Monday, September 04, 2006

A FRIEND FROM SUDAN

1) Mohammed Omar Abdin, 28, came to Japan from Sudan eight years ago. He intended to study at a school for the blind.

2) He was gradually losing his eyesight because of eye disease and unable to read at the end of elementary school. He had his friends read books. Taking an oral test, he entered the faculty of law. But he could not take notes at class and felt his limitations.

3) At that time, Abdin learned that a Japanese group to support blind people was inviting students to Japan. He said, “By learning the life of blind people in Japan, I thought I would be able to get an idea to support myself.” After studying the Japanese language, Braille, acupuncture and massage at Fukui Prefectural School for the Blind, he studied how to use a personal computer at a junior college. He advanced to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 2003.

4) Twenty-year civil war at last came to an end in Sudan, but another war started at Darfur in the western part of the nation and still continues.

5) Under such a condition, Abdin brought back to Sudan 3,000 braille slates and styluses last summer and donated them to a campaign to diffuse Braille. His friends and a club to support the handicapped at Tsukuba University had cooperated with him to collect a 150,000-yen fund. Another thing he brought back was a soccer ball that contained bells. He is a member of a soccer team for the blind in Japan.

6) Abdin began to raise a fund again. He is now planning to buy software to read Arabic aloud on the computer. He is thinking of contributing it to the university he graduated and hopes to spread it nationwide. “I learned the importance of reading and writing in Japan. In the future, I will engage in such an activity in Sudan and try to expand the opportunity for the blind to work.”

Monday, June 26, 2006

BILINGUALISM

1) ▼　More than thirty years ago I attended a junior high school, where a Japanese girl student was transferred from the United States. As was expected, she spoke perfect English. It was my first time to get acquainted with a bilingual who could speak two languages fluently.

2) ▼ “This is real English.” I was impressed. To my surprise, she said to one of the classmates at recess, “Hi! Long time no see.” I heard that they had attended the same Japanese supplementary class in the eastern part of the United States some years before.

3) ▼ But the other one did not show any sign of her experiences in the United States and even read an English textbook with Japanese accent. She might have thought cleverly that it would be better for her not to be different from others in the homogeneous society of Japan.

4) ▼ Nowadays there are many returnee students in Japan. How do they behave themselves now? It is often considered that bilinguals can switch from English to Japanese or vise versa freely. A rage for children’s English class and teaching English at elementary school may be supported by earnest wishes to be bilingual. But in fact things are not so simple.

5) ▼“Asahi Weekly,” a weekly paper for English language learners, featured their frank opinions in the June 25 issue. At a roundtable talk they wondered which nationality they belonged to. Speaking English, they became cheerful and outspoken, but in Japanese they were quite different. They also had to undergo a one-sided view that returnee students were hard to deal with at companies in Japan. They can be never free from worries.

6) ▼ Despite those worries, “what they have experienced in different languages and cultures may help them understand a foreign country wherever they go,” said a reporter of an English language newspaper. We may need to learn those flexibilities from them rather than skills of a foreign language.

Monday, June 05, 2006

DREAM IN BURGEON WAS LOST

1) ▼ I heard a large delightful shout on the way ahead. “Keep at it!” “Up with you!” Cheering voice came from the school ground. On Sunday, I passed by an elementary school in Tokyo, where a sports meet was being held.

2) ▼ It was at the height of a relay race between red and white teams, catching up, outrunning, dropping a baton, picking it up and passing it to the next. I stopped walking to watch them running in real earnest. Children compete against each other or cooperate with each other to achieve something. Their single-minded attitude appealed to people regardless of their difference in physical strength and performances.

3) ▼ On the wall of the school building, there was a sign board with decorative letters aligned sideways. “Win Glory! Toward Your Goal of Dream, Both Red and White.” Children divided into red and white compete against each other to reach goal. It is hard for adults to realize it in everyday life, but competing desperately may become a sweet memory in the future.

4) ▼ At another elementary school I happened to pass by on Sunday a week before, six graders were doing gymnastics in teams at a sports meet. They set up twofold or threefold human tiers. I enjoyed watching each team clasping hand in hand and folding their arms at their own pace rather than they tried to synchronize their movement as a show.

