Family Reunion in Venice

For many Japanese people, Italy is a dream destination. In Japan, Broadcast Satellite TV programs featuring Italian towns and villages run almost every weekend. Italy has the largest number of World Heritage sites and is one of the most popular destinations for Japanese tourists.

My wife, daughter and I had a chance to visit there and to appreciate its historic and traditional buildings, breathtaking architectural landscapes, natural beauty and rural villages during Japan’s Golden Week holidays. Our tourist guide was my son who has been enrolled at a Venetian university since last September.

He made sure to take us to St. Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco in Italian), which is the most famous of the many churches of Venice and is one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture in the world. Located just off the Grand Canal, the gleaming basilica overlooks the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) and adjoins the Doge's Palace.

Another pleasant trip was strolling along the cobbled streets of Milan. Amongst its splendors were the many types of traditional architecture all about us. However, what most thrilled me in Milan was when I stood within Santa Maria delle Grazie just in front of “the Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci.

A great experience many tourists would rarely get to partake in was a visit to an ordinary house in an Italian village. My son’s roommate was kind enough to take my family to his home and to treat us to a typical Italian lunch with good wine. He also showed us around the historical sites there and I felt as if I were immersed in its culture.

I was so happy we were able to make the best use of the short time we had there and to find such a relaxing place to stay in with my family.

Azaleas are at their best

My daughter is safely off to college, the weather has become more comfortable, the days grow ever longer and the azaleas are in full bloom. Finally, spring has truly sprung, and one of its most relaxing pleasures is to take in all the beautiful flowers while having a cup of hot black tea on the wood deck in my garden.

However, these relaxing moments seem to happen less these days. We had a very long winter and too much snow this year. Last week our area had unusually strong winds. Not to be outdone, the very temperate central Tokyo area was pummeled by hail. Most unusual of all were the many tornadoes that surprisingly struck the Kanto area in the early part of May, something I cannot ever recall happening before. It looks like abnormal weather is becoming normal in many parts of the world.

Spring has come to my house.

Look at the pictures above. As you can see, all the snow has gone. The buds on the cherry and plum trees in my garden will be ready to bloom in a few weeks.

In Japan, “spring has come” is often used when a son or daughter has passed an entrance examination to an upper-level school. In that respect, “spring has come” to my daughter. After one year of hard work to prepare for and take a series of entrance examinations last month, she is now heading out of our house to enter university in Tokyo.

Last weekend, my wife and I helped my daughter move to Tokyo. We brought a lot of her belongings in my car and we ended up staying overnight. She will be living alone temporarily, but her brother will join her in the near future. He is currently studying abroad, but he will resume his studies in Tokyo soon as well.

I feel very lonely without her, but I hope she will soon find a peaceful life and many good friends in Tokyo as well as success in her academic learning at university.

Gyosei Koko puts some muscle into its English education program

In the vicinity of my college, there are its affiliated schools, Niigata Chuo Junior College and Kamo Gyosei High School. Gyosei Koko is unique and well known in that it is the single high school in Niigata Prefecture offering a nursing course.

Recently, the school won a grant under the auspices of the Niigata Prefectural Government. The grant, which runs for a certain period of years, is offered to private senior high schools that have plans to foster international human resources and to improve their English education. Programs offered under the grant include special Saturday English classes, access to on-line English education, a school excursion to Singapore and special tutoring to help students pass difficult English proficiency examinations and college entrance examinations.

Another of its programs was a three-day intensive English seminar that was held in early March at Niigata University of Management. I was involved in the seminar, helping design the program. I also collaborated with the high school teachers in charge.

 

During the course of the seminar, about thirty-five students learned oral English under six native-language instructors of English. The purpose of this program was to “give the students opportunities to express themselves in English and have cross-cultural experiences. It went well, in the end, but it was not without some bumps.

There was a good deal of confusion at first as to what the school was attempting to accomplish. The vague quality of the directions only added to this. To be fair, the school had never attempted such an undertaking in the past.

I was glad to see that Gyosei Koko is trying to strengthen its English programs through this grant, but there is obviously some room for improvement. In the near future, I hope to give the teachers an awareness-raising workshop in English that will encourage the teachers to be even more ambitious in order to take full advantage of this opportunity.

Todai Calls for Fall Enrollment

Todai or the University of Tokyo could move the start of its academic year from autumn to help it compete with overseas rivals and help students wanting to study abroad.

A school working group proposed in an interim report that the university stop accepting students in April, the tradition in Japan, and shift to a fall enrollment system, which is common abroad.

The university hopes to reach a formal decision by the end of March after each department has studied the proposal. (The Asahi Shimbun, 1/18/12)

I am for the proposal, but my reasoning is a little different than the ones given in the report above. Recently, my daughter has taken many college entrance exams during January and February as her high school life comes to a close and she prepares for her future. In Japan, it is still common for students to take entrance tests to multiple universities.

As her parent, I have had the responsibility to make sure that she gets to these tests at the appointed place and time. However, here in Niigata Prefecture, in winter, there is much snow, trains are often delayed and the roads and highways can be treacherous with ice, snow and slow-moving traffic.

