Mr. Lin expressed his gratitude at the welcome ceremony, to the mayor of Suginami, Mr. Ryo Tanaka (田中良), for initiating and promoting the softball friendship games between Taiwan and Japan. He hoped that these friendship games would give the junior high school students and the local governors many opportunities to continue to interact with each other and better understand each other’s culture.

Suginami’s mayor had visited the Representative Office 4 years earlier, in September, 2010, and expressed interest in having an annual friendship softball game between junior high school students in Japan and those in Taiwan, held in Japan and in Taiwan in alternative years. Consultation with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs led to the first such visit and first friendship games, from December 26 to 29, 2011.

For this occasion, the mayor accompanied two junior high school softball teams from the Suginami district, and another team from Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture (a city with close interaction with Suginami) to Taiwan. They played softball friendship games at Changan Junior High School and Chung-Ching Junior High School in Taipei; Er Chong Junior High School in New Taipei City; and Hsin Ming Junior High School, Guang Ming Junior High School, and Ren Ho Junior High School in Taoyuan Municipality.

The following year, in early October, 2012, a team from Dali Junior High School in Taipei visited Japan, and softball teams from Suginami in Tokyo, Nayoro in Hokkaido Prefecture, and Minimisoma in Fukushima Prefecture came to Taiwan from December 25 to 28, 2012. They played friendship games with teams from Dali Junior High School, Xing-fu Junior High School, and Chung-Ching Junior High school, all in Taipei.