Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program (56 page)

10. The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (Tokyo: Sasakawa Peace Foundation,
1991), 11.

11. Nose, interview.

12. For a discussion of recent developments in Japan's cultural diplomacy,
see Maureen Todhunter, "International Cultural Exchange in Japan's Foreign
Policy Today," in Japan and the World, vol. i of Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia (Canberra:
Australia Japan Research Centre, 1991), 98-105.

13. John Creighton Campbell, "Japan and the United States: Games That
Work," in Japan's Foreign Policy: After the Cold War, ed. Gerald Curtis (New
York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 53.

14. Nathaniel Thayer, "Japanese Foreign Policy in the Nakasone Years," in
Curtis, Japan's Foreign Policy, 96.

15. Nakasone is quoted in Takashi Inoguchi, "The Legacy of a Weathercock
Prime Minister," Japan Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1987): 367.

16. Aurelia George, "Japan's America Problem: The Japanese Response to
U.S. Pressure," Washington Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1991): 7-

17. Leonard J. Schoppa, Education Reform in Japan: A Case of Immobilist
Politics (New York: Routledge, 1991), 243.

18. Christopher P. Hood, "Nakasone Yasuhiro and Japanese Education Reform: A Revisionist View" (Ph.D. diss., University of Sheffield, 1998).

i9. Staff report quoted in Lynn Earl Henrichsen, Diffusion of Innovation in
English Language Teaching: The ELEC Effort in Japan, 1956-1968 (New York:
Greenwood Press, 1989), 1.

20. Richard Rubinger, interview by author, Kyoto, 23 May 1989. A contemporary equivalent to this approach does exist in an intensive one-month "seminar" (shidosha koza) for Japanese teachers of English sponsored annually by
the Ministry of Education. The idea is that these teachers will return to their
districts and demonstrate leadership in foreign language training, but the
teachers are often too young to be able to influence the tightly woven professional network of local English teachers.

21. Caroline Yang, interview with author, Tokyo, 23 March 1989.

22. Ironically, because of this relative neglect of conversational English, the
private sector was the source of dynamism and change in foreign language education in Japan.

23. Wada Minoru, interview with author, Chiba Prefecture, 4 June 1995.

24. Ibid.

25. The Japanese term has always been eigo shidoshuji joshu.

26. Wada Minoru, interview with author, Tokyo, 18 January 1989.

27. Advertising brochure, The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program(me)
(Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1987), n.p.

28. To be sure, there are voices within Japan criticizing the rigidity that
comes with top-down programs. Some have even argued that the Chinese
character for "country" (koku) in the term "international understanding"
(kokusai rikai) should be changed to "people" (min).

29. With a keen eye for the symbolic, Ministry of Home Affairs officials
noted that in French, clair means "clear" and "distinct"; thus, the acronym connotes a clear and distinctive vision for internationalization. They might also
have observed that the adjective is masculine rather than feminine.

CLAIR has gone through several incarnations since its inception. The original name for this office was the Conference of Local Authorities for International Relations (Kokusaika Suishin Jichitai Kyogikai), but as its functions
began to expand beyond the JET Program, CLAIR acquired status as an incorporated foundation (zaidan hojin) and changed its name to "Council" on 17
June 1988.

30. One hundred twenty-four persons, or roughly 50 percent of MEF and
BET participants, chose to renew under JET.

31. See Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Power and Culture Relations between
Japan and the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1991), 86-87.

32. Under the MEF and BET programs, some local Japanese supervisors had
circumvented Ministry of Education guidelines by telling the foreign participants to take "secret holidays"-for example, on a Monday.

33• Nose, interview, 4 June 1995.

34. Other embassies did employ those with some knowledge of Japan but
rarely with firsthand experience teaching in Japanese schools.

