Kakuta Haruo---Decoding Japan---

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Location: Sakai, Osaka, Japan

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

1993

Wednesday, June 30, 1993.
I have started translating "Socialism" by Melvyn Dubofsky from early this week, and made a text file "SISM_US.PEN" today. If I do half a page a day, I can finish the work by the end of this summer.

Friday, July 2, 1993.
There should be some difference between working and labouring. I can work even during my labour time. I, however, must not let labouring steal into my non-labour time. This labouring includes not only my duty as a job taker but also as a care taker. Looking after my children have to be fun.

Wednesday, July 21, 1993.
The Institute for World Socialism The Institute for World (Fundamental) Political Economy How about promoting a kind of studying organization like above? There, we should research sosialisms or radical economics around the world. Its aim is learning variety kinds of ideas to break through blockades around us.

Monday, August 9, 1993.
I've come to contact with two foreigners in Japan: a conservative and a Trotskist. I may exchange some ideas in English. My purpoce, to set up sosialism forum among foreign residents in Japan, still has a long way to go.

Friday, August 13, 1993.
Blache was surprisingly predicting post-indutrious society. (See \booknote\Blache)

Wednesday, September 22, 1993
Now my main interest has come to lie in poverty, education and development.

Monday, January 30, 2006

1992

Saturday, December the 12th, 1992.
I have read the Daily Yomiuri for more than half a year, amd I'm a little bit tired of its contents. How about stop it and start reading the Economist instead? The formar costs \25,200 a year; the latter \26,000. I, however, have to prepay for the weekly.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A Special English Class

We are planning an English class to have our students make "a radio actor/actress." In the class, the students will replace actor's/actress' spoken words with theirs. They record their words, make a sound file, substitute it for the actor's/actress' spoken words datum on a video editing software.
What name should it have?

Saturday, January 21, 2006

An Omelet in Kishiwada

We visited a cafe in front of Kishiwada High School. A friend of his had told him omelets there were delicious. The chef's recomendation omelet was on a hot iron plate. It was rather crispy than soft, while soft omelets are in fashion in Japan today. The cooked rice in it didn't taste ketchup against a tacit rule in Japanese society. Treachery could sometimes taste sweet. Most omelets in Japan usually have rice lapped in them or capped with them, and are called OMU-RAISU. Others have noodles likewise, and are named OMU-SOBA. I sometimes miss a champignon omelete.

Winter vs Spring

Bamboos rustle under a soft sun light in a cold air. A coupel of their sprays already have scrolled young leaves. Sui-Kin-Kutsu, namely a water-harp-hollow, plays a music-box-like tune. The cold air brings the sounds clear.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Schezophrenic

Our identity is divided, as we are merchandized; we have an identity as a commodity, and have an identity as a human. As we are merchandized more than once, each time as a different commodity, we have a couple of commodity ME's.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Schizophrenia

Our identity is divided, first culturally. We have at least two cultural identities in ourselves: local, ethnic, domestic or national ME, and global ME. As globalism and glocalism proceed, we sometimes have a couple of local ME's.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Schizoids

We are schizoids. In today's Imperial World, that is the mixture of globalism and capitalism, we are all both culturally schizophrenic and merchandizedly schizophrenic. Our identity is divided, first culturally. We have at least two cultural identities in ourselves: local, ethnic, domestic or national ME, and global ME. As globalism and glocalism proceed, we sometimes have a couple of local ME's. Our identity is divided, as we are merchandized; we have an identity as a commodity, and have an identity as a human. As we are merchandized more than once, each time as a different commodity, we have a couple of commodity ME's.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Japanese Communication Project

I High School of Osaka Prefecture is starting a Japanese Communication Project. If you are interested in communicating with a Japanese high school student by writing e-mails in Roma-ji or Hira-gana, please send us your e-mail address with the following information:
1 Would like to take part in a Japanese mailing list, "nihongo-ml."
2 Would like to have an e-mail pen pal.
Please indicate either 1 or 2, or both 1 and 2.
If you would like to have an e-mail pen pal (it means you have chosen 2), we would do our best to find out you a buddy. To help our effort, please do not forget to add your own profiles and, if you have any preferences for your buddy, the wish-list of your would-be buddy’s profiles.
If you have any questions or requests, please do not hesitate to tell us.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Foreign Affairs Class based on Model United Nations, 2002

