Official Trip Record of ESU International Council President
Masamichi Hanabusa

Last year at the October meeting in Edinburgh, I was elected President of the International Council with a term of one year. As you know the English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an organization originally founded by nations whose mother tongue was English, specifically the two large English-speaking nations of England, the home of the English language, and the United States, the most powerful English-Speaking nation in the world. After that, nations other than English-speaking ones joined one after another, with the result that today there are 50 sister national organizations, with the Chairman of the British and American ESUs rotating as Chairman and Vice-Chairman. To balance this, several years ago a third post, that of President of the International Council, was established.

One of the important roles of the Council President is to attend the launch of new ESUs and to say some congratulatory words as the ESU representative. On June 22 the 56th ESU was born on the island of Cyprus, in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to the south of Turkey. On my way to Cyprus I stopped in the manmade city state of Dubai, which unexpectedly rose out of the desert like a mirage. Arriving from the 40 degrees blazing heat of Dubai, I found the temperature in Cyprus to be 36 degrees! The founder of ESU Cyprus is Mr Garo Keheyan, a businessman who also has a cultural foundation. The launch was celebrated under a star-filled sky with performances of national dances, etc. on a stage created above a lake in the garden of Mr Keheyan's suburban villa. Representatives of 11 ESU member nations from around the world were present, with yours truly representing them in words of congratulations. The following day there was an official event, at the residence of the British High Commissioner. After his speech, ESU Chairman Emeritus Lord Watson handed the large ESU pennant to Mr Keheyan. The wife of the President of Cyprus also spoke cordially, mentioning that because the Turks who occupy North Cyprus do not speak Greek, the common language of English is a unifying factor in the country. ESU Cyprus will also welcome members from the Northern Cyprus Turkish Republic. I felt as if I were catching a glimpse of the power English as a common language at work.

Having traveled all the way to Cyprus, my wife Yoriko and I were invited to the tea party on the terrace of the British House of Lords, a magnificent ESU's annual event along the Thames River, and decided to visit England once again for a kind of “sentimental journey”.

As ESU Chairman Lord Hunt was speaking at question time in the House of Lords that day, we went along to hear the debate. Conveyed by the many microphones hanging from the ceiling, the natural voices of the parliamentarians flowed through the chamber during the joke-filled amusing debate at a level of English yet to be achieved by us Japanese. The tea party was attended by 125 persons from the UK and abroad. We sat at sandwich and scone-laden round tables for afternoon tea. My final speech of the trip, and the most important one took place there. Awarding myself 90 points out of 100, I felt satisfied with the ten-minute speech I gave. Following the speech we were whisked off in a hired car to Heathrow Airport for our journey home, feeling rather flustered but pleased that I had been able to fulfill my role as ESU International Council President.

English Club took place on July 21 (Tuesday). The speaker was Ms. Lucia Vancura, an expert on the food industry, who spoke about the current state of our food, with special consideration of Japanese circumstances.

Even at the recent G8 Summit in L'Aquila (Italy), one of the main important topics on the agenda was the problem of guaranteeing the safety of foodstuffs. The Japanese market is said to the most difficult to enter because of high standards for agricultural chemicals, etc., and various complex standards including even size and color, as well as labeling complexities, and the excessive administrative burden of traceability. The result is that food prices are high in Japan, but if an exporter can succeed in selling into the Japanese market it can be confident of successfully exporting to other countries. Ms. Vancura's very interesting talk was accompanied by photographs of actual examples including a factory in Vietnam which produces fried shrimp for the Japanese market and an Ethiopian coffee plantation.

On July 22 (Wed), the first Board of Directors' Meeting of the newly incorporated ESUJ was held. Some important issues regarding the organization were discussed.