During the Cultural Exchange Program, I spent much time in nature, learned about the cities we visited and ecology, and interacted with a lot of Russian people. It was so precious time for me. In this report, I would like to focus on what I learned from the lectures at Irkutsk State University. 

On 13 August, I listened to lectures given by the students and the professors of Irkutsk State University. At first, one of them provided us a presentation about Irkutsk State University. Irkutsk State University, which was founded in 1918, is the second oldest University in Russia. It consists of 7 universities and 10 faculties. There are more than 20 buildings in several areas in Irkutsk.  I was surprised because the university is larger and older than I have expected. Also, I had an interest in the relations between the university and other countries. According to the presenter, the university received the first international students from Mongolia in 1925. In 1990's, the relations with Asia, Europe, and America were getting better. Now, the university has classes to study Japanese and the relation between Russia and Japan. Thus, I learned that Irkutsk State University contributes to the friendly relation between Russia and Japan. I thought that the Russia-Japan Exchange Program also has an important role for the relation between two countries, because I was able to deepen my knowledge about Russia and I came to be interested in the country more than before through participating in the program.

Second, one of the students of Irkutsk State University gave us a presentation about Irkutsk. I deeply admired her for her brave presentation in Japanese. I am sometimes afraid of speaking English in front of a large audience because of lack of confidence, but her challenge gave me much courage to speak English without hesitation. According to her presentation, Irkutsk, the capital of Irkutsk State in Siberia area, is a base for trade with China and Mongolia. It is located in near Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake around the world. In terms of tourism industry, about 217,000 tourists visited the city in 2017. When it comes to the relation between Irkutsk and Kanazawa, they have been in sister-city relationship since 1967. That surprised me because I did not know that although I have lived in Kanazawa for four and half years. In terms of Japanese education, it started in Saint Petersburg in the first half of the 18 century. It is interesting that speech contest in Japanese was held in 2002 and karaoke contest in Japanese was held in 2004. Also, there are some classes of Japanese culture like origami, penmanship, the tea ceremony, and kimono. I was glad to know that Japanese culture is spread in Russia.

After the presentations, the students of Kanazawa University introduced Japanese culture to the students of Irkutsk State University. My group dealt with origami and we tried to teach how to make a rose. Although it was really difficult even for Japanese students to make it, we enjoyed the time with Russian students.

Lectures at Irkutsk State University provided me a lot of new knowledge and it was so valuable time for me. After the lectures, I came to be interested more in the relation between Irkutsk and Kanazawa, and Russia and Japan.