This month, Tomihiro Yamamoto, a kimono fabrics dealer from Wakayama Prefecture, is spending time with a Thai teenage girl he supports.
Oythip Sirijunda, 16, is one of three students that Yamamoto has sponsored since 1997 through a scholarship program through Minsai Center, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization.
Oythip, a freshman high school student from the province of Si Saket in Thailand's poverty-stricken northeast, arrived in Japan on Saturday and is scheduled to leave Tuesday. She caught the tail-end of the cherry blossom season, at which she voiced delight.
She graduated from junior high school in October, and hopes to one day become a nurse.