A Taiwan Young Children Baseball League group attends the 2018 Taiwan Japan Children’s Baseball Interaction Convention in Anan City in Tokushima County
Kevin Huang, the director general of the Taiwan Young Children Baseball League led a group of 29 participants to Anan city in Tokushima County, to attend the 2018 Taiwan Japan Children’s Baseball Interaction Convention.
The visiting Taiwan Young Children Baseball League group, accompanied by an official from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Osaka, arrived in Anan city on February 9 and was warmly welcomed at the city hall. The mayor, Iwasa Yoshihito, received the visiting group personally and gave a brief introduction of the city. They were also given a high-class reception that night with a welcome party that included an Awa Odori traditional dance performance.
The team from Taiwan and four teams from Japan had friendship matches at the city’s stadium on the 10th and the 11th, with guests of honor including Mori Yuuji, the bureau chief of the County Bureau of Civil Service, Iwasa Yoshihito, the mayor of Anan city, and Sumitomo Shinichi, the chairman of the legislative assembly of Anan city. They came to the stadium on the first day to cheer on all the little athletes. The mayor officiated when the young athletes took their athlete vow, and then the official from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Osaka was invited to pitch the opening ball, before an exciting friendship match started. Occasions like this will definitely help promote both sport interaction and cultural interaction between the two countries’ children and young people.
The city of Anan in Tokushima County is known as the “city of baseball”, and its stadium is completely well equipped and ready for any baseball team to use. This was the first time that the city has ever received a visiting group from Taiwan to help expand and promote the local baseball culture. The city is also looking forward to strengthening the interactions between education and culture and sport, and it plans to invite Taiwan’s national baseball team to Anan city for training and adapting to the weather of Japan, before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo to promote friendship and good relations.
Photo: Iwasa Yoshihito, the mayor of Anan city in Tokushima County (in white trousers), officiating at the young athletes vow taking.