Japan

Today was our free day to explore. I decided to take the Ginza Line (subway) from the hotel to Shibuya, one of the world's busiest business districts. Tokyo's subway system is the most elaborate of any I've seen anywhere in the world, consisting of 15 lines, not including private railways.

My hotel is very close to the G05 (Akasaka-mitsuke) station at exit D, and Shibuya is "at the end of the line" at G01. The subway was clean, the passages wide. I'm sure my experience would have been considerably different had this been a weekday, but the space was not overly crowded at all on this holiday Saturday, well, not until I got to Shibuya.

The Shibuya station itself was very large, several stories above ground and below. People were teeming about going in every direction. Fortunately, upon arrival, I was able to make sense out of the exit signs to find my way to the street. Outside of the subway station was a sea of people. This area is indeed New York City's Times Square on steroids.

The streets of Tokyo, under the best of circumstances, are, like most of the major cities of the world, tremendously confusing. They frequently "V" off into multiple directions which then "V" off into other directions. One can easily lose your place. However, in this area, all streets seemed to come to one central area: the place where the subway station was. The station was like the center of the bicycle wheel.

Since I didn't have a street map (and doubt it would have done any good to have had one as everything is in Japanese) I had a systematic strategy: never veer to the right when the street splits, always stay to the left; go down each street as far as I wanted and then work my way back. As I headed back to the subway station I would explore each of the "V" splits, going off to the right this time.

My strategy was successful as I never got lost, and I think I explored just about every single block of this enormously compacted area for about a 2 mile radius from the center subway station. Here are some observations:

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Continue reading "Shibuya" »

Posted by Dr. Tyson at 7:16 AM | Permalink

This morning I got up at 4:00AM to meet up with 4 other educators to catch a taxi to the Tsukiji Fish Market. I lived on the Gulf Coast as a child but never have seen such a thing. It was time!

The taxi dropped us off several blocks from the market, and in Tokyo, which is densely packed, that means you will never find it without asking people where it is. The people in this area must be accustomed to english speakers asking for directions to the market as they all smiled graciously and pointed us in the direction to walk.

It was still dark, and I have never seen so many people working so hard. The entire market area is enormous: blocks and blocks of wall to wall shops all jammed in together. Small, odd shaped little gas-powered carts (pictured) speeding about everywhere. I was a bit worried we would be run over. The area is extremely congested.

As we got closer and closer to the market, we saw metal trays and styrofoam containers stacked to the ceilings, all full of seafood. Many times open containers of ice had exotic fish packed in them for display to sell. The smell of seafood was mixed with the dense smell of the little odd-shaped gas powered vehicles: much the same smell of the oily exhaust from a lawnmower. The activity seemed like chaos to my untrained eye, but I am certain that everything was highly choreographed and organized.

Finally we arrived at a door the said both in Japanese and English: "Visitor Passage Entrance." When we walked in I saw hundreds of enormous frozen tuna, which had been weighed when they were brought into the warehouse off of the boats, being lined up on the wet floor. The fish handlers seemed to line then up by size and weight. Each fish had a sticker attached to it indicating how much it weighed.

The large tuna had all been de-gilled, de-tailed, gutted, and frozen on the ship when caught. When the frozen fish were first brought in, the floor in this large warehouse had "smoke" like that from dry ice hovering over it. The room was cold from the frozen fish. Inspectors went about determining the quality of the fish meat by cutting around the tail.

The auction began at 5:30AM with auctioneers sort of singing and dancing up and down to get the highest price for their fish while their customers quietly raised their thumbs to purchase. The auctioneers are the men facing the people who were bidding on the fish. The auctioneer in the center of the picture got into it the most. The whole selling process went very fast, less than five minutes.

We also walked down several blocks further to see the live fish section. Amazing! Live, squiggling eels were scooped up in large nets and placed on a huge wooden trough. The fish monger then grabbed them and threw them into large vats to sort them by size. The eels were not happy!

I've never really seen anything quit like this before. One of the guys from our group had arrived at 3:30AM. He told us that one of the fish monger driving one of the strange little buggies showed him how to drive the bizarre contraption and let him drive a tuna from the boat to the warehouse! Amazingly, we were later told than Japan eats more seafood than any other nation in the world. All of the fish we had seen today would be eaten today in the Japanese restaurants!

Moral of the story, "If you are a fish, stay away from the waters near Japan!"

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Posted by Dr. Tyson at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Kyoko Jones coordinates the Fulbright Memorial Fund Program in Japan. Perhaps because once again the United States is gripped with fear and embroiled in another war, I found Kyoko Jones' remarks tonight at the Welcome Reception in Tokyo deeply moving. I asked her if she would share them with me in print so I could share them with you. She graciously agreed, and I post them here in their entirety.

