of Kawasaki City, which they couldn't find by visiting factories and plants in Kawasaki.