asianbeat FUKUOKA, JAPAN

Youth culture, such as manga, anime, fashion and pop music is not just known in Japan, but is popular among young people throughout asia. It also helps develop a shared sense of culture throughout the continent and deepens mutual bonds of understanding between the Asian youth, who are leaders of tomorrow.

In order to develop friendship-based exchanges with other regions throughout Asia, and with the aim of working towards creating a form of youth culture in which people can communicate with one another irrespective of various language barriers, Fukuoka Prefecture set up the multilingual website "asianbeat" in 2005.

Including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, asianbeat delivers the latest youth culture news in 8 languages, holds events that run parallel to the themes on the site, provides an opportunity for young people from across Asia to get to know and understand each other better, whilst also further aiming to develop exchanges between Fukuoka, Japan and the rest of Asia.