Journey to Japan June/July 2005
To visit another country is always interesting and enjoyable. To visit another country, to be hosted by people so kind, courteous and determined that we would experience and understand as much as possible of the culture and of the society is a rare privilege indeed.
My journey began with my orientation evening with members of the Japan Wales Club in Cardiff, these kind friends not only gave me an introduction to Japanese cuisine, eating etiquette and manners, but also primed me with information which proved to be invaluable in ensuring that I was able to observe Japanese etiquette and custom, particularly when staying with my host families. They will be pleased to know I managed to remember to change my slippers!
From the moment I was greeted so warmly by Mrs. Moromi at the airport, I felt welcomed and valued as an educator, a feeling which tends to be relatively unusual for teachers in the UK! I was impressed with the organisation and attention to detail that had been put into the planning for our programme by the staff at Jetro and also with the contribution of the volunteers, who were all unfailingly patient and supportive of us. Mr. and Mrs. Moromi and their team cared for us the whole time with infinite patience and forbearance.
We were given a series of lectures on Japanese society and the education system The emphasis on the success of the group rather than the cult of the individual is most interesting and on the way that an employee will have a loyalty to his company and vice versa, although we were told that this is beginning to change. The importance of the theme of harmony was stressed, harmony through teamwork and mutual support. Indeed harmony was a recurring theme threading through much of my visit. Harmony in society as imposed by the system, harmony in nature, architecture and art through my home visits, visits to temples, my (enthusiastic but amateur) attempts at Ikebana and the tea ceremonies, so beautifully choreographed
The ???survival Japanese??? lesson was great fun; my Welsh accent gave me an advantage in the pronunciation of words, but unfortunately not in the memory and understanding! I did however manage to grasp a few useful phrases and words which have amused my Japanese pupils greatly since I still wake up with the appropriate ???Subarashii!??? reverberating in my head!
The school visits were extremely interesting. My first visit was to Tachiai Elementary school. The principal addressed us and gave us his vision for the school and allowed us to visit all the classrooms. Tachiai School impressed me with the wonderful large-scale paintings, drawings, and wood and metal collages. We were also treated to a performance by the school brass band that performed with great clarity, tunefulness and precision. The children were fortunate to have a swimming pool at the school and we noted the emphasis placed on educating the whole child, where music art and sport were prominent in school life. Indeed childhood and playfulness is celebrated and I felt that all the children I saw whilst being encouraged to take on responsibility where necessary were not expected to be too street wise too soon as are some of my pupils
The sight of children using unicycles and pogo sticks in the playground was amazing particularly to those of us from America and UK where the litigation culture restricts many of our once traditional playground activities. My second school visit was to Ikaruga Elementary School, a very large school which had a teacher skilled in Noh theatre who was passing her skills on to pupils. I enjoyed watching and listening to the pupils??? polished performances in singing, recorder playing and Noh as well as responding to the pupils who had taken a great deal of trouble to learn English questions to ask us My third school visit was in a much smaller group to Obayashi elementary and the head teacher here had even visited Wales! As well as visiting the whole school I spent time with a year 5 class who taught me how to play traditional Japanese games. I was also interested in the way they grouped children into ???Family??? groups here as a means of ensuring children supported each other.
What impressed me in this school as in every other that I visited was that the children were capable of being very lively, noisy and boisterous even, one minute and yet very self disciplined and organised the next. In every school I was impressed with the way pupil served their own lunches in the classrooms, cleared away and cleaned up afterwards. Indeed one of my favourite memories was of Obayashi elementary school when I offered my yoghurt to the pupil sitting next to me at lunch and instead of taking it for himself as I had intended, he offered it to all the interested pupils and they proceed to pay the game of ???scissors, paper stone??? at the back of the class and the winner took the yoghurt. All of this was done sensibly without any intervention by the teacher.
The home visits were a highlight of the programme. The welcome received from my two host families was exceptional, each giving me a different insight into aspects of Japanese living. Their kindness, courtesy and the efforts they had made to learn English prior to my arrival, made me feel very humble indeed. They showed me aspects of modern day Japanese life as well as some of the traditional aspects and I thoroughly enjoyed their generous hospitality. I was treated to tea ceremonies, dressed in a kimono, received lessons in Ikebana, shown traditional dancing, enjoyed playing and singing music with members of both families, taken to see Nagoya castle and museum, watched my host sing karaoke at an Izakaya and generally was given an insight into many aspects of normal Japanese life that no tourist could hope to experience.
