Motivation
I have always wanted to visit Japan, and when I heard the call for applications
to the Rotary International GSE program to Osaka, Japan, I immediately began
the application process. My school superintendent, who is a Rotarian, assured
me that I would be able to go on a leave of absence for the month-long program.
As a high school French teacher, I was interested in learning as much as I
could about the school system in Japan. We often hear about how good Japanese
schools are, especially in the sciences and math, as compared to schools in
the United States, and I wanted to see the differences for myself. I was also
curious about how the schools functioned on a day-to-day basis in Japan. Also,
as a linguist, I wanted to learn more about the Japanese language, both in its
spoken form and in its written form.
Schools in Japan
I was fortunate to visit several educational institutions on the vocational
days during our stay. For my first vocational day, I visited two juku, or after-school
cram schools. Students throughout Japan study for between one and three hours
after school at a cram school. Students work with a tutor, usually a university
student. Each tutor sits between two students at a time, dividing his time between
the two students, and more often than not is working on different subjects.
It is not unusual for the tutor to be working with one student on English, for
example, while working at the same time with another student on math. Approximately
50% of Japanese students attend classes at the juku. For students in their final
year of high school, though, that figure is closer to 90%. These students are
preparing for the university entrance exams and work with a tutor one-on-one.
During the stay, I also visited Ibaraki High School, on the outskirts of Osaka.
Ibaraki High School has a very good reputation for its high-achieving students.
I was fortunate to visit the school and talk with several students. The Japanese
school year begins in April, so we were there just as school was beginning.
The students at Ibaraki High School take five classes at a time, each one lasting
for 65 minutes. The Ministry of Education in Japan has just switched from a
trimester to a semester school year and is eliminating school on Saturday. This
is viewed by most as a positive reform. As the school year was just beginning,
it was too early to tell how it will work. Students are required to study English
in high school. It is usually the only foreign language offered in high school.
From what I noticed, though, more emphasis is given to written than to spoken
English. Most students participate in extra-curricular activities, such as basketball,
martial arts, soccer, dance, the English Speakers Society, and of course baseball.
Many Japanese students ride their bicycles to school, and the bike racks are
always full. Those who do not ride to school often walk. What a big difference
between Japanese suburban high schools and my American suburban high school!
All Japanese students are required to wear a uniform. As students enter the
school building, they first go to their lockers to remove their street shoes
and put on their school slippers. After the juku and their homework, Japanese
students have very little free time. I also visited three post-secondary institutions
in the Osaka area: Kansai University, Osaka University, Baika College for Women,
and Kansai Japanese Language Institute for Foreigners. I was very impressed
by the facilities at the universities, especially at Kansai University. I sat
in on an English class doing exercises at a state-of-the-art language laboratory.
The students were highly motivated to learn English well, as they were planning
to study in the United States. At the end of the class, students asked me questions,
mostly about the university system in the United States. Kansai University also
has many other facilities available for students who wish to learn a foreign
language. The university library is quite extensive. There are many videos available
for both instructors and students in the foreign language building, and there
are facilities available for making high-quality video programming.
Japanese Language
The Japanese language was a challenge for me. Most of the languages I have
studied are Indo-European languages and therefore have certain similarities
in structure and vocabulary. Japanese is not related to European languages,
and so I had to start with the very basic introduction to the language. I could
not depend on any known (to me) rules or roots to help me. After studying the
Japanese grammar, though, I quickly found out that it is surprisingly quite
easy. Japanese verbs do not have a conjugation system as most European languages
do; one form suffices for all three persons, both singular and plural. There
is no future tense, only a present and a past. Verbs at the end of a sentence
fall. Nouns are followed by particles that indicate their grammatical function
in the sentence (subject, topic, direct object, object of a preposition, etc.).
It is at the written level that problems can arise. Westerners look at written
language as a phonetic representation of the spoken word. This is not necessarily
so in Japanese. There are two different
systems (kana) for writing out words which do represent pronunciation. Hiragana
is used for words of Japanese origin, while katakana is used for words of foreign
origin. There are 46 characters in each. The third writing system is kanji,
which was adapted from Chinese. Kanji characters represent a word or idea and
do not reflect pronunciation. There are literally thousands of kanji characters,
and not everyone knows all of them. It is therefore difficult even for Japanese
sometimes to read words written in kanji. Some words will combine both kana
and kanji, and it is not unusual to find sentences containing all three systems.
For foreigners the kanji system is the most daunting aspect of Japanese. With
a little effort, however, it is possible to learn a few basic kanji right away.
I tried to learn a new kanji character every day throughout the last two weeks
of the exchange.
Food
One of my favorite pastimes is cooking. I was amazed at the variety of foods
offered in Japan. The Japanese try to experience as many flavors as possible
during the course of a day. Lunch and dinner will include smaller portions of
many different things, rather than larger portions of a few dishes. For lunch,
we quite often ate bento. This is a box containing four compartments, each with
a different type of dish. One might find one shrimp, one piece of tuna and/or
another fish, a couple of pieces of tempura, one piece of gyoza or shumai (dumplings),
a small dish of vegetables, all accompanied by a bowl of miso soup and another
bowl of rice. Great care is taken in the presentation of food, as looks are
nearly as important as taste. Most of my host families were quite shocked to
know that I do all the cooking at home, as it seems that that is not part of
the traditional male role. I was able to cook once while in Japan. I was quite
surprised by how expensive food is in Japan.
Conclusion
I am very grateful to Rotary International and Rotarians of District 6270 for giving me the opportunity of fulfilling my life-long dream of visiting Japan. It allowed me to pursue my interests in schools, linguistics, food, religion, history, and of course shopping (I gained quite a reputation among the group as the one who spent the most time and yen shopping). I was able to draw my own conclusions about Japan and the Japanese. I found the Japanese people to be rather reserved at first, but once you get to know them, they are warm and generous and extremely friendly. I thank also the Rotarians of District 2660, my host families, and others who contributed to making my stay in Japan so memorable. I hope that talking about my experiences in Japan at my high school has motivated and will motivate my students to go there themselves and experience some of the wonderful things that I did.
