Chapter 559 (1/2)
Chapter 559 Wait a moment!
The welcome ceremony finally began.
The host went on stage. “Good afternoon to the leaders, honored guests, and all gathered…”
The j.a.panese reporters and media staff set up their cameras and began recording the event.
Meanwhile, the group of Chinese reporters looked at them, hungry and aggrieved. From the looks of it, those j.a.panese reporters must have had lunch together with the delegation, all appearing energetic and high spirited. What about them? They had gone the past few hours on an empty stomach, so how could they be in a good mood?
The reporters muttered among themselves.
“This is the first time I’m witnessing a group arriving so late for a big event like this.”
“Me too.”
“Did you put this into your report?”
“Hur, what’s the point in doing so? The newspapers won’t report this matter.”
“That’s true. Since it’s all about Sino-j.a.panese Friends.h.i.+p, Sino-j.a.panese Good Friends, and what not, with their prime minister on a diplomatic visit as well, such negative news reports would surely be suppressed.”
“Stop complaining, let’s get back to work.”
“Right, there are some matters that we won’t be able to change.”
When the ceremony started, a Peking University head teacher came on stage to give the opening speech. Seeing this, Zhang Ye, who was not in a listening mood, decided to get up and go to the backstage for a smoke. When the others saw him leaving his seat, they all thought that he was just going backstage to prepare for his speech, so no one said anything. While he was smoking, a recital of a poem* could be heard. It was probably a small program that was prepared for the ceremony. It was performed by a female student of Peking University.
“あはれ花びらながれ.
をみなごに花びらながれ.
をみなごしめやかに語らひあゆみ.
うららかの足音そらにながれ.”
Following that, a j.a.panese student went on stage to perform a j.a.panese poem, but recited the Chinese translated version instead.1
“Pitiful petals falling like rain,
Scattering onto the belles’ shoulders.
Demure maidens murmur and pa.s.s by,
As geta clops sound in the air.”
Not many people in the hall could understand the meaning and mood of the poem, but when the student finished reciting, the whole hall broke out into applause. This was different from those compet.i.tions where, if a performer did badly, they might not even receive any applause at all. This was a welcoming ceremony and was full of political flavor, thus, even if a performer went on stage to fart, the audience would still erupt into applause.
There was even a person there who led the applause.
Some teachers also led their students in clapping.
Zhang Ye was leaning against the wall and smoking, lightly shaking his head. In his previous world, the att.i.tude towards the j.a.panese was similar to this world, but with a slight difference in the general tendency and environment of this world. Why was there a difference like this? Although the two worlds had a similar history, the history happened at different times and mixed with different political stances, which had resulted in the difference in att.i.tude towards the j.a.panese.Therefore, for Zhang Ye, who had come from a world where there was deep mistrust of j.a.pan’s contradictions, he was clearly out of tune with the environment of this world’s att.i.tude towards j.a.pan. He could not look at this, so he found a place to relax his mind and left the rest to the others.
After that, it was time for the speeches.
First off was the teacher from the Sociology Department. He talked about the key projects of this Sino-j.a.panese exchange. For example, he raised the environmental protection research project and how j.a.pan was doing really good in this area of work, how j.a.pan was far more advanced in this field than them. As Zhang Ye understood it, this speech was to tell everyone just how badly China was doing compared to j.a.pan!
Following that, a professor from Tokyo University gave a speech. The whole speech was given in j.a.panese and translated after that by a teacher from the j.a.panese Department. The overview of this cooperation was that Tokyo University would provide guidance and equipment support in some key projects to Peking University, so that Peking University would be able to raise the standard of research in this areas, etc. Of course, they also touched on some of the projects that Peking University excelled in and how they intended to seek to learn from Peking University.
It gave Zhang Ye the feeling of someone giving a victory speech to the defeated, saying how they would help them to improve, and then suddenly saying that even in defeat there were some good points that they could learn from. It might be subjective, but in any case, that was what it sounded like.