25,000 Tulip Bulbs! Bringing light to the children of the earthquake stricken Rikuzentakata city!
Mr. Frans Langelaan, who is a tulip grower from Den Helder in the northern part of the Netherlands, wants to bring some light to the children in Rikuzentakata city, which was heavily stricken by the Great East Japan Earthquake. He hopes his donation of 25,000 tulip bulbs will cheer them up a bit in the recovery of their community.
In March of this year, a group of Tanabata bayashi musical(traditional Japanese dram) performers from Rikuzentakata, which is in Iwate prefecture, visited the Netherlands. They visited The Hague and Amstelveen, where they performed in just the same way as they do during the local Tanabata festival, which is part of Rikuzentakata’s traditional culture. Through these performances they wanted to show their gratitude for the generous support after the earthquake and their determination of recovery to the Dutch people.
Mr. Langelaan was very much moved by the Tanabata bayashi performances. That is when he came up with the idea to donate his tulip bulbs to Rikuzentakata. The bulbs were symbolically handed to the Japanese Ambassador to the Netherlands, Mr. Takashi Koezuka, during the ‘Japan Day’event in Den Helder’s Japanese garden on June 17th.
Mr. Langelaan decided to send his carefully cultivated tulips to Japan with the warm feeling of wishing to help the children who suffered from the earthquake to recover quickly, and to regain their brightness and energy. Mr. Langelaan not only donated the tulips, but he cared the transportation costs and processed necessary export procedures to Tokyo.
The Embassy of Japan in the Netherlands searched for a recipient and a sponsor for the overhead and domestic transportation costs of the tulip bulbs in Japan. That is when Mr. Yuki Takahashi, former chairman of Rikuzentakata chapter of the Junior Chamber International Japan introduced to us Mr. Kotaro Kumagai of the NPO “Saisei no Sato Yaruki Town” in Rukuzentakata. Mr. Kumagai has kindly offered to make a private land publicly available for the plantation of the tulip bulbs, and Mr.Isao Kaneto, of the project“Hana-no-chikara for Japan” introduced to us Mr. Fumiya Yamamoto of the transportation firm ‘Nissin’.
’Nissin’ has volunteered to take the overhead and domestic transportation costs upon themselves. The Embassy of Japan in the Netherlands is deeply grateful to all those people who have made this possible for their goodwill and generous sponsorship. We would like to take this opportunity to register our appreciation to all those concerned.
The tulip bulbs are expected to arrive in Rikuzentakata around the 10th of October. At this point the town’s volunteers will come together to plant the bulbs. Next spring, when the tulips are in full bloom, we hope that the people in the Netherlands will hear Rikuzentakata’s children sing “saita saita tulip no hana ga naranda naranda aka, shiro, kiiro, dono hana mitemo kirei da na” (bloom, bloom, the tulip flowers lined up, lined up in red, white, and yellow, and They are all so beautiful - a Japanese nursery rhyme).
