Friday, February 7, 2003

What I did today Today, I... Went into Hiroshima on a shuccho (a business trip) for the first time in ages; Went to Tokyu Hands and bought a new briefcase; Had lunch at the Starbucks near Chuden-mae; Went to the ANA Hotel for a conference; Rushed back to Etajima for another meeting as soon as the Hiroshima conference had finished; Finally finished around 9 o'clock, and caught a taxi to Seinen-no-ie for the last hour of taiko practice; Started a new feature on the Breakfast Show: 'Pick of the Photos'.

Today I had my first shuccho (business trip) to Hiroshima in about six months. I went to the ANA Hotel for the Kokusai Kyoiku Kyoryoku Kondankai Shinpojiamu- basically, a conference on International Education. ...Except that it didn't really seem to be about International Education that much at all. From 1 o'clock, I sat through a succession of speakers (mostly university-based), all of whom (1) went over their time limit and (2) seemed to speak only about what they'd been doing- a sort of self-publicity exercise. Of course they tried to link their exploits to International Education, but in many cases the links were at most tenuous. The best speech was actually made by a group of high school students, who'd been to China to study desertification, and to try to help by planting trees. I think in fact that this was a good example of what the conference was about- as much as 'International Education', it was about 'Education internationally'- in other words, it was concerned not just with the process of teaching Japanese children about the wider world, but also with the concept of going out into that wider world to learn oneself. There was one particularly useful speech, though, made by a teacher from an elementary school in Saijo, which gave me a few ideas for my work in Etajima. After a break, there were two panel discussions. Again, though, they seemed not to touch on the subject at hand in anything more than the most tangential fashion. By this time, most of the audience had abandoned all pretence of listening to the speakers; there were a fair few people sleeping with their heads on the tables! The rest of the people were clearly restless, which was due in part to the fact that the speakers weren't interesting, to the fact that they were going way over time (and the coordinator was making no concessions to this fact), and to the fact that the room was like a greenhouse. Why are public rooms like this in Japanese hotels always heated as if the next Ice Age has arrived? Anyway, the conference finally finished some 40 minutes late- so nearly five hours of speeches!- and I rushed off to try and get back to Etajima in time for my next meeting, beginning at 7 o'clock. I made it, but with literally seconds to spare. I have to say that a shuccho made a nice change, but all the same I won't be rushing to go to this conference if it's held next year.

The second conference of the day, back in Etajima, was a setsumeikai- an 'explanation meeting'- for the five high school students going to England, and their parents. Because of the conference in Hiroshima running over by so much, I really did make the meeting with seconds to spare. Nevertheless, it was worth having to rush back- talking to the children (and to their parents) I really got the feeling that they were enthusiastic about visiting Britain, and willing to put in the time and effort to learn a little about the country before they go. This may sound like it should be obvious- given that the children have applied to go, it's only natural that they should be enthusiastic- but in fact, in previous years I haven't got this impression from the children. In fact, one year the girls made it obvious that all they were interested in was shopping. Anyway, whether the children this year do actually make the effort to read about Britain before they go remains to be seen, but at least this time round I'm confident that the pre-departure study sessions I'm in charge of won't be a complete waste of my time.

Pick of the Photos The first Pick of the Photos. This time's photo is of a shishi- a lion- holding one of my kagura bachi. This photo was taken at the Kojinja Matsuri, held in the shrine in the hills above Washibe, in autumn 2002.

A day to go down in infamy. Today in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was signed in the Netherlands (in Maastricht, oddly enough).