AUGUST 11, 1978 PAGE 9
A Few Words About Japan
by Roger T. Stwyer
million people (that’s over half
of America’s population) which
lives on an island no bigger than
California, you get the feeling of
being lost quite often. Especially
when very few can speak En
glish.
Through the Council on In
ternational Educational Ex
change (CIEE) program, Tam
my Brown, Cassie Caldera,
Jeanette Cannon, and I were
fortunate to be given the op
portunity to travel to Japan for
one month.
Food
WHAT IS CIEE?
CIEE is a program set up to
organize the exchange of
from America to Japan and
vice-versa. CIEE takes care of
the business end of the deal for
exchange students. CIEE re
quired us to pay $1097 and fill
out “toe little bit” papers before
we were allowed to go. CIEE
sends an average of 100 students
to Japan every summer from
various schools throughout the
United States.
Our “Sister” High School
Our “sister” high school, is
Onomichi Higashi (East Ono
michi). Located about 1,000
miles south of Tokyo on the
coast of the Inland Sea, Ono
michi Higashi has around 700
students.
Japanese students are very
samrt. I found this to be sur
prising because they didn’t seem
to listen to the teacher. While
the teacher was lecturing, stu
dents would be talking and
laughing among themselves. Ja
panese students spend a large
amount of their time at home
studying and often study all
night when finals are coming up.
While we were going to
school at Onomichi Higashi we
wore the school uniform. Boys
wore black pants with a white
shirt and girls wore a sailor-type
top and a blue skirt.
Classes are 50 minutes long
with a ten-minute break between
each class. Six classes are held
on weekdays and four classes
are held on Saturday. Instead of
the students going to different
rooms for each class, the tea
cher comes to the students’
homeroom to teach.
School was often excused
early if the weather got too hot.
Most students belong to a
club and go to it regularly. Boys
clubs are guitar, baseball,
Kendo, soccer, and basketball to
name a few. Girls clubs are
cooking, sewing, dancing, flower
arranging, tea ceremony, and
others that will enable them to
become cultured and practical
wives.
T
Our Role In School
The major thing for us to do
was teach English and speak in
English classes. But we also
attended regular classes such as
calligraphy, Kendo (men), sew
ing (girls), leathercraTt, Ja
panese literature, Japanese'lan-
guage, and music.
Music is one class which
none of us will ever forget. We
all had to sing a solo in front of
the class. Cassie sang “Oh
Clementine,” Tammy crooned
“Beautiful Dreamer,”-and I cut
loose with “Cotton Fields.” (toe
good).
Teaching English was fun
because we had to speak slowly
and repeat what we said over
and over at times. Japanese
start learningJEnglish when they
reach the seventh grade. Some
Japanese can speak English
well, but they are too shy to use
it because they think they’ll
make a mistake. Many Japanese
are amazed at how fast we can
speak English but that’s because
they have never heard anybody
speak it well and fast.
Japanese People
Japanese people are mostly
short so this made us feel like
we were giants. Tammy noticed
this on our return when, as we
were leaving the Los Angeles
International Airport she re
marked, “Goll, we’re short
again.”
When you’re in a country
that has a population of over 113
FENCING - An attractive lodgepole fence encircles the playground in the mobile home park. The result
of two weeks of sweat, muscle and good humor on the part of Dawn Squiemphen’s summer work crew.
The poles and the plans were provided but the crew had to work out the details of construction. Other
projects have included clearing fire hazardous brush away from Senior Citizen’s homes, painting the
Warm Springs sign on the hill and sprucing up the longhouses.
>
CDS Photo
The major food consumed
by Japanese is by far rice. Rice
is eaten at every meal. Fish
runs a close second with tea not
far behind. Every food is eaten
with chopsticks, too.
Some of the favorite foods of
Japanese are shrimp, crab, oc
topus, squid, mushrooms, nood
les, eel, and many familiar
vegetables. Japanese women
especially favor sushi, which is
raw fish.
While we were in Tokyo, we
snuck off to a MacDonald’s and
forced down some burgers. And
it wasn’t very hard to find a
Dairy Queen, Kentucky Fried
Chicken, or other familir Ameri
can places.
Along with every meaLtea is
drunk. But we preferred soda
pop with our meal. Beer, whis
key, and wine were also avail
able.
Cola is a favorite drink in
Japan. Both Coca-Cola and
Pepsi-Cola have outlets in Ja
pan.
Beer is another favorite of
Japanese. Slightly stronger than
American beer, a couple bottles
can make a person pretty well
swacked. Some brand names
are Kirin, Sapparo, Suntory, and
Asahi. Beer can be purchased
out of vending machines which
can be found on every street
corner in any town.
Sake is the traditional drink.
Because it is brewed from rice,
it is often called rice wine. Sake
is known to sneak up on Ameri
cans.
Transportation
Japan’s means of travel is
by train, bus, taxi, motorbike,
bicycle, street car, car, or by
foot.
If you only need to go a short
distance a bicyle can do the job.
But if you want to go a long
distance, the bullet train is the
best way to go. The bullet train
is the fastest train in the world
and can travel up to 130 miles
an hour.
Taxis are expensive but
numerous. This is obvious at
night time because that’s when
you can see the lights on the
roofs of their cars.
Few families own their own
car because they have no place
to keep it and the upkeep is too
expensive.
Recreation
Some things that families do
for fun include going camping,
going to baseball games, swim
ming, going to the theatre, or a
number of other things.
There are six working days
in Japan so every Sunday is
considered a time for vacation
and fun. They travel to different
cities to spend the day.
One day the Tokyo Giants
were in Hiroshima to play the
local team. My host-father de
cided to go so he told my
host-brother to interpret for me.
As it turned out, the home-run
king of the world is a relative of
my host family. So we went to
Hiroshima to meet him in per
son. Mrs. Cannon and I were
lucky enough to meet that guy,
and how proud I was and still
am. Mr. Oh, as he is called, has
set a goal of 800 home runs.
When I left he was getting closer
and closer with 788. Maybe he
reached 800 by now.
Anyway ...
Speaking for us all, I’m
sure, we all had a great time
and lots of fun. It was extremely
difficult for us to say “see you”
because we’ll never see our
friends for a long time. But next
year we’ll see our friends when
they come visit their “sister”
school, and we all plan to return
to Japan again, someday . . .