Because of the aging, people who narrate the memories of the World War Ⅱ have changed to the next generation who were born during and after the war. This paper focuses on the people who try to narrate their fathers’ war experiences to the next generation. They were born during the World War II in Akita prefecture, Japan. Their stories of the war are mainly about their fathers’ experiences as a soldier, at the same time, it also includes their own family stories such as wife and children. Because of the narrators’ positions as fathers’ children, their stories tell situations and thoughts of the families waiting for their fathers’ return. This paper examines the meaning of those activities through recoding two persons’ war stories.

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In spite of so many elements of attraction in Akita for Thai tourists coming to Japan and in spite of massive efforts made by the prefectural government in appealing to Thai tourists, Akita Prefecture has not yet quite successful in having tourists from Thailand. Mostly based on the interviews conducted in February - March 2017 in Bangkok, the author argues in this article that what would bring Thai tourists to Akita is the cross-prefectural cooperation in branding Akita as an international tourism destination through setting attractive tour courses including Akita.

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The Institute for Asian Studies and Regional Collaboration established a Research Project on Foreign Care-workers in 2014. Since then, the project conducted workshops with leading experts in the field, as well as surveys inside and outside Akita regarding the acceptance of foreign care-workers. In March 2016 the project made public its “Recommendations regarding the acceptance of foreign care-workers” based on its research and findings. Then in November IASRC held a symposium in Akita-city to share its knowledge and views with stakeholders and to seek input. After a series of presentations, a panel discussion was held with those involved in the issue, including language instructors as well as actual workers. The following are the minutes of this panel discussion.

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Based on the partnership agreement between Akita International University and Akita Branch of JR (Japan Railway)-EAST concluded in 2016, a JR-East Funded course, Sustainable Heritage Tourism in Tohoku Region, was launched in the fall semester of 2016. The Institute of Asian Studies and Regional Collaboration (IASRC) defines it as a project of Cultural Heritage Tourism Research Project. It is an academia-industry cooperation seeking for the empowerment of inbound tourism in Akita prefecture and human resource development. In addition to classroom lectures in campus, we adopted the PBL (Project-Based Learning) method that included fieldwork studies in Akita prefecture and several guest lectures on tourism studies. Since we aimed for the promotion of inbound tourism in Tohoku region, students needed to present the broaderscale cultural routes including Akita prefecture and future plan of local tourism suffering from depopulation and declining birthrate. In light of the public forum of this course held in AIU and feedbacks, we would like to develop it cooperating with local community.

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