Some things that we take for granted initially come as surprises. Americans are decent people. The Japanese are decent people. Sixty years ago we were shocked to discover this about each other. American children had learned that “Japs” were underhanded, back stabbing sneaks who started the war. Japanese children learned that American marines were monsters willing to kill their own grandmothers. While these images were exaggerations, the hatreds and fears underlying them were real.

The attack on Pearl Harbor, the death march at Bataan and the relentless kamikaze attacks revulsed Americans with their brutality. American efforts to starve Japan into submission, the nightly fire bombings of cities and the terrible carnage of the atomic bombs horrified the Japanese. People on each side were convinced that the others were monsters bent on destroying them. So when the people of Tokyo looked out over the piles of bodies and charred ruins that filled this city, they had little reason to welcome the American conquerors. When the Americans landed to find prison camps filled with emaciated and starving POW’s, they had little reason to feel sympathy for Japan.

There was all the potential for a protracted, bitter guerrilla war. The people of Japan were prepared for this, they had stored arms and had drilled everyone, even young children, in how to kill the enemy. The Americans expected fanatical resistance. Yet instead there was an uneasy peace in which both sides eyed each other warily.

Then gradually something amazing began to happen. It was a quiet thing, a beginning of understanding that the other was not alien, that the other was
indeed human. It had many roots. One of the most important ones sprang from a tiny seed that was planted almost unnoticed in U.S. legislation regarding the disposal of surplus war goods and resources left overseas.

It was a bill written by a young senator from what was then considered a backward rural state. He had realized that the disposal of war properties
could generate the funds needed to achieve one of his dreams. That senator, William Fulbright, had figured out how to turn the weapons of war into the
tools for building peace. He knew that shared educational experiences could bring people together and lead them to recognize and value each other’s common humanity and each other’s unique cultural identities and that that would become the basis for a lasting peace.

Japanese beneficiaries of this vision have gone on to become leaders in business, government, medicine and education. They have guided many of the initiatives that have brought Japan from the edge of starvation, misery and defeat to a position of prosperity and world leadership. So we, Japanese, feel a sense of on, indebtedness or obligation, to the Fulbright program and to the American people.

It still serves as shining examples of how education and international relations can fuse together to build a meaningful peace. It also provided Japan with the inspiration to do something to discharge this debt of honor - so you are here tonight as part of this process. We want you to be aware of this, so that you will recognize the debt that you and we owe to visionaries such as Senator Fulbright.

We feel we can never really repay this debt, which we actually owe to him, and to your parents or grandparents. Many past FMFers say they feel the same way about repaying Japan for this opportunity. But we don’t expect you to repay us, just as Senator Fulbright didn’t expect other countries to repay the U.S. Instead we expect you to feel the obligation to take the things you learn from this program back to your communities to enrich the lives of your students and others in the same way Fulbright scholars have enriched our lives in Japan.

Yet at the same time, we should acknowledge that you are adding to our sense of indebtedness. As you visit schools, towns and homes, you will touch the lives of the people you meet, you will expose them to a vibrant cross-section of America and you will inspire others to undertake their own
voyages of discovery. So in the end, we may be more indebted to America than before, but this sort of debt enhances life by making us more intensely aware of our mutual dependence, more aware of the fact we are true friends, who have freely undertaken obligations to each other, who can see how this has transformed us from being fierce unthinking enemies into people mutually committed to enhancing peace and the quality of life everywhere.
This is what we hope you will take home with you as a lasting treasure, a gift from our nations to each other.

Kyoko Jones 10/04/06

Posted by Dr. Tyson at 9:56 AM | Permalink

Dr. Tsutomu Kimura, Former President of Tokyo Institute of Technology and currently the President of the National Institution for Academic Degrees: responsible for the national accreditation of teachers and policy-making in education

Presented below are some points of interest from Dr. Kirmura's presentation slides. This information was, by and large, not in his actual presentation, which provided a fascinating overview of education in Japan, often running contrary to our perceptions of Japan's schools. The presentation slides themselves will be uploaded when I return to the USA and can scan them.

Education Reform in Japan
• Going on at all levels
• Kindergarten (4 day nursing school) participation is at about 90% for day care
• System in place for about 60 years
• Elementary school at age 6 through age 12
• Lower secondary schools 12 - 15
• Upper secondary schools 15 - 18 (more than 98% go to secondary schools)
• University (including 2 year junior colleges: more than 50% of Japanese youth participate)

The "massification" of higher education is an effort to increase participation in higher education and is going on all over the world.

Japan has a highly centralized educational administration, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and technology (MEXT). MEXT is designed to maintain efficiency and high standards. Government support of teacher salaries has been reduced last year from 50% to 33% to give more control to local authority. Present teacher certification is for life but is about to change to a 10 year renewable process. Japan has 750 universities, 89 of which are state universities under the authority of MEXT.

