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Interview
6 April 2025 2.00 h

Asami Miotani

Japanese Association of Friendship with Catalonia

“We have been waiting for a Tokyo-Barcelona flight for many years”

“THE THREE ELEMENTS OF CATALAN CULTURE THAT MOST SURPRISE AND ATTRACT THE JAPANESE ARE GASTRONOMY, ART AND FOOTBALL”

They were the pi­o­neers in lay­ing the foun­da­tions for sta­ble eco­nomic and so­cial re­la­tions be­tween Cat­alo­nia and Japan. Founded in 1985, this year marks the 40th an­niver­sary of the Japan­ese As­so­ci­a­tion of Friend­ship with Cat­alo­nia, con­sol­i­dat­ing it as one of the fun­da­men­tal pil­lars of cul­tural ex­change be­tween the two coun­tries. The gen­eral sec­re­tary of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Asami Miotani, re­flects on the progress made and the fu­ture chal­lenges in the pro­mo­tion of Cata­lan cul­ture in Japan.

How do you plan to cel­e­brate this an­niver­sary?
To com­mem­o­rate this oc­ca­sion, our as­so­ci­a­tion’s Sant Jordi event will be a dual cel­e­bra­tion, in which we will toast with rosé cava, the sym­bol of the rose, and have a spe­cial pro­gramme. We will have mini-con­certs and a pre­sen­ta­tion in which we will re­mem­ber the tra­jec­tory and the most out­stand­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of the as­so­ci­a­tion over the years.
How do you as­sess the evo­lu­tion of these 40 years of re­la­tions be­tween Japan and Cat­alo­nia?
Re­la­tions be­tween Japan and Cat­alo­nia have evolved and grown tremen­dously in this pe­riod. Few peo­ple knew the word Cat­alo­nia in Japan back then and maybe the same was true in Cat­alo­nia with re­spect to Japan. Nowa­days, in Cat­alo­nia there is a great in­ter­est in Japan­ese cul­ture, es­pe­cially manga and gas­tron­omy, which has con­tributed to a greater close­ness. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two has grown stronger and con­tin­ues to grow day by day.
What im­pact have glob­al­i­sa­tion and tech­nol­ogy had on cul­tural ex­changes be­tween Cat­alo­nia and Japan?
A very big one. Thanks to glob­al­i­sa­tion, it’s eas­ier to share val­ues and un­der­stand each other, as well as being able to see each other face to face at any time, re­gard­less of dis­tance. AI has also fa­cil­i­tated com­mu­ni­ca­tion, es­pe­cially through ma­chine trans­la­tion. In our as­so­ci­a­tion, since 2020, al­most all the con­fer­ences we or­gan­ise are held in a hy­brid for­mat. This has al­lowed peo­ple who live far away or even in other coun­tries to par­tic­i­pate, as well as giv­ing us the pos­si­bil­ity of host­ing talks by high-level speak­ers who live in Cat­alo­nia.
It’s a pity there isn’t a di­rect flight be­tween Tokyo and Barcelona.
It’s some­thing we’ve been wait­ing for for many years, but un­for­tu­nately it has never be­come a re­al­ity. On the other hand, the di­rect con­nec­tion be­tween Tokyo and Madrid has been re­stored. Be­fore the pan­demic, I re­mem­ber there were ru­mours that a Japan­ese air­line would launch a di­rect flight be­tween Tokyo and Barcelona. In fact, I think at some point there was a plan, but lately we haven’t heard any news about it. Let’s see if it fi­nally be­comes a re­al­ity.
Have you had any mem­o­rable or anec­do­tal ex­pe­ri­ences thanks to this cul­tural re­la­tion­ship?
All the Sant Jordi Days in Japan have been mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences. We’ve held them every year since 1986, ex­cept for 2020. In fact, the main rea­son for the foun­da­tion of the as­so­ci­a­tion was to pro­mote the Sant Jordi fes­ti­val in Japan, an ob­jec­tive that has al­ways guided the pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Kikuro Tani. If I had to high­light an un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence, it would un­doubt­edly be my re­la­tion­ship with Pro­fes­sor Ko Tazawa, a well-known fig­ure in Cat­alo­nia. His sup­port from the aca­d­e­mic field was fun­da­men­tal: he or­gan­ised sem­i­nars, pro­moted a read­ing class in Cata­lan lit­er­a­ture and helped us es­tab­lish a guide on how to write Cata­lan words in katakana [one of the two syl­labaries used in Japan­ese writ­ing, along with hi­ra­gana]. His con­tri­bu­tion was in­cal­cu­la­ble. His death, two and a half years ago, was a great loss for us all.
What el­e­ment of Cata­lan cul­ture do you think sur­prises the Japan­ese the most?
Human cas­tles are strik­ing when seen in pic­tures, but in Japan we don’t have many op­por­tu­ni­ties to wit­ness them live. For this rea­son, I be­lieve the three el­e­ments of Cata­lan cul­ture that most sur­prise and at­tract the Japan­ese are gas­tron­omy, art – es­pe­cially the works of Gaudí – and foot­ball. These as­pects gen­er­ate great in­ter­est and a strong con­nec­tion with Cat­alo­nia.

in­ter­view cul­ture

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