Report of the 2014 ORGC Study Tour to Kyoto/Osaka, Japan The study tour to Kyoto/Osaka was conducted from May 26 to 30, 2014. Fifteen Year-2 ORGC students participated in the tour (16 participants originally, but one withdrew due to illness). The tour, led by Dr. Jay Chang, was arranged by Travel Expert and accompanied by Ms. Pinky Yeung and an excellent guide, Ms. Selina Cheung. Day 1 We arrived in Osaka around 3:00 pm after the 4-hour flight. We were greeted with pouring rain. Luckily, little was scheduled for the rest of the day. We visited the shoppers’ paradise at 心齋橋 and completed the shopping of souvenirs for the whole tour. After dinner, we checked into Hotel New Hankyu near a train station, 梅田. Day 2 We started our day early at 8:00 am so that we could go to Kyoto for a couple of attractions and come back to Osaka for the university visit.

After a quick lunch of 30 minutes, we went to Kinki University. We were surprised by the scale of greetings from the government agency, university staff and students. Accompanied by the educational tour coordinator and assistant manager from Osaka Government Tourism Bureau, we were given a heart-warming campus tour by the manager, and assistant manager from the Center of International affairs and a group of Japanese students from Kinki University. We visited the classroom of a simulated court, E-cube (an English club), and a computer lounge for students’ leisure use. We were impressed by the beautiful campus and the hard work Kinki University had put in to prepare this visit for us. Our students seized the opportunity to exchange views and experiences as students in Hong Kong with their Japanese peers. Some of them 1

exchanged Facebook accounts for future correspondences. One of the ORGC students even considered to pursue her postgraduate study in Japan. Overall, this university visit was truly impressive, particularly the sincere welcome from the staff and students from the Kinki University.

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Group photo with students from Kinki University

Group photo with representatives from Osaka Government Tourism Bureau

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Day 3 We spent the whole day in Kyoto visiting landmark attractions and museums. Most of the famous attractions in Kyoto were related to religions. We were introduced the different beliefs, rituals and architectures of Buddhism and Japanese indigenous worships. We had an extensive tour of the Kyoto National Museum, where a special exhibition of Minami Yamashiro was featured. We were enriched with cultural/religious artifacts of the early Buddhist art of southern Kyoto throughout the exhibition and learnt more of the Buddhist influences on Japanese culture.

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Day 4 We visited the Osaka branch of NHK, a government-run TV channel. We had a guided tour of the TV station. First, at the BK Plaza, students experienced first-handedly some blue-screen special effects, and played the role of weather reporters and anchors. Second, we were given a tour of the studio, visiting the set where NHK was shooting a history drama. We were able to observe how crews interacted with each other in order to facilitate the production process. Most importantly, we noticed the collective organizational climate on the set. In addition, we were impressed with how NHK used its on-screen personalities, dramas and facilities to reach out the audience through such a PR practice in the interpersonal level.

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We had fun at the Universal Studio for the rest of the day.

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Day 5 We visited 朝日新聞 in the morning. Mr. Yoshitaka Ishihara, a former news anchorman of Channel 6, received and gave us a comprehensive introduction of the organization, including mission, vision, structure and resources of the Organization. We learnt from this visit that the Newspaper strove to report the most updated events and provide insightful reports to its readers. We were also briefed the communication patterns in the news room, where journalists and editors negotiated to decide the news of the day. From this visit, we realized that the organizational communication in this news agency was very collective oriented. All editors had two daily meetings to carry out their gatekeeping functions. What amazed us was the final reading of the master copy— all editors got together and read all the articles to ensure the accuracy of the news featured. The quality of their communication was characterized with their organizational commitment and efforts to present themselves as unified organizational citizenship. In addition to the internal communication, we were also impressed with the efforts the organization and its staff put into receiving us.

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After the firm visit, we had our final stop of this tour at 大阪生活今昔館— a museum featuring the development of the historical Osaka. We had a trip back in time to the ancient Osaka and witnessed the changes of life and customs over centuries in minutes. It was an amazing cultural and historical visit.

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Over the course of these five days, students enjoyed all the official and fun visits. This study tour enables them to learn outside the classroom and experience across-cultural excitements at the same time. It is a rare learning experience that they witnessed the communication theories they learnt presented in practical forms in the Japanese context. We would like to express our gratitude for the generous sponsorship from the Department to make this tour possible. We also thank Ms. Mimi Yip for providing support to facilitate the whole process of study tour planning and coordination.

by Jay Chang June 2, 2014

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