(2002/08/19)

Japanese Ministry of General Affairs is to issue a set of 2 commemorative stamps marking the 30th anniversary of normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. Altogether 6.5 million sets or 13 million stamps will be issued, each with the same face value of 80 Japanese yen.

Both stamps take as subject matter works of Chinese artists: one is called distant source; long stream, and the other is called wisteria. The first one was specially designed to mark the 30th anniversary of normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan by Wang Chuangfeng, an artist residing in Japan who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The work ingenious merges the gold fish, said to have come to Japan from China 500 years ago, with 30 cherry flowers, the symbol of Japan to imply long-standing Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. The second one is based on a painting named wisteria, drawn in 1989 by Deng Lin, a female painter from Chinese Painting Research Institute. The painting, now kept in Nakagawa Art Gallery, portrays in freehand brushwork gorgeous blossoms bursting forth densely on the tangling wisteria, pregnant with meaning.

Postal affairs in Japan were originally administered by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In January 2000 in government restructuring, the ministry was disestablished and replaced by the newly established Postal Administration under the Ministry of General Affairs. The design of these two stamps was finally completed by the chief designing official of the administration Morita Motoji..

It was the first time that commemorative stamps based on paintings by Chinese artists were issued in the past 30 years since normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations.

By Ma Xiaochen