DAVAO CITY – Durian is oishi (delicious) but it stinks.
This was what students of the Mindanao Kokusai Daigaku (MKD) told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie, during the couple’s visit to the Japanese-language school here on Friday.
Abe was seen playfully covering his nose with his finger as he was shown a slide picture of durian, the city’s official fruit, during a 10-minute interaction with some 25 MKD junior and senior college students inside the school’s audiovisual room.
Prior to his visit to MKD, Abe sampled durian and other local fruits in the presence of Duterte and other officials after the naming of a Philippine Eagle at the Waterfront Hotel here as part of honoring him.
READ: Abe thanks Duterte for naming PH eagle in his honor
The durian eating was recorded on video by Radio TV Malacañang.
The Prime Minister did not publicly show any dislike for the so-called King of Fruits, which he tasted after having some pink pomelos, but his brows were visibly raised as he was chewing on it.
A Japanese teacher later explained that Japanese people love to eat delicious food but would shy away from stinky or pungent ones.
The students were actually demonstrating their fluency in both reading and writing in Japanese, using the Kanji method.
One slide showed calamares or fried squid, a Japanese favorite, to which Abe nodded affirmatively.
But laughter filled the room – with Abe and his wife laughing along – when a student stood up as a slide of Japanese artist Kosaka Daimaou, who came to fame via the PPAP (pen-pineapple-apple-pen) song, was shown, and she started singing the song.
In his message to the students, Abe, who was welcomed by about 1,000 pupils and students with a Japanese welcome song as he and his party arrived around 11:50 a.