5) ▼ It is a hundred years since the elementary school was established. For many years since the Meiji era, children have never encountered danger as much as they do today even though we are in peacetime. Parents and grandparents who talked to their children or watching their children quietly in the school ground must have wished that a peaceful time they had at the sports meet would continue for good.

6) ▼ I hear that a first grader murdered at Fujisato-machi in Akita prefecture won the first prize in an 80-meter running race at the sports meet held last month. He wanted to be a carpenter when grown up. His dream in burgeon was deprived of by the hideous crime.

Monday, March 27, 2006

ACQUISITION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

1) ▼ “A person who can speak two languages fluently is called bilingual. A person who can speak many languages is called multi-bilingual. What do you call a person who can speak only one language?”

2) ▼ It was a riddle asked by an American I met recently while collecting news data. The answer was American. It is a joke to caricaturize American conceit. Some Americans consider that the English language can be available anywhere in the world so that they do not need to learn foreign languages, while Japanese people are relatively enthusiastic to learn foreign languages. At a bookstore, I can find a lot of English language textbooks compiled by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) at the beginning of new school term.

3) ▼ They are as many as thirteen different kinds in total for both TV and radio programs. I owed a lot to such a program as a student but textbooks have increased greatly in varieties. They are sold even with compact disks attached. Some learners record programs by a timer so that they do not have to wake up early in the morning to listen to a radio program.

4) ▼ Late Ogawa Yoshio, former president of Tokyo University of Foreign Languages, was in charge of an English conversation program on the radio soon after the war. As it was a live broadcasting, he got up at four o’clock in the morning and took the first train to go to the NHK broadcasting studio. It was indeed success or failure for both the lecturer and learners.

5) ▼ Talking of a language genius, Heinrich Schliemann, a German archaeologist, who excavated the ruins of Troy in the 19th century, is famous. He mastered more than ten foreign languages in his life. He did not take longer than six weeks if it was a modern European language. The secret of mastering a foreign language is to spend every spare moment reciting expressions again and again. He parroted a sermon of the Anglican Church to acquire an English pronunciation. Those learners who are surrounded with so many teaching materials might be less blessed.

6) ▼ It is hard to master a foreign language, but it helps to learn mindsets and viewpoints different from Japanese. We should not spare our efforts at a time when globalization is causing cultural confrontations in the world.

Monday, March 13, 2006

ATTRACTIVE PLACES TO VISIT IN SPRING

1) ▼ The balmy weather in spring is tempting me to go on a trip somewhere.

2) ▼ What about visiting the southern Japan Alps in Yamanashi prefecture or budding greenery in Gunma prefecture or the area of Tsugaru plains in Aomori prefecture? Are cherry blossoms ready in Tochigi prefecture? If I go on a hike, I would enjoy walking around Mt. Myoko in Niigata prefecture, the Azumino basin in Nagano prefecture and Hachimantai highlands in Iwate prefecture.

3) ▼ It is also pleasant to go down a river in a boat. I want to enjoy sparkling water to the full at the Chikuma in Nagano prefecture, the Agano in Niigata prefecture, the Shimanto in Kochi prefecture, the Kino-kawa in Wakayama prefecture and the Yoshino-gawa in Tokushima prefecture. If I make a tour of islands, I may visit Awaji Island in Hyogo prefecture, Sado Island in Niigata prefecture, Eda-jima Island in Hiroshima prefecture. I might also like to go around Iki Island, Tsushima Island and Goto Islands in Nagasaki prefecture, and then as far as to Amakusa islands in Kumamoto prefecture, Amami islands in Kagaoshima prefecture and Miyako-jima island in Okinawa prefecture.

4) ▼ If I like to relax, hot springs are the best. Shall I go to Gero spa in Gifu prefecture, Awara spa in Fukui prefecture or Nasu-shiobara spa in Tochigi prefecture? Otherwise, shall I visit Unzen spa in Nagasaki prefecture in Kyushu or Ureshino spa in Saga prefecture? Looking up the dark sky in an outdoor bath, I may have a chance to see the Big Dipper twinkling in Hokkaido.