Here we introduce our Foreign Affairs Class for the third-year students in the International Course during the school year 2002. This year Daniel Wilcock and I taught for the first term, while Erica Crump and I for the second and the third term. We employed Speaking Globally English in an International Context (Prentice Hall Regents) as our textbook.
This school year we organized our classes mainly around country reports and debating based on the Model United Nations Conference. 28 students took part in the class, which became 29 in September when an exchange student returned from Denmark. We divided the students into 9 groups of 3 or 4 students. Each of the groups represented one of the following countries: Brazil, France, India, Kenya, Korea, Malayasia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, USA.

We teachers chose the countries, based on the geographic diversity of geographic regions, economies, political perspectives, cultures, and religions. Each group was a representative body in the General Assembly of the Model United Nations. The Foreign Affairs Class met during two consecutive periods one day a week. At the beginning of each class, two countries deliver a country report.

During the country report, each of the country group members presents one of the following : spoken presentation, display, and handout.

We had two rounds of country reports. In the first round we asked the students to focus on the geographic information in the first round, and to cover the following five points in their first Country Report: 1) Brief History, 2) Ethnicity / Language,
3) Religion, 4) Weather, 5) Fisheries / Agriculture / Industries.
In the second round, each representative body presented their culture as actively as possible.

After country reports the class rest of the first period was spent discussing and writing about international topics. This was based on the textbook Speaking Globally (SG, hereinafter).

SG has 10 units:Unit 1: International EnglishUnit 2: International TravelUnit 3: International Business and TradeUnit 4: The EnvironmentUnit 5: EthnocentrismUnit 6: World ReligionsUnit 7: World OrganizationsUnit 8: International LawUnit 9: International EducationUnit 10: The Future

We started with the text’s “Warming Up” exercises to have the students acquire some information and related vocabularies in an active style. First the students read the “Background Reading” in SG, and then we teachers introduced related vocabularies and provided some activities or quizzes.
About ten minutes before the end of the first period, we introduced the topic for the debate.

Daniel preferred questions like “Should immigration be made easier?” to which the students can reply either Yes/No or Pro/Con, and we employed the style to the end of this school year.

In the final minutes of the first period, the representative bodies start preparing for the Debate Part I.

Then the students take their ten minute break.Even during the ten minutes break, some students kept preparing or talking about the related issues.

After the break, the representative bodies spend the first ten minutes of the second period preparing for the debate. After this, the debate part I gets started, and the ambassador to the United Nations from each country (one student from each group) delivers their opinion one by one. We demand that the students listen to the other opinions, as much as they concentrate delivering their own.

Some students focus only on their speech with paying little attention to the others. That is strongly against our implicit purpose in foreign affairs class. We need dialogues in this world, not plural monologues. We, however, tell the students about the strategic importance of paying careful attention to the different opinions. They should try to pick up some demands or ideas in the other statements, so as to make their own in the Debate Part II more appealing to the other representative bodies. This will help them form a majority around their standpoint in the final voting.

Next comes an intermission, during which the representative bodies prepare for the next speech. After the internmission, we start part II of the debate.

At the end of the second round of debating speeches, we have the final voting for Yes/No or Pro/Con (including Undecided). It seems a topic which leads to the divided or split voting result will make the debate more interesting.
SG only contained enough themes and topics for the first half of the school year.

For the second half of the school year, Erica and I chose to have students think of topics by themselves. The students also changed their countries to broaden their understanding. This time we let the students decide their countries, though we did not forget to remember them that the balance among regions and cultures was very important. First each student named favorite countries, and we listed them all. They voted and chose 9 new countries. Luckily enough, the choice had diversity, thanks to the students’s sense of proportion. The countries were: Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa.
We started our second half by making up themes. Each student picked two or three themes. They talked about the themes, and reduced the number into nine. One theme was given to each of the new representative bodies by lot, and each country started thinking of a topic for their theme. The themes and topics were:1) FoodShould food waste be taxed?2) MarriageShould gay marriage be allowed in each country?3) AnimalShould each government ban animal tests even for medical experiments?4) MusicShould each country stop illegal music copying?5) SportsShould the UN donate the place where everyone can play sports?6) DrugsShould UN recommend each country to make common regulations of drugs?7) TradeShould we extend globalism in world trade?8) EnvironmentShould each country spend the money to think about global warming?9) TerrorismShould the international court decide who are the terrorists?
We organized classes almost the same way as the first half. However, since we lacked a textbook, we had a little bit hard time preparing introductory materials to provide the students some background knowledge and related vocabularies. We also tried to do the introduction actively.
I would like to introduce some voices of the participants:
One student who had not been interested in the world news says:

“One day, when I was reading a newspaper, I noticed that I could understand the problems, and felt very close to the countries than ever.”

