Multilingual paper fans bring attention to global warming
Foreign leaders visiting Japan later this summer for a G8 summit will be receiving free paper fans (uchiwa) to remind them about global warming. Kumagaya City, home of the famous Uchiwa Matsuri, has teamed up with a company from a town in Kagawa Prefecture that has an Uchiwa Museum to create the fans:
Kumagaya City, which reached a high of 40.9 degrees in 2007, hopes participants at the Group of Eight Hokkaido Toyako Summit will use them in the heat of July.
The city ordered 8,500 of the fans, printed in Japanese, English, French, Italian, German and Russian and featuring the G-8 nations’ flags, from a company in Marugame, Kagawa Prefecture.
“With these uchiwa, we hope (participants will) have a cool-headed discussion and brainstorm some cool ideas for preventing global warming,” a city official said.
