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(3) THE JAPAN TIMES THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 2011 3

national

Flying high: Edo-style kite master Mikio Toki stands with fifth-graders at Kentwood ElementarySchool in Los Angeles as they show off their handmade kites following a Dec. 8 workshoporganized by the Japan America Society of Southern California. KYODO

Volunteers help international Internet project reach into Japan

Seniors’ wisdom recordedKanako TakaharaSTAFF WRITER------------------------------------------

Surrounded by record playersand speakers that he designedand built on his own, TakeshiTeragaki, 86, a renowned soundsystem engineer, began to talkabout how he first became in-trigued by audio players.

An interviewer set up asmall digital video camera torecord Teragaki. The footagewould later be edited and up-loaded on the Internet.

‘‘When I was young, I readan article about record pro-ducing machines and how sev-eral hundred watts were usedto carve the record groove,’’he says. ‘‘I felt by intuition thatthat was a huge amount ofpower.’’

This led Teragaki, who laterserved as an adviser to suchcompanies as major officeequipment makers Ricoh Co.and Canon Inc., to think thatthe record players of the daymight not have the technologi-cal wherewithal to play theabundant information ofsound that was being pressedinto records.

‘‘What I thought was that re-cord players may not havebeen perfected,’’ Teragaki

says. ‘‘That’s why I thought Iwould be the one to do it.’’

Teragaki’s interview in hisoffice in Ota Ward, Tokyo, waspart of a project by Memoro —the Bank of Memories, a non-profit organization that re-cords interviews of elderlypeople about their lives andcareers and posts them on itswebsite.

The project was launchedby four Italians, all in their30s, in the northern city of To-rino in 2007. It has spread to 11countries, including Japan,the United States, Germanyand Spain, and more than 3,500video clips have been upload-ed on the Internet.

‘‘We want to link the ties be-tween generations by sharingmemories of the past,’’ saidNaoko Tomita, president ofthe organization’s Japanbranch.

Tomita, who runs a compa-ny that helps people create abook of their family’s history,which she described as a wayto hand down one’s experienc-es to the next generation,learned of the Italian projectthrough a newspaper article inOctober 2009, before anythinghad been launched in Japan.

‘‘The idea was just what I

was trying to do in my busi-ness,’’ she said. ‘‘I had to dosomething to help.’’

It was all volunteer work.Tomita and a few others whothought the project was agreat idea gathered wheneverthey found the time to preparefor a Japanese version of thewebsite. It was finallylaunched last March.

The Japanese version start-ed out with 29 video clips con-taining interviews of Japa-nese aged 70 or older. As of De-cember, 43 people between theages of 70 and 101 had been in-terviewed, increasing thenumber of videos to about 150.The age criterion was loweredto 60 in December.

In one clip, 87-year-old No-buko Suzuki talks about howher husband committed sui-cide after falling deep intodebt following Japan’s defeatin World War II.

‘‘Before he committed sui-cide, he asked me if I hadenough money and whetherthe children were doing fine,’’Suzuki says. ‘‘The hardest partwas catching his scent fromhis clothes. I missed him somuch.’’

Suzuki goes on to recounthow she worked nonstop at a

dance hall and as a hotel wait-ress to support her family, andher experience in a 1945 airraid in Yokohama. The inter-view is divided into sevenclips, each about five minuteslong.

In another interview, Shige-ru Okada, 77, recalls how hishouse was destroyed by an airraid. He was a junior highschool student at the time.

‘‘It sounded like heavy rainwas pouring,’’ Okada says ofthe incendiary bombs. ‘‘Blobsof burning oil smaller thangolf balls would fall and startfires everywhere.’’

Okada and his family sur-vived, but all that was left oftheir house was burned rice inan iron bowl prepared the daybefore to be cooked in themorning, he says.

Not all of the interviews areabout wartime experiences orpast hardships. In one video onthe U.S. site, Carmine Cafas-so, 77, talks about how peopledated in the old days, attendedMass together, took walks onthe beach and went dancing.

‘‘The priest would come byand say ‘You’re dancing tooclose. Leave room for the HolySpirit,’ ’’ he chuckles.

About 20 volunteers are

working on Japan’s Memoroproject, some of them univer-sity students.

‘‘It’s interesting to listen toelderly people who lived com-pletely different lives frommine,’’ said Reiko Shimazaki,a university student in Tokyo

who interviewed Teragaki.To at least cover the admin-

istrative costs, Tomita is plan-ning to lure corporate spon-sors by interviewing their re-tired workers on how thecompany expanded into whatit is today.

That business model isworking for Memoro’s Italiansite. The organization has in-terviewed retired employeesof major beer brewer Peroniabout the early days and up-loaded the footage along withthe company’s history.

In the future, Tomita hopesthe video clips will be utilizedas educational material atschools.

‘‘With the project, childrenliving 100 years later would beable to listen to the experienc-es of today’s elderly,’’ she said.

