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THE SUNDAY GLEANER, NOVEMBER 24, 2019 | FEATURE

REFLECTIONS ON JAPANLearning at lunch
Christopher Serju
Gleaner WriterOUR VISIT to the Mashiki
Chuo Elementary School
was well anticipated.
Representing, as it did, a breakfrom the rigorous demands of the2019 Japan Journalism Fellowship
organised by the Association for
Promotion of International Cooperation in collaboration with theForeign Press Center Japan, and which
this year is centred on the environmentand disaster preparedness.
After participating in discussions
and presentations about earthquakes,
typhoons and flooding with state
officials and administrators, I was reallylooking forward to this less focusedand much more stress-free interaction.
The spontaneous welcome we
received was heart-warming as thechildren shouted “hello, hello”, waving
enthusiastically and reacting to ourresponses with squeals of laughter.
We were caught off guard by this rich
outpouring of childhood joyfulness.
Each fellow was placed at a clusterof desks with five students, and I wasfortunate to be seated directly in frontof an engaging 12-year-old by the nameof Koki. I enquired whether anyone
spoke English and was greeted with araft of smiles and shakes of the head.
Then Koki, with prompting fromanother desk, enquired if I knew Harry
Potter, to which I laughed and repliedin the negative.
I then tried to tell them I was from
Jamaica and mentioned the country’s
sprint legend Usain Bolt, at which point
Koki asked, “Bolto”?
Before I had finished nodding in
the affirmative, he assumed Bolt’s
trademark ‘To the World’ pose and,as my face registered shock andconfirmation, his face lit up. Now wewere really talking.

FOLDING MILK BOXES

After stacking the dishes, students hang their utensils by a hole in the handle on tothe tray which is designed to hold plates, as well as the dishes.

As I struggled to unwrap the plastic
straw to drink my milk, Koki laughedat my awkwardness and gladly took it,
being very careful to not let his handtouch it directly.
Koki finished his meal ahead of therest and then did something which
puzzled me. He took his milk box

PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER SERJUThis student, who was the smallest and likely youngest person
around the lunch table, struggled to fit his box in. No one offered
to help and, eventually, a triumphant smile as he succeeds.

As lunch ended, the students placed the upturned chairs atop thetables and pushed them to the corner of the room.
and proceeded to open it in a way
which led me to think he was beingmischievous. I watched in surprisewhen another student proceeded tofold his empty box and put it inside
Koki’s box. I struggled to make sense ofthis innocent gesture and then watchedin amazement as each student in turnwent about crushing their empty boxand fitting it inside. When they werefinished it amounted to just one box
and I watched in amazement as thiswas repeated across the room.
Our ‘conversion’ continued, andagain, I was in for a bit of intrigue

when at the end of lunch the children,with military precision, took their trays
and went to a table where they stacked
the dishes and proceeded to hang theutensils by a hole in the handle I had
not noticed before.
They then placed the chairs atop thetables, pushing them to the corner of theroom, which was cleared in minutes. Iwas stunned by the orderly manner inwhich this was accomplished, having
come for lunch but being schooled injust a smidgen of the Japanese learning
process.
christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com

Japan’sevolving
DIET

ANY CONVERSATION at home about theNational Diet is likely to trigger an argument
about the appropriateness of pairing imported codfrom Newfoundland, Canada, with the ackee fruit
reportedly imported to the Caribbean from Ghana
before 1725. That ackee pays everlasting tribute to
Captain William Bligh, by way of its scientific name
Blighiasapida, and, combined with the Canadiancod, results in ackee and salt fish, Jamaica’s nationaldish.
But recently, in Tokyo, Japan, during a presentation
by Dr Eiichi Miyashiro, a senior reporter with theAsahi Shimbun newspaper and a distinguishedmember of the Foreign Press Center Japan, theNational Diet turned out to require a different
discussion.
Things were proceeding smoothly, as well theymight given the circumstances, with Dr Miyashiro
bringing the 2019 cohort of the Association for
Promoting International Cooperation Japan Journalism
Fellowship up to speed on the Imperial Family,Imperial Palace and Ceremonial Settings, ahead ofthe recent ascension ceremony/parade by the newemperor.
The first time Dr Miyashiro spoke about“convocation of the diet”, I let it slide. It was his
mention of “proclamation of the general election ofmembers of the diet” which led to my enquiry throughan interpreter whether or not something had been lostin the translation.

VOTING SYSTEM
Not at all, the esteemed scholar assured me, goingon to explain that the National Diet is in fact Japan’s
bicameral legislature, consisting of a lower house,
which is the House of Representatives and an UpperHouse. Both houses of the Diet are directly related
under parallel voting systems. In addition to passing
laws, the diet is formally responsible for selectionof the prime minister and was first convened as theImperial Diet in 1889.
Since then, it has undergone significant changes
but, still for all, the much-needed civics lessons
notwithstanding, courtesy of Dr Miyashari, a scholar
and gentleman who served up so much food forthought, every time I heard about the National Diet
while in Japan, I couldn’t stop thinking sushi, fried
rice, noodles, fish and soup.
christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com

Madoka Kusano points to some of the supplies in the locker. 						PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SERJUJapan relief aid 101 explained
WE ALL listened attentively as detailsof how the relief agenda unfolds
in response to a disaster or otheremergency affecting residents in thetown of Mashiki and pressed her withquestions about areas of particularinterest. One issue that caught ourattention was the explanation that,
following one disaster, baby formula
was provided but, when it arrived,
emergency response realised that there
were no bottles in which to serve it.
We found it ironic that such aseemingly glaring omission could haveoccurred but Madoka Kusano, of thetown’s Disaster Management Division,
assured it was unlikely to recur as steps
had been taken since to ensure that acomprehensive checklist of items wasupdated on a regular basis.
She gave us a walk-through of thethree lockers stocked with relief supplies
located on the premises of Mashiki Chuo
Elementary School, which serves as anevacuation in the event of a disaster.

SYSTEM OF TRUST
By the time she had opened the lockers
to show us the different range of items
stored, including farming implements;
baby formula, of course; emergency
stoves; tarpaulin and more, we weremore than impressed but a little puzzled.
The seeming paucity of relief supplies,
given the amount of space available,suggested they were in need of more
support.
Not so, according to the municipality

employee. Supplies were meant for
emergency relief for an initial periodof up to three days, after which more
aid would be provided as needs
dictated, hence there was no need foroverstocking. That made sense, andwith all our questions answered andthe session winding down, Madoka
casually mentioned that replicas of thekey she had used to open all three lockers
were also in the hands of all emergency
response team members – police, fire
department, and the Japan Self Defense
Forces, as well as other state officials.
How could that make sense, and didn’t
the issue of accountability come into
play, we wondered?
On the contrary, she explained, it mademore sense to do it this way, since in theevent that, at the time of a disaster, theperson(s) responsible for disseminatingrelief or aid was sick or on leave, there
was no risk of the process being held up,
or relief delayed.
As one of four of participants in theJapan Journalism Fellowship, which issponsored by the Association for thePromotion of International Cooperationin collaboration with the Tokyo-based
Foreign Press Center Japan, it took mequite some time to digest this crazynotion that public cooperation could be
predicated along these lines. Could it
work like this in Jamaica? I wondered.
Maybe, just maybe.
christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com