Japanese Language and Literature Students, Class of 2004
 From Ben RobbinsI'm doing well at Oxford, about one third of the way through the Master's program. The atmosphere here is quite rigorous but very exciting; there are speakers and other events every night, and it is just a matter of finding enough time to go and see them. I've started studying Chinese, too, and I am about to begin a dissertation on Japan-China relations. |
As a young girl, professor Shoko Hamano said she wanted to be an actress. Although she never took formal steps to achieve her goal, Hamano brings her dramatic abilities to the classroom instead of the stage.
Hamano, a Japanese professor and this year's recipient of the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Teaching Award, said she uses creativity in her lesson plans. The award, created by President Trachtenberg in memory of his parents, gives an annual $1,000 prize to an outstanding undergraduate teacher. Hamano received the award Friday afternoon at an hour-long ceremony. About 60 students, friends, profes-sors and administrators attended.
During her acceptance speech, Hamano taught the au-dience about the origins of Japanese, which grew out of the Chinese and Korean languages. She also discussed the difficulties of teaching a language that is the "mirror im-age" of English. She said Japanese can be difficult to teach because it is written in what English speakers would see as an inverse order of words.
"Translate each phrase by reversing the order of words in your mind and then everything will be OK," she said.
Hamano said she often hands assignments back to the wrong students, makes obvious mistakes in lecture and speaks to her students in Japanese in public, to force them to use the language.
"We use the Zen method of learning--if you do it long enough, you will get it," she said.
Hamano said she uses role playing in class to help her students comprehend the foreign language.
"I have mastered a number of role types," Hamano said. "For example a ghost, a news anchor, a flight atten-dant."
A native of Japan, Hamano has been working at GW since 1993. She received her B.A. in Cultural Anthropol-ogy from the University of Tokyo in 1976 and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropological Linguistics from the University of Florida.
Prior to coming to GW, Hamano taught at the Univer-sity of California Santa Cruz and served as acting director for the Japanese Language Program at Harvard University.
"So long as we continue to improve the program, I am going to feel sorry for every graduating class because the other classes will be better off," Hamano said. "For this, I sincerely apologize."
Hamano's students said they enjoy their professor's classes because they are different from other courses.
Freshman Andrew Meyer said Hamano's energy in-spired him to continue taking the language beyond his general curriculum requirement.
"I had no idea how much I would like it," he said.
In December, administrators asked for award nomi-nees. About 200 professors were nominated, said Rachel Wyatt, an assistant to the executive vice president for Academic Affairs. After narrowing down the pool to 56 professors, a team of administrators reviewed the nomi-nees' profiles before choosing Hamano.
Hamano said she was struck that her students realized "teachers do make a conscious attempt to create a learning environment."
"I guess I just have really good students," she said.
Two current Japanese students, seniors Mellissa Blackmon and me, had the opportunity to advance goodwill and friendship between Japan and the U.S. as goodwill ambassadors for the 2004 National Cherry Blossom Festival, which was held from March 27 – April 11.
Goodwill ambassadors are selected each year to officially represent the festival at the National Cherry Blossom Festival events. They are chosen for their passion for the Japanese language and culture, outstanding academic background and future Japan-related career goals. If you—both male and female—are interested in applying to be a goodwill ambassador for next year, look for information on the website, www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org.
This year, the festival commemorated the original gift of cherry blossom trees, given to the U.S. by Japan in 1912 during the blossoms peak from March 28 to April 10. In 2004, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and the U.S. The Treaty of Peace and Amity was signed on March 31, 1854.
Highlights of this year’s festival included:
This year’s flower viewing party o-hanami—held on April 9—was both blessed and cursed. Blessed because we had fine weather; cursed because most of the blossoms had already scattered. But that did not dampen the spirits of the 35 students and teachers of GW’s Japanese program. Meeting at the Einstein Monument at 12—Onigiriman was late as usual—the group crossed the street and settled down—athough we moved around a bit due to the wind—for lunch and games.
