Tuesday, June 17th
Today we had a nice visit and fruitful exchange of dialogue with 5 women who all either have children in the school district, or who have had children in the district and now have grandchildren here. The one thing I walked away from this visit with was that the schools dominate the lives of the children more than do schools here in America. One parent actually said that the teacher becomes more the parent figure, and the parent is just a support. The students in Junior High in particular are in school until almost 5, then they go home to eat, then go back out the Cram school, if the parents can afford it or if the student needs it, to try and improve skills and gain more knowledge so as to achieve a high score on the high school entrance exam, and thus find their way into a more prestigious school. Cram school is usually in the evening from 7-10 or so, and then the student returns home, perhaps does homework, goes to bed, and does it all over again the next day. These kids are 14. Then, as I mentioned before, Saturdays are often dominated by club activities, which really leaves Sundays for family time. What with the fathers staying out very late every night (or most) drinking with co-workers and bosses, which really is an extension of work and is viewed as compulsory, and the kids being gone so much, the result is a fracturing of the family. Many people have said that they are concerned with the disintegration of the family and the losing of cultural values because they aren’t spending time with one another, and I can understand why.
Today we had a nice visit and fruitful exchange of dialogue with 5 women who all either have children in the school district, or who have had children in the district and now have grandchildren here. The one thing I walked away from this visit with was that the schools dominate the lives of the children more than do schools here in America. One parent actually said that the teacher becomes more the parent figure, and the parent is just a support. The students in Junior High in particular are in school until almost 5, then they go home to eat, then go back out the Cram school, if the parents can afford it or if the student needs it, to try and improve skills and gain more knowledge so as to achieve a high score on the high school entrance exam, and thus find their way into a more prestigious school. Cram school is usually in the evening from 7-10 or so, and then the student returns home, perhaps does homework, goes to bed, and does it all over again the next day. These kids are 14. Then, as I mentioned before, Saturdays are often dominated by club activities, which really leaves Sundays for family time. What with the fathers staying out very late every night (or most) drinking with co-workers and bosses, which really is an extension of work and is viewed as compulsory, and the kids being gone so much, the result is a fracturing of the family. Many people have said that they are concerned with the disintegration of the family and the losing of cultural values because they aren’t spending time with one another, and I can understand why.
After the meeting with the parents, we went to a very nice lunch reception attended by the Mayor, the Superintendent, other officials, and at least one member of our host families that we will be staying with this weekend. Here is a picture of the wife in my family.
The husband is a 33 year old Doctor, she was trained as a nurse, but is staying home with the kids right now, and they have a 5 year old girl and a 4 year old boy.
After this, we went on a 45 minute boat tour of the Port of Kashima, to see the industries, and then were allowed to tour one of the KAO plants.
They make chemicals and products such as toner ink for printers (1 out of every 3 pieces of paper printed on in the world has their toner on it), as well the super-absorbent and non-biodegradable stuff in diapers. They also make detergents or the ingredients for detergents like Tide. They own the company Jergens, so if you have any of those products, they are really Kao’s products. I would have taken pictures of the factory, but no photography was allowed.We completed the day with a visit to a futuristic looking observatory in Minato Park, which gave us a bird’s eye view of not only the Port we had just toured earlier, but also of the city itself.
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