Nagai Junko and her encounters with Da Nang
DNO - Nagai Junko, a Japanese woman fluent in Vietnamese, spent two years volunteering with Da Nang city’s tourism through JICA. Though she has worked in international tourism and travelled to many cities, Vietnam, especially Da Nang, becomes a special place in her heart.
Junko’s first visit to the city was in 2012 during a rainy cruise stop. Years later, in August 2023, she returned as a volunteer at the Da Nang Tourism Promotion Center and was amazed by the city's energy and beauty.
Every weekend, Junko explored local cuisine, craft villages, and old houses, and hiked Son Tra peninsula at sunrise. She also travelled across Vietnam, from Ly Son to Hai Phong, eager to experience as much as possible.
Junko discovered that learning Vietnamese made her feel more at home among the natives. Although she found Vietnamese to be a challenging language, it helped her feel closer to Vietnam.
She also became an active promoter of Da Nang. During a tourism expo in Tokyo in 2024, she found that 42% of over 1,000 Japanese surveyed knew little about Da Nang. That motivated her to send newsletters and translate over 200 articles to raise awareness of this beautiful city.
In just two years, she has seen big changes in Da Nang’s tourism, more pedestrian lights, cleaner markets, and better services. She hopes the city can attract more tourists simply by sharing accurate, updated, and authentic information.
She also believed the new Da Nang - Osaka flight would surely bring more Japanese tourists.
After returning to Japan, Junko plans to keep promoting Da Nang and hopes to return often because there is still so much of this city she hasn’t discovered.