Illiteracy is considered a disgrace and 100% of Japanese are literate.

However, Japanese children have "serious problems:" excessive competition for university entrance examinations, the existence of "crammies," and deterioration of academic performance. Japanese children have large amounts of knowledge but lack ability to learn and think by themselves and apply their knowledge. They are too focused on the group and lack individual motivation.

Additionally, Japanese children are experiencing a rise in school violence and bullying which is markedly higher in their lower secondary schools (grades 7, 8 , and 9). They demonstrate an insufficient level o kindness to others, respect for life and human rights. The children are excessively competitive on exams, have an underdeveloped moral sense, and a delayed development of independence. The Central Council for Education was re-instated in 1995 to begin to deal with these issues.

"While Japanese have large amounts of knowledge, our students lack ability to learn and think by themselves. Kindness to others, respect for life and human rights are not sufficiently fostered."

Our sense of community before the war was high, but the Japanese are losing their sense of community, especially in the large cities.

"Room to grow" and "zest for living" have both become important key words for educational reform in Japan.

The survey for Social Ethics of High School Students was a survey for students in Japan, the USA, and China, asking if they thought the listed activity was bad. The results are not what Americans would probably think. I will post the results after Mabry students have had an opportunity to take the survey.

The Disciplining by Parents survey (of students from Japan, Korea, USA, UK and Germany) was "Are you told by your parents..."

I will post the results after Mabry students have had an opportunity to take the survey.

"I strongly believe that the lack of discipline from parents at home is the cause of our children's issues, not the performance of our teachers."

The PISA test is of interest indicating that from 1995 to 1999 the following changes took place: the percentage of 8th grade Japanese students who said mathematics was their favorite subject dropped from 53% to 48% while internationally it rose from 68% to 72%. The number of Japanese students who said they enjoyed studying math dropped from 46% to 38%. Those who said they wished to engage in an occupation using math dropped from 24% to 18%. And those who said math was important for daily life dropped from 71% to 62%.

The science statistics in this same survey dropped for Japanese students only 1 to 3%. However in the last indicator, the importance of science for daily life, Japanese students dropped from 48% to 39%.

Teachers were told in 2000 by the Minister of Education that the teaching manual [the Japanese equivalent to our curriculum standards] is only the minimum. The minister said teachers can teach more and should pay attention to individual student interests. They were also told to increase the amount of homework given to students. This statement caused significant increase in student performance.

As part of our Japanese history people would solve geometry problems and hang them in the shrines as a matter of great pride.

Toyota does not use any temp staff but tries to use fulltime employees, unlike other Japanese companies. Temp labor is creating serious problems with "zest for living."

In 2000 Japan reduced the school number of days spent at school from 6 days per week to 5 days per week to foster greater "zest for living."

Japan is making a huge transition from group to individual emphasis in an effort to foster greater "zest for living."

Basically, our perception that students in Japan are doing exceedingly well is not the perception the Japanese have for their educational progress. Therefore reform efforts are underway.

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Posted by Dr. Tyson at 9:00 PM | Permalink

Our flight boarded on time but then was delayed because of a concern about a backup hydraulic pump--not exactly what one wants to hear before flying over the Pacific Ocean for 10 hours. However, the flight proved to be rather uneventful but very tiring. I do not enjoy being seated for long periods of time, let alone being seated in the middle seat of five in rather cramped surroundings.

When we arrived at Narita International Airport, we went through immigration, picked up our luggage, and then went through customs. The gentleman assisting the line at immigration saw my name tag and said, "Tyson!" while smiling and making boxing gestures.

We were greeted by a steady stream of people directing us to the shuttle buses. The luggage carriers are free at the Narita airport, unlike Hartfield/Jackson in Atlanta. They are rather large. We were encouraged to use them as we had to carry our luggage some distance to the bus. Interestingly, these large metal carriers ride up and down the escalators in the airport. I had to do both. Had it come rolling back down the escalator, it would have killed us all, but the contraption works well actually.

The airport is an hour's drive from town. In route we were given yen for our meals during our stay. A typical informal meal should cost about 2,000 yen.

The Hotel, The New Otani, is very, very, very large (comprised of three enormous buildings and the connecting "malls" between them) and very nice, filled with shops, restaurants, and meeting areas. I'm staying on the 35th floor which has an expansive view of the city. I shot the picture on the left when I arrived. The picture on the right was taken of the exact same location in early morning. As one can easily see, the city is densely populated. (I don't know if the clouds are the product of the typhoon brewing in the Pacific or not.)

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Posted by Dr. Tyson at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)