I am attracted to this photo collection focusing on the smiles of children in Kobe city for several reasons.

When Japanese people who have lived abroad for a period of time in a developed or developing country return to Japan, there is almost always one belief that most of them share.

That belief is that they seem to feel our Japanese children lack facial expressions and a gleam in their eyes.

Last year when I covered a story about Afghanistan refugee children near the border of Pakistan, the children were very lively in spite of the ultimately harsh living environment thrust upon them.

In such a truly depressing situation, I felt relieved to meet a group of people with such cheerful, so to speak merry expressions.

They all have such great smiles.

It is especially good to find such smiles in Kobe.

I visited Kobe during the chaos of the major earthquake and since that time. Many times I saw exceptionally cheerful children among the devastated and/or petrified adults. But the children were running around free from various "rules," ("No school today!") which had restrained them. I do not know where it came from but one child was proudly passing around a bag-full of stationeries to his friends. His "ingenuity" would probably not be evaluated in a regular classroom setting where intellectual education is emphasized. He was in his element and his expression was so lively and genuine.

Ongoing economic predicaments are causing many people to feel stagnant about their futures bringing about their gloomy expressions, which I feel has gotten unreasonably depressing. This is one of the reasons why I am so persistent in conveying the "Theory of Happiness" in my news program ("Tsukushi Tetsuya NEWS23" = TBS). I believe it is our wisdom and fortitude that allows us to accept hardships cheerfully, no matter how difficult they are. "When you smile, the whole world smiles back at you."

Kobe welcomes many guests from all over the world as one of the venues for the World Cup. I hope many smiles are directed towards our guests in addition to the smiles in this collection of photos.
It is my hope that this photo collection "primes" an explosion of cheerful smiles and laughter.