Nagano to up trainingfor mountain guidesNaganoJIJI------------------------------------------

Nagano Prefecture plans tolaunch a new qualificationsystem for mountain guides toboost hiker safety in the Japa-nese Alps, which are drawingmore female and non-Japa-nese hikers.

Under the new system, en-suring climber safety and pos-sessing basic knowledge ofmountaineering won’t beenough. To win certification,guides will also need an under-standing of the history and cul-ture of the area’s peaks and beskilled in communicating withhikers.

The prefectural govern-ment aims to conduct the firstcertification exam under thenew system in fiscal 2012.

Thanks to its mountains,Nagano is a popular destina-tion for sightseers. About600,000 hikers visit the prefec-ture every year.

Mountaineering tours havebecome popular in recentyears, while a new breed offirst-timers, such as ‘‘yamagirls’’ — fashionably dressedfemale hikers — and foreign-ers, are taking to the moun-tains, boosting demand forguides.

But at the same time the

number of guides lacking thenecessary knowledge and ex-perience has been growing.The Nagano government hasbeen particularly alarmed bythe death of nine hikers, in-cluding a tour guide, who diedof hypothermia in the Taisetsumountain range in Hokkaidoin summer 2009.

The Nagano government in-troduced a tour guide ordi-nance in 1953 under whichguides are required to obtainpermission for their services.

But there are many unau-thorized guides and it is diffi-cult for the prefecture to moni-tor their activities.

The current qualificationsystem has been criticized forfailing to adequately reflectthe unique features of Naganoand for poor followup trainingfor certified guides.

The prefecture hopes thenew system will produce bet-ter guides and help attracteven more hikers to Nagano.

‘‘Guides who are wellversed in the mountains of theprefecture can contribute tothe safety of climbers,’’ an of-ficial in the Nagano tourismplanning division said. ‘‘More-over, a broad knowledge of themountains and good commu-nications skills will allowclimbers to have more fun.’’

Kite master teaches kidsaround the world to flyJody GodoyLos AngelesKYODO------------------------------------------

He’s jolly, brings joy to chil-dren around the world, and isbusiest in December.

But in lieu of a red coat, hewears a happi coat and sportsa ‘‘hachimaki’’ headbandwhere Santa’s hat would be. Ifthere is a strong wind, hedoesn’t need magic reindeer tofly. Edo kite master Mikio To-ki prefers to keep his feet onthe ground.

Toki is one of Japan’s fewliving experts at making, fly-ing and painting traditionalTokyo-style kites dating backto the Edo Period (1603-1863).

Throughout December, To-ki is busy working on kites forNew Year’s. The rest of theyear he travels the worldteaching children to maketheir own Edo kites.

‘‘December to February iskite season in Tokyo,’’ says To-ki, 60, an energetic Tokyo na-tive with a ready smile.

He remembers flying kitesin the capital back in the 1950s,when there was more openspace. These days the kiting inTokyo is not as good because‘‘wind diverted around build-

ings is unpredictable.’’‘‘The best place to fly is the

beach, because the wind blowsstraight,’’ he advises.

Kites are a popular NewYear’s decoration becausetheir ability to take to the skiesis associated with success andgood luck, Toki explains. For2011, the Year of the Rabbit, hehas made a design based on atraditional bamboo toy calledthe ‘‘tondari hanetari.’’

Starting in mid-October,Toki secludes himself in hisChiba Prefecture workshop tocreate New Year’s kites. Hesplits bamboo and paints de-signs on strong mulberry pa-per.

These pieces of art bear noresemblance to Toki’s first at-tempt, made when he was 10years old using pieces of bam-boo split from an old broomhandle.

‘‘It never got off theground,’’ he chuckles.

Toki was in his 20s when hegot really interested in kites.At 25, after a brief stint at a de-sign school in Tokyo, he foundhimself working at a chil-dren’s center where he taughttraditional toy-making.

‘‘When I was a kid, we didn’thave TV, so the older kids

taught me a lot of things, likehow to use a knife and play tra-ditional games,’’ Toki says.‘‘These games were handeddown over the years, and aswe learned them, we changedthem slightly and expandedour world of play.

‘‘All of that changed. . . . So Iwant the kids to know aboutthe old games, too. And kitesare a part of that.’’

During his time at the chil-dren’s center, Toki met thelate Katsuhisa Ota, a profes-sional kite maker. Whilelearning kite constructionfrom Ota, Toki started to ob-serve a famous third-genera-tion kite maker, Teizo Hashi-moto (1904-1991), who special-ized in painting intricate,symbolic designs on decora-tive kites.

The two of them inspiredToki to study kite making seri-ously, including the Japaneselegends behind the traditionaldesigns. But even as he gainedthe skill to create kites up to 6meters tall that can sell for¥800,000, he never stoppedworking with kids.

In addition to giving work-shops around Japan, Toki hasflown his creations at kite fes-tivals and conducted work-

shops in 16 countries, includ-ing Israel, Thailand, England,and Trinidad and Tobago.

In 1999, he helped children onthe Russian island of Sakhalinto fly their very first kites.

