No.79 Taiwan Visit

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Tokyo Inagi Rotary Club. I have been appointed as an honorary member of the club and attended the commemorative ceremony held in March 2018.
Many guests also came from the Linyuan District of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, to that event. The Linyuan Rotary Club has been a sister club of the Tokyo Inagi Rotary Club since its establishment, and the members are old acquaintances. I visited Taiwan for the first time two years ago, received a warm welcome in Kaohsiung, and we have continued to exchange visits, welcoming each other when they come to Japan.
This year also marks the 40th anniversary of the Linyuan Rotary Club. They have requested that the Mayor also attend the commemorative ceremony on April 30, 2018, which is scheduled to be convenient for visits from Japan, and I made my second visit to Taiwan for this occasion.
Both my previous visit and this one are not official duties as a city, as we are not engaged in sister city relations, so I traveled at my own expense. However, the welcoming Taiwanese side does not mind such matters and greeted me with a large red banner saying, "Welcome Mayor of Inagi City, Mr. Katsuhiro Takahashi," smiling in the arrival lobby. Taking a commemorative photo in front of a banner with my name in the international airport lobby is a bit embarrassing.

By the way, the purpose of this visit is to attend the 40th anniversary ceremony of the other party, so of course I will receive greetings from the president of the Tokyo Inagi Rotary Club, but I was also scheduled to give a speech myself.
As for greetings to foreign guests on site... I was at a loss for how to prepare in advance, but I decided to follow the local customs and use the local language, even though I knew I would not do it well.
Fortunately, there is a member of the Tokyo Inagi Rotary Club, Mr. T, who is from Taiwan and has naturalized in Japan. He translated the manuscript I wrote in Japanese into Mandarin and even recorded the pronunciation, sending me the audio file. I practiced intensively in just one night and faced the actual ceremony, receiving positive feedback from the people of Linyuan. It was truly diplomatic courtesy.
This visit was a two-night, three-day itinerary, and the next day I toured Kaohsiung City and Tainan City. Kaohsiung City is located south of the Tropic of Cancer, belonging to the tropical region, and the beautiful white sandy beaches and deep blue skies and seas can make one mistake it for a remote island in the Pacific. There are also large resort hotels. The local fruits, such as ripe Taiwanese bananas and pineapples, were abundant and delicious.
However, I have heard that after the change of government to the Democratic Progressive Party, the pro-independence faction has gained strength, and the number of tourists from China has drastically decreased.
There may not be as many tourists from Japan as in Taipei, but it takes about three and a half hours from Narita Airport to Kaohsiung, a tropical island in Taiwan. If you have the opportunity, why not visit it once?