Hamano sensei led the group in charades and a game of telephone, where students were given a Japanese sentence and had to relate it to a teammate, then to the next teammate, then to the next. A few were difficult but one was so easy that virtually everyone got it correct. As our finale, we had our annual Janken contest, pitting students against each other with a jan-ken-pon… atchi-muite-hoi! This year’s winner was Freshman, XYZ, who then faced last year’s champion, Matt Kajiura. Matt must have been training during the off-season, because he defended his title rather handily…
Did you enjoy your first year of Japanese? Was it challenging? Thrilling? Can't wait to get to the second-year level?
Do you have friends who say, “Oh man! I should've taken Japanese, too” and wish they could join you? Well, they're in luck. The Department of East Asian Lan-guages and Literatures is offering Japanese 001 and 002 during the summer.
Imagine, your friends can take the summer course with Hanami-sensei (he's not as tough as they say), then join you in class for Japn 003 in the Fall Semester! Class meets four times a week for two hours over 12 weeks. First session is May 19 to June 30, and second session is July 6 to August 13.
For the convenience of those who want—or need—to work over the summer, the courses are in the evening, 6 to 8.
For more information, go to see the inside cover. So invite your friends to join you in the Japanese pro-gram
GＷで日本語をべんきょうしましょう。
We would like to welcome the new first-year students in Japanese language. Ours is a program that strives to broaden your horizons and open your mind to a new and different culture. Currently we offer language courses at all levels—from basic to ad-vanced—as well as humanities courses such as Japa-nese Literature in Translation (Fall and Spring) and Japanese Culture Through Film (Spring). We hope you find the language challenging and the program inviting.
This is the eighth year of 「日本語にゅーす」 the Japanese Language Program newsletter. We strive to provide you with information of recent and upcoming events. Students are also a large part of this newsletter and we encourage them to participate in this collective endeavor—as Elizabeth Butler, Jon Gaspar and Ben Robbins have in this issue. If you have any comments or experiences you would like to share with your fellow students concerning Japanese language learning, please contact your professor about your ideas. We look forward to hearing from you.
今年もがんばりましょう
On Friday, October 17, the Japanese program sponsored a study abroad information meeting for underclassmen interested in going to Japan for their junior year abroad. Students—Melissa Blackmon, Elizabeth Butler, Jocelyn Campanaro, Virginia Chan, Roy Harrison, Jon Hill, Ben Robbins—who studied in Japan spoke.
Melissa went to Tokyo through the IES program and stressed the cultural value of the program. While Hanami sensei has questioned the language instruction of this program, Melissa insists that it was a good program for her. She said she was able to live in Japan as the Japanese do and gained invaluable insights into their everyday lives.
Jon Hill regaled us with his visit to China, but it’s too risqué to print here, so you’ll have to ask him personally—he is currently taking Readings in Modern Japanese (Japn107), so you can stalk him there. But he did stay with a family whose son gave him the impression that the Japanese are not as conservative as he thought: the son had a pellet gun—actually, over here this might be con-sidered very conservative.
Ben recounted his adventure in a small town when he was traveling on his own. He had not made a hotel reservation and struck up a conversation with a random youth he saw, and found, to his relief, that this youth had a grandmother who knew some-one who knew someone else who knew a Japanese inn… or something like that.
Roy reminded us of the up and down relation- ships with host families, although ultimately he keeps in touch with his host family even now. And then there was Virginia: She liked to shop at Loft in Shibuya, Tokyo.
NOTE: Some of the info went out late to second-year J-students and many were unable to make the session. Our deepest apologies. But feel free to come and talk to Profs. Hamano or Hanami in there office for additional information. And I’m sure some of the speakers would be more than happy to talk to you if you approached them.
As I rode on the train to get here, I was filled with childish nervousness. I jumped, squirmed, twitched, eyes flickering. I tried in vain to concentrate on my book. Why was I going to a zen temple after all? I'll bike there, I thought at first. But, mountains cut only by rivers and train tracks would have presented a little challenge. In-stead, the train passed through beautiful gorges, masked by a thick sheet of mist and rain.
