<Title language-id="en_US">The son of former Japanese prisoner of war established a scholarship for Russian students and teachers
3 сентября 2012 - Новости ДВФУ
The ceremony of scholarship awarding by Muto Shigetaro Charity Fund had a place at FEFU School of Regional and International Studies. The current scholarship awarding is Eighteenth. This time 6 students and 2 teachers of this FEFU School were awarded these scholarships in the amount of 50 thousand yen. All of them are making progress in learning and teaching the Japanese language.
The Fund established in 2001 by a Japanese businessman, Mr. Muto Koichi. The Management Board of the Fund consists of two representatives from Japan — Mr. Muto Koichi and Professor Nezamutdinov, who has been working in Japan for a long time and introduced to Mr. Muto the Institute of Oriental Studies of Far Eastern State University in 2001; Chair of Japanese Studies Department. This is the first case in the history of relations between the two countries, when a private person, not holding any administrative post in the administrative hierarchy of Japan, is not pursuing any commercial purposes, initiated the establishment of a Charity Fund for material incentives of those who chose to study Japanese.
Mr. Muto Koichi always comes to Vladivostok to hand over scholarships to students personally and talks about establishing a Charity Fund. The story is: During the war father of Muto Shigetaro turned up in Russia as a prisoner of war. Coming back home after the war to the memory of the kindness of the ordinary Russian people Muto Shigetaro made a will to his sons to make their best to maintain and develop good relations with Russia:
— My father before his death, repeated two Russian words — "good grandmother" — says Mr. Muto Shigetaro. — Every evening an elderly Russian woman used to come to their camp, she brought food and water for the prisoners. In memory of that woman our father made awill to my brother and me to set up this fund.
Students are glad to get such a large financial aid. Some of them will spend it on further studying of Japanese language: "In six months, I will graduate from the FEFU, and after the graduation I’m going to Japan for training — I will try to attend graduate school of Japanese university. Money, I think, are very useful" — said the scholar Vladislav Volhin.
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