Top > What's up around the Prime Minister > January, 2006

Prime Minister Visits Turkey (Second Day) Wednesday, January 11, 2006 JAPANESE Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, during his visit to the Republic of Turkey, visited the Turkish-Japanese Foundation Culture Center in Ankara in the morning of January 11 (Japan time: evening of January 11) and observed people learning the Japanese language and culture such as Origami (the Japanese art of folding paper). When asked about the ways to read Chinese characters in Japanese by a Turkish man, Prime Minister Koizumi responded in earnest, saying, "The character for 'minute' is read as 'pun' in the case of one minute (ip-pun) but 'fun' in the case of two minutes (ni-fun) even though the same character is used in both cases. This is what people find difficult in learning Chinese characters." At the Origami class, Prime Minister Koizumi tried his hand at folding a paper crane and gave the completed crane to a girl as a present. In this way he made his own personal appeal for Japanese culture. View Video (Available only in Japanese) Real(Narrowband) / Real(Broadband) Windows Media(Narrowband) / Windows Media(Broadband)