‘‘It’s cold there, so there arereally only a couple weeks ofsummer and that’s when wewent,’’ he recalls. ‘‘When weasked, they said there weren’tany kites in Russia. They didn’teven have a word for ‘kite.’ Soseeing, making and flying kitesfor the first time in their lives,they were really excited.’’

The Japan America Society

of Southern California hasbeen organizing the AnnualJapan America Kite Festivaland kite workshops with Tokifor children in Los Angeles.

Last year, on his ninth visit,Toki taught 689 students tomake kites at eight schoolsand after-school programs.Kentwood Elementary Schoolwas one of those schools.

Afterward, they had thethrill of sending them aloft.

‘‘This is a wonderful learn-ing experience . . . both cultur-ally and from the perspectiveof art and learning the me-

chanics of kite-making,’’ prin-cipal Jean Pennicooke said as60 fifth-grade students linedup awaiting Toki’s instruction.

Leaving this memory withkids around the world is Toki’sgoal for his workshops.

‘‘If they think to themselvessomeday, ‘I remember thatold guy from Japan came andtaught us to make kites,’ andthey start to appreciate kites,that’s all.’’

Perhaps, he says, ‘‘if theyend up liking them, then may-be they will take up the craftthemselves one day.’’

Japan trails China, South Korea in global business languageCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1from 561 in 1995, while Japa-nese marked an improvementof just 581 in 2009 from 572 in1995, according to the Institutefor International BusinessCommunication.

The number of South Kore-ans taking the TOEIC surged to2.05 million in 2009 from 421,704in 1995, while Japanese takersincreased to 1.68 million in 2009from 565,000 in 1995.

Meanwhile, in Japan, withthe government’s clear changein direction from its much criti-cized ‘‘yutori’’ (relaxed) educa-tion policy introduced in the1970s, English education is ex-pected to improve.

Apart from the official kick-off of ‘‘foreign-language activ-ities’’ at elementary schools inApril, the volume of vocabu-lary to be taught as well ashours spent in English class injunior high and high schoolwill increase over the nextcouple of years.

For example, the vocabu-lary list for the junior high lev-el will leap from the current900 words to 1,200 starting infiscal 2012 and English classeswill increase from the currentthree a week to four, the edu-cation ministry said.

At elementary schools, text-books will increase in size by

about 24.5 percent on averagefrom fiscal 2011.

The government has beenmaking changes to boost chil-dren’s academic levels, espe-cially after 2003’s disappoint-ing results in the Program forInternational Student Assess-ment (PISA), an internationalstandardized test conductedby the Organization for Eco-nomic Cooperation and Devel-opment every three yearssince 2000.

In the 2003 testing, conduct-ed among 15-year-old childrenin 41 countries and regions, Ja-pan’s ranking in two of threesubjects had dropped morethan four places.

After putting in the effort tostrengthen literacy, includingintroducing book-readingtime in the morning, the latest2009 PISA results showed im-provement in Japanese stu-dents’ performance.

Although the data can’t sim-ply be compared with previ-ous PISA data because of dif-ferences in the number of par-ticipating countries, Japan’sranking in reading compre-hension rose from 15th place in2006 to eighth in 2009.

In science literacy, itmoved from sixth in 2006 tofifth in 2009, while math litera-cy improved to ninth in 2009,

up from 10th place three yearsearlier.

Although Japan’s rankingsare low when compared withother parts of East Asia, in-cluding first-time participantShanghai, which stunnedmany by dominating the top inall three tests, Japan’s aca-demic ability is first-class,said Hiroaki Mimizuka, vice

president of Ochanomizu Uni-versity.

‘‘When looking at the size ofparticipating countries andregions, Japan is the onlycountry in the top 10 with apopulation of more than 100hundred million,’’ Mimizukasaid. ‘‘It depends on how youlook at the results, but it can besaid that it’s possible to force a

country with a (populationequivalent to that) of Tokyo(to raise its academic level)with a top-down method. Butfor a country with more than100 hundred million people, it’sdifficult to effect change withthat approach.

‘‘As such, we shouldn’t mimicother countries in setting the na-tion’s educational policy. Weshould seek our own way toachieve high academic ability.’’

The biggest hurdle facingJapanese youth today is lowaspirations, experts say.

Growing up in a relativelywealthy country with littlecompetitive pressure due tothe low fertility rate, manyJapanese youth tend to thinkthings will somehow work outand don’t push themselvesmuch, Mimizuka said.

As shown in the falling inter-est in studying abroad, regard-less of universities’ attempts tosend more students overseas,many choose to stay in theircomfort zones, experts say.

‘‘There are limits to howmuch educational content andpolicy can change. . . . Othersocial sectors, including edu-cation, need to put in the effortand think about what theyshould do for Japan to surviveas well as for the world toflourish,’’ Mimizuka said.

Sounding off: Takeshi Teragaki, an 86-year-old audio system engineer, talks about his career during an interview with thenonprofit organization Memoro on Dec. 20 in Ota Ward, Tokyo. SATOKO KAWASAKI

ISBN: 978-4-7890-1283-6