JCK #1

Over the Course of five days, I participated in the Fourth Japan, China, Korea Youth Trilateral Youth Forum held in Hokkaido. This forum was sponsored by the UN association and in addition to the main event MUN, we engaged in many other different activities such as the symposiums, discussion sessions, social events, introduction of Hokkaido through tea ceremonies, performance by the Ainu, so forth. 
It was a really enriching experience and the effort we put in to this forum before hand, the pre-camp, the communications to research and come up with a paper with the participants from respective countries ,  all contributed I think to better the quality of this short forum.
First day of the Japan, China, Korea youth forum!! I was scheduled for a flight the day before to Hokkaido, but due to the typhoon it was chaos. All of the flights , not to mention all the transportation to get to the airport, were cancelled and everyone had no idea what to do. Eventually we were ordered to rebook any available flights but that was a not an easy task considering most flights were booked all the way to those flying in the evening the next day. Fortunately enough for me though, after many tries I was able to squeeze my self in a reservation at 6 pm that very day and without further adoI set off immediately to the airport. The atmosphere in the airport was pretty dire with everyone simply waiting for their planes to fly. In a way I found it rather strange that no one was complaining out right though, I would have imagined a very different attitude if I was in an airport in a different country. Though my plane was delayed, miraculously I was able to reach Hokkaido within that day, which was around 9:30pm. It must have been a tough day for everybody, even for the students from ICU who commuted to school without knowing that classes were cancelled. 

  The day`s main event was a symposium on three topics" Western Culture and Eastern Culture, Synergy of the two""Representation Of  Youth and Women""Digital Divide" discussed also in the real UN conference held in June. The procedure was two representatives from each country giving a presentation on each of the topics, following up with questions from the floor. The culture topic I was most skeptical about. Skeptical as in, I was not sure of what we had to discuss about there. The topic was so abstract, what did they mean exactly by culture? How can one divide the East Asian from the West, especially now when most concepts are influenced by one or another, or,  even by some other. What is it that  we call culture, and what is it that we need to preserve? One presentation for instance, was talking about cultural synergy using the example of a working atmosphere. They emphasised protecting one`s traditions, culture while integrating certain traits to produce better benefits. How about "enryo" culture then, I wonder. The culture where people do not suggest anything that may infringes other`s boudaries, acts unassumingly as a way to show politeness. This particular culture i`m sure in the business world would not come in handy, rather it would create a minus effect by losing out on your chance for being heard.  Each time answers were answered it raised a different question, and at some point it became a little frustrating. I suppose what counts though is to be aware of these issue and giving thought to them. It was really interesting to hear the views from the Korean and Chinese students, not only because of the cultural differences but because they all as individuals had a very unique personal view on things.