The beloved and anxiously awaited festival is back! On April 22-26, Kaunas citizens and city guests will be invited to experience Asian culture, traditions, contemporary and classical art during VMU Asian Week.

This year’s VMU Asian Week celebrates its tenth anniversary, and this occasion will be conveyed with a diverse program and the abundance of events. The success of the festival is ensured by the Vytautas Magnus University’s Centre for Asian Studies together with the VMU student clubs “Hashi”, “Hallyu” and “Wuwei”. It means, both those who are just starting to discover East Asia and already experts of the region will find something to enjoy. (more…)

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On November 3–4, 2023 the Centre for Asian Studies at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU, Kaunas, Lithuania) is holding an international academic conference “Challenging relations with(in) East Asia”. We invite everyone interested to join as listeners.

East Asia is one of the most dynamic regions in the world that is attracting global attention. As home to 1.6 billion people and almost a third of the world’s GDP, East Asia is often associated with growth, ambition, and innovation. As a result, East Asian countries have been establishing numerous bilateral and multilateral ties which created a complex network of governance of various spheres, ranging from economy to environmental protection. On the other hand, the region is not only a place of emerging opportunities, but also a hotspot of numerous risks and challenges. Tensions between North and South Korea, animosities among the neighboring countries due to historical legacies, display of military power in the Taiwan Strait – all this makes the international community very worried about the possible escalation and the negative impact it could cause to the whole world. It reveals that international relations both with and within East Asia can be challenging in numerous ways.

The conference will include presentations both on historical and contemporary affairs with(in) East Asia in such fields as history, art, politics and society. On both days the conference will start at 9am and take place at Room 310, Putvinskio str. 23, Kaunas. Please download full program for further information.

For those who would like to observe the conference online, please join by following this link.

The conference is organized by VMU Centre for Asian Studies and supported by Spotlight Taiwan.

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The Centre for Asian Studies hosted the 36th Nihongo Kyoiku Renraku Kaigi (Liaison Conference of Japanese Language Education) on August 24th and 25th. This conference was created in 1988 to facilitate information exchange among local Japanese language teachers in Eastern Europe.

Originally planned to take place in Kaunas in 2020, it was postponed due to COVID-19. However, this summer, the conference was finally able to take place (more…)

Komaru Transportation Company together with Hiroshima University Lithuanian Center and VMU Center for Asian Studies is organizing the Sixth traditional Japanese Language Speech Contest. Students of the Japanese Language in Lithuania are welcome to participate. Traditionally, the organizers are going to surprise participants with special prizes.

The topic of the contest is “transportation” in its broad meaning, including traffic, travels etc. Speeches must be original and created by participants. Speeches will be evaluated by a special committee that will take into consideration its grammar, fluency, expressions, content and answers to questions.

The registration is open until September 11 (Monday), 2023. In order to register fill out an online application. After registering the participants will receive a link to submit their speeches in written form (until September 30, 2023).

If you have additional questions, please contact CAS senior coordinator Ms. Kayako Takagi via email.

For more information please refer to a detailed description (In Lithuanian and Japanese).

We would like to invite all interested in culture and languages of East Asia to listen to the public defense of students’ final thesis.

Bachelor thesis defense of East Asian Cultures and Languages will take place on June 5-6, from 9:00 at Putvinskio str. 23, room 310.

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We invite scholars of various academic fields of humanities and social science to submit proposals to an academic conference “Challenging relations with(in) East Asia” which will be held at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU, Kaunas, Lithuania) on November 3–4, 2023.

East Asia is one of the most dynamic regions in the world that is attracting global attention. As home to 1.6 billion people and almost a third of the world’s GDP, East Asia is often associated with growth, ambition, and innovation. As a result, East Asian countries have been establishing numerous bilateral and multilateral ties which created a complex network of governance of various spheres, ranging from economy to environmental protection. On the other hand, the region is not only a place of emerging opportunities, but also a hotspot of numerous risks and challenges. Tensions between North and South Korea, animosities among the neighboring countries due to historical legacies, display of military power in the Taiwan Strait – all this makes the international community very worried about the possible escalation and the negative impact it could cause to the whole world. It reveals that international relations both with and within East Asia can be challenging in numerous ways. (more…)

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VMU Asian Week 2023

The Centre for Asian Studies (CAS) at Vytautas Magnus University together with the students’ clubs “Hallyu”, “Hashi” and “Wu Wei” invite Kaunas residents and city’s guests to the VMU Asian Week 2023. This year the event will take place on April 24-28 in venues of VMU and other public places in Kaunas.

VMU Asian Week is a one week-long cycle of events dedicated to East Asian cultures – Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese. It is done through the presentation of specific aspects of culture, arts and cuisine. CAS social partners in Lithuania and abroad actively participated in the organization of this event. This year, in cooperation with the Cinema Centre “Romuva”, we invite you to watch famous films by Asian directors in the evenings during the Asia Week. You can purchase the tickets at the cinema “Romuva” or online here.

Here you can download the program of the Asian Week (PDF).

Our partners: (more…)

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