- Company, NPO, Actress Support Career Education -

On Feb. 8, 2018, Yanagiya Honten Co., Ltd., a cosmetic maker of Tokyo, and “Shigoto Juku (cram school for work) for 16-year-olds,” a Tokyo-based specified NPO corporation that provides educational support for high schools, held a career education class with Taiwanese actress Aining Yao as a special collaboration lesson at Yokohama Overseas Chinese School in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, a school where many Chinese students living in Japan or students who have close ties with the Taiwan region attend. The news of the participation of the Taiwanese actress wasn't informed and it became a surprising class for the students.

(Photo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M101931/201803051567/_prw_PI1fl_3WCENqlX.png)

This class was a social activity organized as part of a career education program jointly undertaken by Yanagiya Honten and Shigoto Juku for 16-year-olds.

In the 2-day special class, an interactive lesson about harmonizing with local people, which is necessary for promotional corporate activities in foreign countries, was held in an interview style in addition to "publicity and advertisement" conducted by companies as part of communication activities. A Yanagiya Honten official in charge of PR activities gave a lecture about jobs that are difficult to learn about in class using actual experiences as examples. Also, Aining Yao, who is active in both the Taiwan region  and Japan, participated in the class as an example of transnational promotional activities. As the students had not been informed of the participation of the Taiwanese actress beforehand, they could not hide their amazement when she made a surprise appearance.

Behind the special class was the wish on the part of Yanagiya Honten to convey the wonderfulness of working across countries to the students in Japan after the company signed an advertisement contract with Aining Yao as part of promotional activities in the Taiwan region

Contents and atmosphere of the lesson

In the class conducted on Feb. 8, Shimon Sugai from the Public Relations Department of Yanagiya Honten stood on the podium and gave a lecture about episodes on the production sites of advertisements and the employment of actors and actresses before Taiwanese actress Aining Yao made a surprise appearance and gave a lesson in an interview style. In her interview, she spoke to the students about topics such as "what made her choose this career," "what she values in modeling and acting" and "differences between Japan and the Taiwan region." Afterwards, she answered various questions with a smile when she was interviewed by the students. To the question of "the differences between an actress and a model," she said, “As a model, it is important to be conscious of the camera and posing and create facial expressions while I am expected not to be conscious of the camera and express the real me as an actress.” The students listened with great interest. At the beginning of the interview, the students were nervous but gradually became more relaxed, and it developed into a harmonious class with smiles and laughter. In a closing greeting in the class, Aining Yao encouraged them by telling them, “There are infinite possibilities for all of you being in the stage of high school students. I hope you can take on the challenge of trying things you can do only at your age or things you enjoy regardless of which country you will be in.”

Students' comments: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/attach/201803051567-O1-Qb74IhZn.PDF

Yanagiya Honten website: http://www.yanagiya-cosme.co.jp/eng/index.html