Mike Mansfield Globe

Fukui International Activities Plaza is located near Yokokan Garden,
where is well known as an excellent Japanese garden, is in Fukui City.
It is familiar facility to not only foreign citizens who live in Fukui but also the prefecture’s residents for the purpose of passport application and various events.
By the way, did you know that there is such a big globe directly inside the entrance?

 

The globe was donated by late Kei Wakaizumi in 1988, a Japanese scholar of international politics who negotiated with the United States for the reversion of Okinawa to Japan as a secret envoy of then prime minister Eisaku Sato.
He donated the globe in the hope of fostering dreams about the world and the earth
among young people. The globe was later named the Mike Mansfield Globe, Mr. Mike Mansfield, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, who visited Wakaizumi and the plaza. (H.S)

 

The Mike Mansfield Globe

 

You can spin the globe with the switch.

 

When you look closer the Japanese archipelago, you could find FUKUI and SABAE.
Although Wakaizumi was born in the present Echizen City, he lived in Sabae City in his later years.

 

Kei Wakaizumi when he was still alive. (photo kept at NHK)

 

At last, this year, “Kei Wakaizumi Honoring Assocaiton” was established by volunteers.
NHK Fukui reported on Wakaizumi and the association on June 27th.