Professor Akimasa Mitsuta, the former President of Nagasaki university of Foreign Languages of Japan, a sister university of TKU, was invited by the Graduate Institute of Chinese Linguistics and Documentation for a round of three lectures last week. He is a visiting professor presently at the Obirin University and Akita International University in Japan, so one of the purposes of his visit to TKU was to explore the possibility of linking TKU with these two universities.

So far, so good. His visit appeared to be “business as usual”, were it not for the music concert he gave together with his wife at the Carrie Chang Music Hall on campus on June 1st. It turned out that apart from being a respectful sinologist, he is also a gifted musician.

Together with four other Taiwanese musicians, he and his wife performed tunes from western classical music, such as Hydan’s Piano Concerto to Taiwanese folk music, in front of a enchanted crowd that included Dr. Feng Chao-kang and Dr. Kao Po-yuan, two TKU’s Vice Presidents. Professor Akimasa Mitsuta is equally comfortable with playing western and eastern music using the same instrument as he believes that music has no borders and is the best tool to lead us down to the path of any “internationalization”. (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )