Naha Municipal Office commences Uchinaguchi greeting campaign

Naha Municipal Office commences <em>Uchinaguchi</em> greeting campaign

On March 28 at Naha Municipal Office, Mayor Onaga announces the Uchinaguchi greeting campaign.


March 29, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo

On March 28, Naha Mayor Onaga announced that the city’s Uchinaguchi greeting campaign will commence from next month. Office staff members welcome citizens visiting the municipal office in Uchinaguchi. Mayor Onaga said, “Uchinaguchi is the foundation of our culture, and we will promote it from our office. I want it to grow in Okinawa.”

Naha Municipal Office has developed an implementation plan to boost the campaign. In the plan, the office members are required to begin public speeches with haisai, which means hello and end the speech with nifedebiru, or thank you in Uchinaguchi. The plan also makes reference to schools’ role in raising awareness of the popularization of traditional culture.

Posters and logos created by staff, and a DVD featuring Mayor Onaga will be used for the campaign. The municipal office has also prepared a conversation book for staff members who are not well versed in Uchinaguchi, and with the help of companies that will cooperate in the endeavor plans to add an Uchinaguchi voice function to automatic machines that issue copies of family registers and to ATMs.

Mayor Onaga said, “Uchinaguchi is the foundation of Okinawan culture. We will do our best to promote the language, and I hope that we can provide tangible results.”

(English translation by T&CT, Shinako Oyakawa and Mark Ealey)

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