Dates of activity: March 21, 2021

As part of the Strategic Partnership University Project, an international exchange event was held on Sunday, March 21, 2021, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Japan time), where students from the University of Tokyo and Tsinghua University discussed university life, economics, and society online. The event was originally conceived by a faculty member involved in the project, but afterwards, student organizers were appointed from both schools and the event was planned and managed solely by the students.

120 people, 60 from the University of Tokyo and 60 from Tsinghua University, participated in the event (excluding the 12 organizers from the University of Tokyo and 7 from Tsinghua University). After an introduction of the two universities in the main hall, the participants were divided into 12 groups and discussed the following topics in both Japanese and Chinese.

● Career path after graduation from university

● Extracurricular activities

● Cashless society

● Current status of food delivery

● The shape of the family

● Subcultures such as manga and anime

While many international exchange activities have stagnated due to the Corona disaster, students from both countries, who are interested in each other’s culture and language, exchanged opinions on the same topic, which led to a mutual understanding of each other in a real way, not through the media. Some students even found language partners through this event, which provided an opportunity to motivate them for future cultural and language learning.

This was probably the first time for the University of Tokyo to hold such a large scale online international student exchange activity, but the interest from students on both sides was very high and we plan to continue holding this series of events in the future.