It poured on the roof of the zendo (zazen hall) last night, just as it had poured all day, soaking my bag. The wind lifted my umbrella, threatened to turn it inside out, pounded a dismal beat during the fifteen minute walk from the Umahori station to Hosenji. As I sat cross-legged that night, I fancied the rain on the roof beating a welcoming song for me.
I tried to concentrate. I can't count as advised. It just doesn't help me. Instead, I decided to chant "ima", now, in my head. Slow and steady—one syllable in, one out. A reminder and an answer to my first question: why am I here?
I realize, I am constantly multi-tasking. While doing one thing, I think of something else. Then, when I arrive at that task, my mind is already thinking ahead. I am never here, never now. Zen asks you to leave the future and the past out of the mind. After a while, you stop fighting through the past, working through memories, thinking about good and bad, and you stop worrying about the future, where you'll be in two years, where you'll be in two days, two second.
You stop fighting that and realize your bum is not going to move from that pillow in the next two seconds, so you might as well live those two bum-on-pillow seconds as exactly what they are, as you and the mind, the body, the zendo, the rain, as you should live all time being exactly what you are do-ing, a connection of mind and body, a flow, a mu. Meditation is constant -- constantly in the present. Wouldn't that be nice.
Many beliefs and religious structures like this, I find just add on to one's insecurities, taking power away from us and giving it to some unseen being. Some of the beliefs in zen Buddhism, however, seem of value: peace, acceptance, awareness. If only it weren't for the structure that inevitably develops with belief the institute of thought. I wish that religions and beliefs were nameless, ideas constantly present, but never captured and contained within walls, books, sutras, mantras, and creeds. "Thou shalt not" is too prevalent a phrase in any established religion. If we we did not need to quantify and unify innately human beliefs, did not feel the need to regulate our neighbors, a friendly check of their manners and morals, then we would not need the pillars of re-ligion. So, I will take little bits of this, I think, as I do from many religions and philosophies. Maybe this has more to offer than most.
I like the idea of radiating tranquility and compassion. I radiate nothing except maybe jittery misgiving, nerv-ous about my next appointment, move, breath.
Breathe.
"Zazen practice is the direst expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking for a human being, there is not other practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life."
Attention please. The study abroad know it all is in. To all students potentially studying abroad, it is wise to consider doing one of two things.
"Why?" you ask. Well, unless you want to spend a lot of time leafing through a dictionary that doesn't have the same word capacity as a small hand held computer, you should take the advice. I bit the bullet and went this weekend. When it comes to Japanese electronic dictionaries (henceforth to be referred to as a denshijisho) one must be certain that there is a jump button. Then any kanji that show up on screen can be easily turned into easily readable hiragana. I was not so mad as to purchase the most expensive denshijisho avalable, but the middle range one I got certainly has enough good qualities to make it worthwhile, most notably a decent number of available words. The study abroad know it all is finished. Unless you are in a situation where you are deciding between buying food or a denshijisho, you won't regret the purchase, but all bets are off if you get a crappy one. Which you won't, if you get one with a jump button.
It is quite interesting when one has the occasion to spend time at GW’s Kogan Plaza. There are benches on which students sit, talking to each other about their days and making plans for when they will meet again. It is fascinating to listen to these bits of conversations, and to try to get to know these other students from what can be overheard.
Within a few minutes of entering the Plaza, I in-evitably recognize another student, and we converse about recent happenings in our lives (usually ex-changing stories of mutual interest). It is best when these conversations take place on a warm, sunny day, as it is most agreeable to be outside at those times. I suppose that a light wind and bright sunlight are hin-drances to getting to class on time.
Time spent in Kogan Plaza is most pleasant with a cup of coffee. There is a vendor adjacent to the square that sells coffee (although not of great qual-ity). Often I go there, and talk to the man selling cof-fee if we both have a minute to spare. “I’ll have a medium coffee, with milk please.” He responds, “Coming right up.” The promptness and pleasure with which he prepares the coffee usually leads me to tip him generously.
