Japan and Belgium established diplomatic ties exactly 160 years ago. And in Brussels, an iconic little boy fashioned from bronze is marking the occasion by dressing like a samurai.<\/p>\n
The two countries signed the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation on August 1, 1866. On Friday, the Manneken-Pis statue of a urinating boy was adorned with a hitatare Japanese outfit traditionally worn by noble warriors.<\/p>\n
A Ukrainian woman expressed surprise, saying it was interesting to see him in a Japanese costume. And an American couple said they think the design is cool and pretty.<\/p>\n
The hitatare, which features red chrysanthemums and other patterns on a white background, was created by a Japanese designer living in Belgium.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Ambassador to Belgium Osuga Takeshi delivered an address in front of the statue. He said events like this are wonderful, and a sign of friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan and Belgium established diplomatic ties exactly 160 years ago. And in Brussels, an iconic little boy fashioned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[740,7,721,4252,5599,144,5598,5602,5603,5604,5601,833,5600,5605,1593,1165],"class_list":["post-31180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-asia","tag-belgium","tag-biz","tag-japan","tag-japan-broadcasting-corporation","tag-news","tag-nhk","tag-nhk-world","tag-nhk-world-premium","tag-nhk-world-tv","tag-nhkworld","tag-nuclear","tag-public-broadcaster","tag-radio-japan","tag-tech","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117016540338276314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}