On March 30, 2019, two exchange students from Aoyama Gakuin University joined our high school students for a Shibuya – Harajuku walking tour. This year’s university students were from Germany and Thailand.
For this year’s walking tour, we focused on how to make the Shibuya and Harajuku areas more tourist-friendly for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
As the university and high school students were walking through the Shibuya and Harajuku areas they were given various topics to discuss such as "How Shibuya will be viewed from foreigners with different cultural and religious backgrounds" and "How Shibuya will be viewed from people with disabilities".
After returning to school, each students talked about their opinions on what they discovered during this walking tour. Given all their new discoveries, they were able to share in making a concept of what a universally-designed Shibuya should be like. A majority of their discussion focused on what Japanese rules and manners need to be taught and enforced during the Olympics and what foreign manners and cultural perspectives Japanese people should adopt or accept.
【Excerpt of Feedback from students】
・In Japan, there are many rules and manners that define who we are but as it turns out, it is also necessary for us to know that rules and manners are sometimes different in other cultures. I learned that the actions of people abroad are not necessarily malicious.
・From the perspective of people from different cultures, I knew that the rules we follow in Japan are unique but, after today’s tour, I was able to think about their level of importance. In order to make it easier for tourists to have a pleasant trip in Japan, there are several areas that still need to be improved before 2020.
