Japanese tourism minister sings Korean national anthem to attract Koreans

The top Japanese tourism policymaker sang the Korean national anthem in Seoul Tuesday in an effort to attract Korean tourists to his country which has been hard affected in the wake of the strong earthquake and radiation from a nuclear power plant on the northeastern coast of Japan last year.

“Japan is ready to provide safe and enjoyable journey to Korean visitors,” Hiroshi Mizohata, Japan Tourism Agency commissioner, told reporters at Korea Press Center, appealing with the Korean national anthem.

Affected by the devastating quake and ensuing leakage of radiation in March, the number of Korean tourists to Japan plunged by 32,2 percent to 1,510,000 during the first 11 months last year from a year earlier, a sharp contrast with a 6.7 percent gain to 2,990,000 in the number of Japanese tourists to Korea during the cited period, the commissioner told the press conference.

Mizohata repeated that the country is safe to travel by presenting a survey on the level of radiation leak in Tokyo, located 230 kilometers southwest of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The level reached 0.053μ㏜/h, which was lower than Seoul’s 0.111μ㏜/h or Taipei’s 0.058μ㏜/h, he noted.

The commissioner also showed a video clip of two Korean celebrities ­ veteran pro-baseball player Lee Seung-yeop training in Japan and pianist and conductor Chung Myung-whun who encourage Koreans to visit the neighboring country. He also stressed that the three affected prefectures of Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi have fully recovered to the pre-quake level.

He wound up his press conference, singing the Korean national anthem in his desperate heart and mind to lure Korean tourists, although he opened the conference, saying, “I hope to sing the Korean national anthem to the last, while drinking ‘poktanju.’ But there will be another chance for it.” Poktanju or bomb shot is a short glass of soju or whiskey dropped into a larger glass of beer.