Kogan Plaza becomes serene as night approaches and the sky darkens. The throngs of students that in-habit it during the day return to their dorms. It is the best time to sit and think; the quiet permits me to in-trospect, and provides a good end to the day. I sup-pose others would agree with me about nightfall.
左の写真は一昨年前のお花見の時の写真。人が少ないように見えるが、そのとおりだった。だって、雨が降っていて、来てくれた人は本当に少なかった。しかし、とっても楽しくお花見ができた。歌を歌おうとしたが、途中から雨が降りましたので、ＧＷのロームホールに戻ってそこでゲームをしたのだ。
今年の日本語プログラムのお花見の日は、４月４日の金曜日だ。そのかわりに大学でのクラスはない。11時 30分ごろから１時ごろまで、Tidal Basin のそばで、さくらを見て、さくらの木の下でひるごはんを食べる。１１時３０分前に、ホロコースト・ミュージアムの後ろにおべんとう（食べものと飲みもの）を持って来てください。日本語でたくさん話そう。もちろん、ブラウンバッグ・日本語会話はお休み。（雨の時は、ホロコースト・ミュージアムの食堂で話そう。）
Did you enjoy your first year of Japanese? Was it challenging? Thrilling? Can't wait to get to the second-year level?
Do you have friends who say, “Oh man! I should've taken Japanese, too” and wish they could join you? Well, they're in luck. The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures is offering Japanese 001 and 002 during the summer.
Imagine, your friends can take the summer course with Hanami-sensei (he's not as tough as they say), then join you in class for Japn 003 in the Fall Semester! Class meets four times a week for two hours over 12 weeks. First session is May 21 to July 2, and second session is July 7 to August 15.
For the convenience of those who want—or need—to work over the summer, the courses are in the evening, 6 to 8.
For more information, go to: http://www.gwu.edu/~eall/acadprg/summer.html So invite your friends to join you in the Japanese program!
GＷで日本語をべんきょうしましょう
浜野（はまの）先生
今、インターネットのかんこくごのしんぶんは よみますが、しょうせつは とても むずかしくてだめです。ことしはかんこくごを もっと べんきょうして、みじかい しょうせつを よみます。
恩田（おんだ）先生 じかんを ゆうこうに つかいます。くらすやインターンシップで いそがしいでしょうが、じかんをみつけて スポーツやどくしょをします。
藤松（ふじまつ）先生
しゅう 二ど たいそうを します。五月に 大学を そつぎょうしますが、それまで できるだけ べんきょうします。そして、まい日 しんぶんをよみます。
荘（しょう）先生
今年は、「買うより作る」を目標にしたいと思います。例えば､おやつにかかせないクッキーやケーキ。それから料理に使うバジルやローズマリー等のハーブ類。（もちろん、日本語の教材はいつも手作りをこころがけています…）
ケーキ等は、買って来た物の方がおいしいということも充分ありえると思うのですが… でも失敗しながらも、作る楽しみが体験できればいいですよね！
佐藤（さとう）先生
料理のレパートリーをふやすこと。たとえば、もっといろいろなおとうふの料理方法が知りたい。私はたいてい家で日本料理だけ作る。イタリア料理も中華料理も作りたいが、レストランで食べる方が､私が作るよりおいしいと思うから､レパートリーをふやしたい料理は日本料理だけでいい。私は家族のパーティーがある時は、いつもおすしを作って行く。でもおすしばかりは、もうあきた。アメリカ人もおいしいと思うような日本の家庭料理をもっと作りたいと思う。
（おまけの抱負：太極拳の次のベルトは「青」だ！）
花見（はなみ）先生
毎年、毎年、同じで申し訳ないと思うけど、やっぱり今年も、ぼくの抱負は、やせること。夏の姿が右の想像イメージにならないように、運動をする。そして（この方が大きいけど）間食をやめること…じゃなくて、間食をへらすこと… にしようとがんばる… ように努力したい… と思ってる… かなァ…
（情けない）