The visits arranged by Jetro covered many aspects of rich Japanese history and culture, we visited the kimono museum where we were addressed by Ms. Kiyoko Koizumi the president of the museum and where many of us were dressed in the most sumptuous kimonos. We made intricate origami creations under the tutelage of an origami master.
We were welcomed like royalty by NIEVA by Mr. Kansho Tsutsui High Priest of Todaiji Temple and chairman of NIEVA. We were treated to a reception and responded by entertaining our hosts with some (not too serious) songs from our home countries.
The UK contingent was very small, but I can claim not to have let the side down and to have sung a Welsh folk song on Japanese soil! Transport by bullet train was amazing, trains that are both clean and punctual! I fear we were quite a worry for our hosts as we were totally unaware of the need for any urgency when getting on and off a train.
At Naramachi centre we were entertained by songs and dances from the kindergarten as well as some of the traditional hand games and rhymes. I have noticed that the Japanese pupils at my school have very good fine motor skills and having seen the calligraphy lessons, the origami, the use of chopsticks as well as the outdoor play and hand games I can understand why and I am hoping to incorporate some of these activities into the motor programmes that we are preparing for some of our pupils who suffer from dyspraxia.
Visiting the temples of Asakusa, Cyuguji, Todaiji, Horyuji and Nishi Honganji was a mystical experience opening our eyes to the Buddhist traditions and principles, the traditional architecture and heritage of Japan and the beauty of symmetry and form in harmony.
From the old to the new and we marvelled at the cleanliness and efficiency of the production line in the Toyota factory as well as the futuristic robot which actually played the trumpet in the Toyota museum and where I proudly exchanged business cards with a managing director of Toyota!
We even visited the Gekkeiken factory to see how the traditional Japanese sake is made and to sample it of course!
An integral part of my visit my visit was the wonderful feasts of Japanese food to which we were treated. I discovered that I love sushi. I have eaten seaweed in its myriad forms ??? and enjoyed them all. I sampled many different types of fish, including eel ??? which I loved. We were even treated to the infamous blowfish at the Nandaiman restaurant and I was heartened to learn that the chef is obliged to kill himself if anyone dies from eating it! I was fascinated by the exquisite presentation and attention to detail of much of the food and the emphasis on texture as much as taste. I have become a little more accomplished in my chopsticks technique! Kyoto is a beautiful city and one to which I hope one day to return, I spent a magical evening in a beer garden talking to trainee Geisha and marvelling at the degree of training which they undertake and the amount of time it must take them to prepare their appearance. Not I think a profession to which I would be suited!
A lively day was spent at the Aichi Expo where all manner of performances and colourful exhibitions from every country in the world, made for another kaleidoscope of impressions .
Not only were we treated to musical performances by the pupils we met but in Kyoto we were entertained at a prestigious concert by the singer, Megumi Hashiramoto and on our return to Tokyo at our farewell meeting were given a piano performance by Hibiki Inamoto whose own compositions evoked the beautiful landscapes and the friendships made, enshrining for me the essence of ???Ichigo Ichie???. I experienced many emotions on this visit , there were times when my faced ached from smiling, so great was the welcome and friendliness, and there were times when I shed tears for the aching beauty of music, landscape and a welcome that I know will never be matched.
I was privileged during my time in Japan to be able to visit Hiroshima and the tranquil images of the peace park and the children???s memorial contrast sharply in my mind with the silhouette of the municipal dome and the jagged remains of a child???s tricycle burned in the explosion. Our guide was a survivor of the bomb who was able to recount her personal memories of this apocalyptic experience. This was one of the most moving experiences not just of my visit, but of my life and has reinforced for me the importance of promoting global citizenship and our responsibility in trying to ensure that such a thing never happens again.
As if all the above were not enough what other things will I remember about my visit?
The cleanliness of the cities, the practicality and efficiency of design of everyday objects, the vending machines (for almost everything), and last but not least the technology of the modern toilets!
What did I learn? Apart from all the obvious things, I learned what it felt like to be speaking a language different from the majority and how difficult it was to express myself adequately. Sharing meals in the classrooms, sharing classroom activities with the teachers and the children was a humbling experience, they were the teachers, I a poor learner with my stumbling Japanese and my efforts to understand the games they taught me and the English they had learned for my benefit. I learned how it felt to have to depend on others for information. I learned too that no matter how far around the world we travel human nature remains the same we have more similarities than differences.
I express my grateful thanks to the Wales Japan Club and Jetro for enabling me to participate in this visit.
Pam Mahoney