I thought that was the foreign affairs class’s effect, explaining the start of her interest in the international topics.

Another student writes about the change of her view on developing countries:

“Before taking Foreign Affairs classes, I thought that the developing countries are only poor, lacking food, having a lot of refugees and so on. But after taking Foreign Affairs classes, I knew the developing countries have high culture, traditional religion, traditional clothes and so on. These things are very interesting for me. Each country has different characteristics. It is very wonderful. That is the world. Sadly enough, we don’t understand it. There are fictional images of foreign countries in our minds. We see others through the lens. I found the misunderstanding, and discovered new aspects of the countries in this class. I could remove the lens.”

These words remind me of my happiness and luckiness to teach this unique class: foreign affairs.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Web Pages in English on Kishiwada

Izumi High School:
http://www.osaka-c.ed.jp/izumi/english/index.html

Kishiwada City
http://www.city.kishiwada.osaka.jp/index_e.html

Kishiwada Castle
http://www.reggie.net/album.php?albid=811
http://www.mydome.or.jp/travel/sight/list/P39KishiwadaCastle.html

Kishiwada Tourism
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/RTG/RI/kansai/osaka/sakai_kishiwada/sakai_kishiwada.html

Kishiwada Danjiri Festival
http://www.mydome.or.jp/travel/event/list/X086KishiwadaDanjiri.html
http://www.infonet.co.jp/Aso/win/int-news/1997/in970906.htm

List of Hospitals
http://www.pref.osaka.jp/osaka-pref/iryo/medicalinfo/37.htm

Kishiwada Fishing
http://www.kansai.gr.jp/culture/nature/spot/fishing/ichimo_e.htm

KIPPO News
http://www.kansai.gr.jp/KansaiWindowHtml/News/2002-e/20020424_NEWS.HTML

Japanese Language Classes
http://www.city.matsubara.osaka.jp/osakaes/12-12-2.html

Discrimination in Kishiwada
http://blhrri.org/blhrri_e/news/new095/new09503.htm

Pufferfish Museum
http://bahama.jgi-psf.org/fugu/html/nyt_art

Women’s History by Women in Kishiwada
http://www.kisweb.ne.jp/personal/batw/womeninkishiwada.html