Also, right now, it is cold and flu season. In Sanjo City, where we reside, four public schools have been closed because of an influenza epidemic. Because of this, my family and I have not dined in public or gone anywhere to relax for fear of my daughter getting infected before one of her tests.

In March, things aren’t much better. Not only is there still the danger of snow and infection, but nationally, because of the preponderance of cedar trees, it is the height of the hay fever season. Recently, the amount of pollen in the air has been increasing and some people have had severe problems dealing with this condition.

I’m not sure what kind of pressure my daughter is feeling, but I have felt under pressure just to make sure she is able to perform her best under the most normal conditions as possible. A lot of these problems would be eliminated if the test dates were moved to summer.

The pictures show my house and garden after a recent deep snowfall.

The pictures show a pine tree that has been professionally trimmed similar to a bansai tree and other trees. To protect them from the wet and heavy snows we get here, we had professional gardeners use ropes and long bamboo poles to give them support. Niigata Prefecture is famously known as “snow country.” 

Honma Dekka? An Exchange Program

The other day, I met an Australian girl who has come to my home prefecture as an exchange student. She told me she would be attending school in Niigata City for the next two months and was interested in Japanese fashion and culture.

This was her second trip to Japan as she had visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Miyajima on a school-sponsored excursion two years ago. I noticed that she always carried a book with her and she admitted to me that she was something of a bookworm. I found her to be quite engaging and smart.

I immediately liked her. Admittedly, however, I am almost predisposed to liking exchange students. You see, I spent the summer of 1977 in Annapolis, Maryland with a wonderful family whom I am still in contact with to this very day.

Also, my son spent a year as an exchange student in Raleigh, North Carolina. It made such an impression on him that he decided to spend a year in Venice, Italy to study philosophy and international relations at a university there.

As my blog mentions, I am the chief of the Niigata chapter of the Experiment in International Living. In fact, the Australian girl I met came here under the auspices of my organization.

http://www.eiljapan.org/index.html

Coincidentally, I was watching a Japanese variety show, “Honma Dekka” (“Is it True?”), which is hosted by the famous Japanese comedian, Akashiya Sanma. One of his guests was a chiropractor, Takuma Usuda, who seemed very familiar to me.

Suddenly, I realized that he was one of the students that I had taken on an exchange visit to Springfield, Illinois some 25 years ago. I was so surprised to see him, I went online and found his email address and sent him a message.

He wrote back that, not only did he remember me, but that he also felt that he owed me a lot. He told me that he attributed much of his success in life to that summer he spent in the States and that it had encouraged him to study abroad.

http://toranomon-chiro.com/

He told me that he owns a practice in Tokyo and that he also teaches part-time at Waseda University. We have since made plan to reunite in Tokyo sometime in the near future and talk about old times, perhaps over a cup of sake.

This is why I have such a passion for exchange programs. I truly feel that they can make a difference in the lives of the students who participate in them. I want students to go abroad and I want to find families who would like to act as host families for these students. If you are interested in hosting exchange students, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you.

KAKURI Corporation

Mr. Mutsuhiro Kato, the vice president of KAKURI Corporation, is like a magnate, attracting the attention of other entrepreneurs in Sanjo City. He often tells people that dreams can become goals if you work hard.

He said he used to dream of selling his wares all over the world, but it now is a goal that has been partly attained. “It takes time,” he said, “but I never give up.”

(The chisels won an award for Good Design from Japan Institute of Design Promotion.）↓

Sanjo City has long been noted for the production of hardware and metal ware tools and goods. KAKURI Corporation, which deals mainly with carpenter tools, such as saws, planes, chisels, knives and kitchen cutleries, stands out amongst its competition.

Mr. Mutsuhiro Kato, who is in charge of the KAKURI Corporation’s factory sector, KAKURI WORKS LTD., said that half of the products made by the factory are sold to overseas clientele. Its high-quality tools are particularly popular in China, where it has shifted much of its production.

While he had some struggles breaking into China’s market, after doggedly negotiating with Chinese buyers for ten years, he gradually gained friendships and trust and slowly built the company’s reputation there.

Mr. Kato, who continues to tirelessly meet with businesspersons from around the world, hopes to expand his company’s global sales even further. His next dream is to increase sales in Europe, and he, along with other young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs in the Tsubame-Sanjo area, make an annual trek to display their commodities at a trade fair in Ambiente, which is in Frankfurt, Germany.

Likewise, when Europeans and other foreign businesspeople visit this area, they often visit his company and he acts as their host. English, he says, is the language they often communicate in.

 (Mr. Kato with Chinese students at his factory in Sanjo City.)

He is such a diligent worker that many people ask to hear about his successes; however, he is not reluctant to disclose his failures, and welcomes anyone who wants to learn from him. If he is asked to talk about exports from Sanjo City, he never hesitates. He often gives lectures to business and community groups and sees these as opportunities to volunteer his knowledge.

He loves these opportunities to greet people from all over the world and views these “chance meetings,” as he calls them, as very important. Whether it is in Japanese or English, he loves communicating.

(With consummate skills, KAKURI's accomplished, experienced hand finalizes ultimate-level blades.)