Bringing traditional Japanese culture to tropical Ghana

The name "Ghana" likely evokes in the minds of many Japanese images of chocolate or the stories of Hideyo Noguchi they read in their childhood. Nearly half of the cocoa beans imported into Japan to make chocolate are in fact from Ghana(*), and chocolate sold under the brand name "Ghana" is a quite familiar product. It was also in Ghana that Hideyo Noguchi, whose portrait currently adorns the one-thousand yen note, met his end while researching yellow fever in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

My visit to Accra on the Atlantic coast (Gulf of Guinea) in early October came across during the transition period between the rainy season and the dry season. Heavy rains poured down for a few hours each day, after which a blazing sun beat down, and so the days I spent there saw temperatures rise above 30℃ and the humidity up to 80%. The scene that greeted me at the airport on landing was the very picture of Africa. A bustle of people garbed in colorful clothing and the sauna-like humid heat enveloped me in an instant.

*According to FY2015 Ministry of Finance trade statistics

Sumitomo Corporation officially launched its efforts to introduce traditional Japanese culture overseas in fiscal 2015 in Myanmar's capital Yangon. These are part of the social contribution activities carried out by our company, which has business locations in 65 countries around the world, to build good relations with local communities.

The basis for these are the personal volunteer activities undertaken by one of our employees, Emiko Miyashiro (assigned to both the Environment & CSR Department and the Global Strategy & Coordination Department), over the past couple of decades since 1995 in Turkey, Norway, Ukraine and other countries across the globe. She has continued to put on demonstrations and workshops at local universities and other educational institutions, exposing locals to Japanese culture and increasing the number of Japan fans. The menu of instruction she offers spans a wide range, including brush calligraphy, kimono dressing, furoshiki wrapping, and origami as well as the tea ceremony (she is a licensed master in the Urasenke tradition) and flower arrangement (Sogetsu tradition). As a result of having offered such instruction on a total of 11 occasions in Ukraine, an organization called Miyashiro-juku has been launched by "apprentices" who continue to transmit Japanese culture.

I was one of four female employees (including Ms. Miyashiro) who went to Ghana to spread the Japanese spirit to other parts of the world.

Next came the tea ceremony experience. Students were given their very first try at using a bamboo whisk to smoothly stir up a froth in preparing the tea, and with keen relish they drank down to the very last drop the tea they had made themselves. We also used food products we had brought from Japan to introduce Japanese cuisine. We made rice balls out of steamed Japanese rice, and offered them along with dried laver, soy sauce, wasabi, umeboshi, natto, and miso soup for the students to taste; they all found these delicious and kept reaching one after the other for another bite.

Toshiaki Sugimoto, posted at Sumitomo Corporation Accra Liaison Office, informed us that Ghanaians regularly use small fish and dried shrimp to make soup stock for cooking. This thus became an opportunity to learn that Japan, where soup stock is made with seaweed and bonito flakes, and Ghana, a straight-line distance of 15,000 km away, have surprisingly similar tastes.

Another day, we introduced various aspects of Japanese culture at the showroom of an automobile sales company with which our company has been doing business for about 30 years. We set up a tea ceremony and brush calligraphy zone where visitors could actually try out bamboo whisks and brushes, and put on demonstrations of kimono dressing and flower arrangement. We also showed the audience how to make thick-rolled sushi, allowing some of them to make their own and eat it. About 200 visitors were in attendance, including elementary, junior high and high school students bussed in from local schools, and this very successful occasion was even covered by a local Ghanaian television station crew.

We spent several days of suffocating humid heat in traditional Japanese clothing but we strangely felt no fatigue, finding power welling up naturally as we stood in the vast expanses of Ghana. I recall the smiling faces of the people I met leaving me refreshed and causing me to forget my pouring sweat.

We were struck by the enthusiasm and warm expressions of the people thronging in the streets. With democracy having taken root and public order being good, the country has earned the title of "Africa's rising star," and this national character seemed to be expressed in the vividly colorful clothing of the people in the towns and cities. We were greatly energized by Ghana during our activities. I very much hope that the people there will take an interest in Japan and come to like Japan, and that the relations between our two countries as well as Ghana's own development will accelerate.