Kishiwada Brewery
http://www.beerme.com/breweries/jp/ki/index.shtml

The Class Based on Model United Nations

―――The Foreign Affairs Class in the school year 2002―――
Here we introduce our Foreign Affairs Class for the third-year students in the International Course during the school year 2002. This year Daniel Wilcock and I taught for the first term, while Erica Clump and I for the second and the third term. We employed ”Speaking Globally ---English in an International Context---”(Prentice Hall Regents) as our textbook.
This year, from the start to the end, we organized our classes mainly around the Country Report and debating in the form of the Model United Nations Conference. 28 students took part in our FA Class, which made 29 after September as an exchange student to Denmark returned. We divided the students into 9 groups, and had each of the groups represent one of the following countries: Brazil, France, India, Kenya, Korea, Malay, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, USA. We teachers chose the countries, based on the geographic diversity of cultures and religions. Each group was a representative body in the General Assembly of the Model United Nations.
The Foreign Affairs Class has two successive periods a week. At the beginning of the first period, two of representative bodies make their own Country Report. Members of each representative body share three rolls: the Speaker, the Display, and the Handout in their Country Report. We had two rounds of country reports, and asked the students to focus on the geographic information in the first round, and to cover the following five points in their first Country Report: 1) Brief History, 2) Ethnicity / Language, 3) Religion, 4) Weather, 5) Fisheries / Agriculture / Industries. In the Country Report Round II, each representative body present their culture as actively as possible.
The debating section was basically based on the textbook ”Speaking Globally”(SG, hereinafter) SG has 10 units:
Unit 1: International English
Unit 2: International Travel
Unit 3: International Business and Trade
Unit 4: The Environment
Unit 5: Ethnocentrism
Unit 6: World Religions
Unit 7: World Organizations
Unit 8: International Law
Unit 9: International Education
Unit 10: The Future
After the Country Report section, we put up the Warming Up Exercise to have the students acquire some information and related vocabularies in an active style. First the students read the ’Background Reading’ in SG, and then we teachers introduce related vocabularies and provide some activities or quizzes.
About ten minutes before the end of the first period, we introduce the Today’s Topic. Daniel preferred the Today’s Topic offered in the style like “Should immigration be made easier?”, which means in the form to which we can reply either Yes/No or Pro/Con, and we employed the style to the end of this school year. Anyway, the representative bodies start preparing for the Debate Part I. Even during the ten minutes break, some students keep preparing or talking with an ALT on the related issues. The representative bodies keep preparing during the first ten minutes in the second period.
The Debate Part I gets started, and the ambassador to the United Nations from each country delivers their opinion one by one. We demand the students should listen to the other opinions, as much as they concentrate delivering their own. Some students focus only on their speech with paying little attention to the others. That is strongly against our implicit purpose in the Foreign Affairs Class. We need dialogues in this world, not plural monologues. We, however, tell the students the strategic importance of paying careful attention to the different opinions. They should try to pick up some demands or ideas in the other statements, so as to make their own in the Debate Part II more appealing to the other representative bodies, which makes it more likely to form majority around their standpoint in the final voting. So after the Intermission, during which the representative bodies prepare for the next speech, we start the Debate Part II. At the end of the period, we have the final voting for Yes/No or Pro/Con (including Undecided). It seems a topic which leads to the divided or split voting result will make the debate more interesting.
 SG can provide themes and topics only for the first half of the school year. As we should make up themes and topics by ourselves, Erica and I chose to have students think of them by themselves. The students also asked for changing their countries to broaden their aspects. When we approached to the end of the first half of the school year, September, we started choosing countries first. This time we let the students decide their countries, though we did not forget to remember them that the balance among regions and cultures was very important. First each student named favorite(?) countries, and we listed them all. They voted and chose 9 new countries. Luckily enough, the choice had diversity, thanks to the students’ sense of proportion. The countries are: Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa.
“Let's make up ‘Today's Topic’!”, this is where and how we started our second half. Each student pick up two or three themes for their interests. They talk about them, and reduce the number into nine. One theme will be given to each of the new representative bodies by lot, and they start thinking of a topic for their theme. The themes and topics are
Today's Topics in the Second Half
1) Food
Should food waste be taxed?
2) Marriage
Should gay marriage be allowed in each country?
3) Animal
Should each government ban animal tests even for medical experiment?
4) Music
Should each country stop illegal music copying?
5) Sports
Should the UN donate the place where everyone can play sports?
6) Drugs
Should UN recommend each country to make common regulations of drugs?
7) Trade
Should we extend globalism in world trade?
8) Environment
Should each country spend the money to think about practice measure of global warming?
9) Terrorism
Should the international court decide who are the terrorists?
We organize classes almost the same way as in the first half. We, however, lack a textbook which we base on, and had a little bit hard time preparing introductory materials which will provide the students some background knowledge and related vocabularies. We also try to do the introduction actively.
I would like to introduce some voices of the participants.
One student who had not been interested in the world news says: “One day, when I was reading a newspaper, I noticed that I could understand the problems, and felt very close to the countries than ever. I thought that was the Foreign Affairs’ classes’ effect.”, explaining the start of her interest in the topics. Another student writes about the change of her view on developing countries: “Before taking Foreign Affairs classes, I thought that the developing countries are only poor, lacking food, having a lot of refugees and so on. But after taking Foreign Affairs’ classes, I knew the developing countries have high culture, traditional religion, traditional clothes and so on. These things are very interesting for me.”
“Each country has different characteristic. It is very wonderful. That is the ”world”. Sadly enough, we don’t understand it. There are fictional images of foreign countries in our minds. We see others through the lens. I found the misunderstanding, and discovered new aspects of the countries in this class. I could remove the lens.” These words remind me the happiness and luckiness that I can teach this unique class “Foreign Affairs”.