5) ▼ It may be delightful to spend time at the waterside of Seto-uchi inland sea in Okayama prefecture and join Awa dance festivalovernight in Tokushima prefecture. Children may like to join a Ninja-no-sato (Ninja village) tour at Iga in Mie prefecture and Koga in Shiga prefecture. If I like to eat something delicious, I will taste noodles cooked at Sanuki in Kagawa prefecture and Koshihikari rice produced at Uonuma in Niigata prefecture.

6) ▼Synoecizing cities, towns and villages in large-scale in the period of Heisei will be over this spring. It will be five years by the end of March since it started, during which merged cities have numbered about one hundred. Just by listing those newly born cities, I feel as if I am taking a leisure trip. But if I really go on a trip, I need to take a map with me, because the city of Date exists in Hokkaido and in Fukushima prefecture as well, the city of Yamagata is not in Yamagata prefecture but in Gifu prefecture, and furthermore there are many difficult names to read.

Monday, November 14, 2005

HISTORICAL SPOTS AT TOKYO STATION

1) ▼ There is a round mark with a diameter of about five centimeters in the central passage that connects the Marunouchi side and the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station. Many people just pass away or walk on it unnoticed.

2) ▼ On the pillar a little away from it, there is a sign saying, “Prime Minister Hamaguchi assassinated here.” It explains that at 8:58 a.m. on November 14 in the 5th year of Showa (1930), Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi, on his way to inspect special military maneuvers conducted in Okayama Prefecture, was walking on the platform to get on the first class car. At the very moment, a sound of gunfire was heard, when he crouched down with his hands on the stomach.

3) ▼ According to the explanation of the station, the very spot he was shot corresponds to Track No. 9 and No. 10 of Tokaido line at present. Frequent improvement of platforms required the mark to be placed in the passage right under the platform.

4) ▼ While pursuing a fiscal austerity, he carried on arms reduction and international cooperation, for which dissatisfied right-wingers attacked him. He uttered, “Um, you did it,” but instantly thought that “it’s a little too early to be killed,” which saved him from death. In case of murder and assassination as well, there must be something to be counted in barbaric, uncivilized ones, but it is an inexcusably serious crime in law-abiding, civilized ones. (“Zuikan-roku” or Collections of essays written by him)

5) ▼ His physical condition deteriorating, he died in August next year. As if time had awaited his death, the Manchurian Incident broke out. And such coups as May-15 Incident and February-26 Incident followed in order. Japan did not deserve to be called a law-abiding or civilized nation any more in the turmoil of terror and conspiracy.

6) ▼ Getting out of the ticket gate of the south exit of Marunouchi side by way of the central passage, you will also see a small dot mark. Prime Minister Hara Takashi, who was called “Familiar Prime Minister,” was assassinated there. The incident had taken place nine years before Hamaguchi was assassinated. It also happened at this time of year.

Monday, October 31, 2005

1) ▼ Sixty years ago, an elementary schoolboy in the fifth grade in Tokyo wrote in a diary, “Since the Allied Forces advanced into Tokyo today, U.S. airplanes flew over at a very low altitude freely. I feel chagrin but I can do nothing. All I can do is to study hard.”

2) ▼ In due course of time, the occupation troops mandated that all the unfavorable expressions used in their textbooks be painted in black. Emperor-centered Japanese history, which he believed to be eternal, was renounced. The boy was made aware that history could be rewritten depending on the results of war.

3) ▼ Later the boy became the first Japanese to have served as president of the American Historical Association. He is Irie Akira, 71, a professor at the Harvard University. In his memoirs, “Learning from History” newly published by Kodan-sha’s Gendai-shinsho, he says that painting textbooks in black was the starting point of his career as a historian.

4) ▼ It is not so simple as to say that history is written by a winner. As history can be altered by state power and political expectations, he firmly resolved that historians should pursue historical facts with his own will and efforts.

5) ▼ His work is featured in drawing a whole picture of a global community not from a narrow viewpoint of one nation but from the viewpoint of interrelation of economy and culture across the border. He is sustained by the idea that study should be free from nationalism.

6) ▼ According to EH Carr, a British historian, “History is a dialogue between the past and the present,” but it is undesirable to interpret history as he likes with a personal awareness of the present. Expressions in school textbooks can be erased in black but history itself cannot be done. What is important is to interact objectively with the past erased in black. Prof. Irie’s life, beginning as a nationalistic boy, indicates that.