By Wang Yuzhou

On Thursday evening, April 21st , Associate Professor Qin Feng , who had studied and lived in Japan for many years, gave us a lecture on Japanese culture. After graduation from Dalian Foreign Studies University, Associate Professor Qin Feng went to Japan to further his studies, gaining his Master’s degree in the field of comparative culture. He was engaged in comparative culture research after returning to China and he was also committed to Sino-Japanese communication in culture and education.

First, Associate Professor Qin talked about the culture of Japanese names, which started with the pronunciation of his own surname in Japanese. He said that before the Meiji Reform, only the noble had surnames, and civilians only had first names. Usually, the noble’s names were made up of four components. Interestingly, the emperor of Japan didn’t have surnames, either. Besides, due to the existence of lots of homophones in Japanese names, the Japanese business card culture came into being, thus preventing people’s remembering others’ names mistakenly.

Then, it came to the topic of “Japan — familiar but also strange”. Associate Professor Qin told us five aspects of his impressions on Japan—clean, lots of Chinese cultural marks, politeness, Artisan spirit and delicious Japanese food. Also, he explained how westerners thought about Japan. In the end, He concluded that Japan was a mysterious country.

The students had a further understanding on Japanese culture from this lecture.