KARACHI – On 21 January, the opening ceremony for the “Japanese Calendar Exhibition 2020” was held at the Japan Information and Culture Center in the Consulate-General of Japan in Karachi.
The Japanese Calendar Exhibition 2020 event began with an enlightening performance of live truck art by Mr. Tariq Khan from Phool Patti, along with Mr. Iqbal Khan, the artist himself.
They demonstrated their talents on a canvas using captivating colors and Japanese inspired designs. The outcome of the fusion painting turned out to be an admiring piece of art.
In the opening remarks, Mr. Toshikazu Isomura, Consul-General of Japan in Karachi, said that the calendars describe Japan’s scenery, everyday life of the Japanese and beautiful culture in a compressed manner that allows you to gauge the essence of Japan.
He also mentioned that this is the first time on the occasion that two truck art artists demonstrated Japanese inspired designs on a canvas to tell a story in Japanese form.
Furthermore, Mr. Isomura took the opportunity to enlighten about the Tokyo Olympics 2020 starting from the month of June where several Pakistani sportsmen are also participating, making it an occasion for the tourists to visit Japan this year.
Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor.
The lunisolar Chinese calendar was introduced to Japan via Korea in the middle of the sixth century. After that, Japan calculated its calendar using various Chinese calendar procedures, and from 1685, using Japanese variations of the Chinese procedures.
But in 1873, as part of Japan’s Meiji period modernization, a calendar based on the solar Gregorian calendar was introduced. In Japan today, the old Chinese calendar is virtually ignored; celebrations of the Lunar New Year are thus limited to Chinese and other Asian immigrant communities.
