From April 30 until May 4, along with a group of Tokyo's "Heaven Artists（*）", I travelled to Seoul in Korea to participate in the "Seoul Friendship Fair 2015" (held on May 2 and 3), an event that was hosted by Seoul. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2015, the friendship fair is a multicultural spectacular where groups dispatched from Seoul's sister cities give performances that highlight the traditional cultures of their countries. After a long absence, this year's fair saw Tokyo's first participation in 16 years, and we received a very warm welcome from all our fellow participants including the host city.

A total of 14 cities and regions contributed performances to the event (Bangkok; Beijing; Cairo; Hanoi; Hokkaido; Iran; Maputo; Minsk; Moscow; Shanghai; Taipei; Tashkent; Tokyo and Ulaanbartar). In addition to Tokyo, Hokkaido made their fourth attendance since they established a friendly relationship with Seoul in 2010.

The Heaven Artists who represented Tokyo were U-Stage, a chindon-ya or street performance group with a wealth of overseas experiences. During their performances, in addition to renditions of internationally-known Japanese tunes such as Ue o Muite Arukō ("I Look Up As I Walk" also known as "Sukiyaki") and Furusato ("Hometown"), to the great appreciation of the crowd, they also played traditional Korean melodies such as Arirang and Ko Hyang Yi Bom ("Spring in Hometown"). Furthermore, with the use of the background visual imagery (they used two short films "Tokyo Holiday" and "Tokyo Diversity" produced by TMG), the performance offered a wonderful opportunity to convey some of Tokyo's culture and attractiveness to the overseas audience. When Mr. Shimazaki, the leader of U-Stage, appealed the importance of such grassroots exchanges in improving Japan-Korean relationship, voices of agreement were heard from the crowd.

On the final evening of the Seoul Friendship Fair, a farewell banquet was hosted by the Seoul at the Sejong Hall. At this event, representatives of the performing groups from each city ascended the stage in turn, and they were given an opportunity to offer improvised performances, and throughout the evening there was a wonderfully genial atmosphere.
As a result of participating in the Seoul Friendship Fair on this occasion, as well as being able to highlight the friendship existing between Tokyo and the Seoul both domestically and internationally, we are certain that we could introduce Japanese traditional culture for the further improvement of the presence of Tokyo in the lead up to the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.

* Heaven Artist The qualified street performers by TMG cultural initiative