外国人技能実習生受入関連ニュース: Celebrating Chinese and Vietnamese New Years, Chun Jie and Tet, Together

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Celebrating Chinese and Vietnamese New Years, Chun Jie and Tet, Together

Ichinohe Fashion Center Co., Ltd.
(Iwate Apparel Cooperative)

We have been accepting Chinese technical intern trainees for 10 years. There is a company accepting Vietnamese technical intern trainees in the same town, who is also a member of the Ichinohe International Association. We hosted a party to celebrate the Lunar New Year on Sunday, February 5. A total of 90 people attended, including four Chinese technical intern trainees and four employees from our company. The four technical intern trainees prepared the opening speech, proposal of a toast, and a speech about the Chinese New Year and the impression of Japan. They also prepared 300 jiao-zi from 9 AM that morning together with the employees, and placed one each of 5 Yen coin, candy, and hot pepper in the jiao-zi following the Chinese custom, looking forward to the good luck fortune-telling.

The opening speech by each of Chinese and Vietnamese technical intern trainees started with the New Year greeting of their country at 1 PM. It was followed by the proposal of a toast by four people from each country, and the party got a boost of excitement when the toast was spoken in their languages. When there was an explanation of the fortune-telling of the year by jiao-zi during the introduction of the dishes, people had a good laugh when they were told "not to eat the jiao-zi in one bite, since it will be very dangerous."

Also, the technical intern trainees who have reached adulthood the year before recited their "Feeling of Gratitude to Parents" again, which had been recited at the Adulthood Ceremony. They recited with a smile that they were opposed by their parents to come to Japan, they have stayed in Japan persuading their parents at the time of an emergency return order was issued at the time of East Japan Disaster, they encountered power outage on the New Years Eve, which was only one week after arriving in Ichinohe, due to heavy snowfall, and were moved when the neighbors immediately brought a reflective heater and told them that they could have it, they were surprised by the siren of the fire engine in midnight, and that Japan and Ichinohe is a very good place and they are happy. Audiences at the party were listening very interestingly, and gave a big applause. We also answered the question why the character "

(good luck)" is inverted in China. This is because the pronunciation of character "

(invert)" is the same as character "

(coming)" in Chinese, so it is wishing for "coming of good luck" by "affixing character

inverted." "Folk story of New Year and firecracker" was presented amusingly explaining that the exploding firecrackers is due to a weakness of the evil spirit.

The Vietnamese technical intern trainee wearing the vivid colored ao dai will be returning to her country in May. After her farewell speech, she put the ao dai on a Chinese technical intern trainee. She was very glamorous, cute, and beautiful, and we took many pictures. The amusing party full of singing, dancing, and playing games ended all too soon.