35. CLAIR Newsletter, October 1988, p. 2.

36. Fumiko Harada, chair, Ohio-Saitama English Teaching (OSET) Program, personal correspondence with author, 17 July 1995•

37• This figure varies somewhat from consulate to consulate depending on
the number of applicants in a given year in a particular region. In 1992, for example, Soo applicants requested a Boston interview, and 218 interviews were
granted (206 for ALTs and 12 for CIRs). Out of this pool, 89 ALTs and 6 CIRs
were selected.

38. There were also a few interesting cross-cultural moments. A Japanese
member of our group gave a particularly low score to an interviewee who furrowed her brow as she spoke, arguing that this mannerism would be viewed
negatively in Japan. In another case, a woman was rejected because of a very noticeable facial scar that Japanese members of the consulate found problematic.

39. Cliff Clarke, interview with author, Palo Alto, Calif., 13 May 1988. Interestingly, however, the CIEE committee initially rejected (and only later recalled) the application of Robert Juppe, Jr., who went on to become the first foreigner ever hired by the Ministry of Education. It is worth noting as well that
the frustration voiced by CIEE representatives with the start-up of the JET
Program no doubt stemmed in part from losing a very lucrative contract.

40. A paucity of Japanese language programs also accounts for the virtual
absence of applicants from Britain for the CIR position, which requires knowledge of the Japanese language.

41. The results of the 1995 JET Program questionnaire reveal that the Japanese language competence of new participants has improved, but only slightly,
since the early years of the program. By 1995, 52.7 percent of JET participants
rated their conversational ability in Japanese prior to coming on the program
as nonexistent; 22.4 percent called themselves beginners; 16.8 percent placed
themselves in the intermediate stage; 6.6 percent viewed themselves as advanced; and 1.4 percent characterized themselves as fluent. These figures, however, include CIRs, who are required to have some Japanese language competence.

42. A major drawback to this method of assessment was that 165 participants had not submitted photographs. This directory, incidentally, was originally compiled by AJET and called the "AJET Lookbook," but the publication
was soon appropriated by CLAIR.

43. There was also a miscellaneous group (5 percent) who came to Japan for
other reasons, including quite by accident.

44. Nakasone is quoted in Inoguchi, "Legacy," 365.

45. The sense of resignation is apparent in the orientation manual sent to
local governments in 1988, which explained the rationale for the program as
follows:

As a result of the increasingly high status of our country in the international community, the manner in which we relate to other countries is in the process of changing
drastically. While internationalization up until now has primarily involved diplomacy
and trade at the national level, at the present time the manner in which citizens at each
stratum of society are engaging in internationalization has come to be questioned. In
light of this fact, from this point on, the responses of local governments to internationalization will become an important topic that, like the aging of our population or the emerging information age, cannot be avoided. Gaikoku Seinen Shochi ligyo
Ukeiredantai yo Manyuaru (JET Program host organization's orientation manual)
(Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, -1988), 112-13.

46. See John D. Montgomery, "Beyond Good Policies," in Great Policies:
Strategic Innovations in Asia and the Pacific Basin, edited by John D. Montgomery and Dennis Rondinelli (London: Praeger, 1995), 1-13.

47. Wada, interview, 18 January 1989.

CHAPTER 3. THE START-UP YEARS:
THE "CRASH PROGRAM" NEARLY CRASHES

1. The explanation I was given for this policy was that it prevented any
problems regarding JET participants' ability to carry the luggage necessary for
their stay in Japan.

2. The foreign minister spoke first, followed by the education minister; the
home affairs minister was last. In subsequent years, a lesser official from each
ministry was sent to pass on greetings.

3. John Creighton Campbell, "Policy Conflict and Its Resolution within the
Governmental System," in Conflict in Japan, ed. Ellis Kraus, Thomas P.
Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press,
1984), 295-334.

4. Robert Juppe, "For the Jets, by the Jets," AJET Magazine, 1 August
1988, p. 1.

5. The renewers' conference itself was initially an AJET event; CLAIR decided in 1988 to adopt it as an official conference for all renewing participants.

6. The following accounts of the Australian tax problem and the controversy over health insurance and pensions were pieced together through interviews with CLAIR officials, prefectural administrators, and JET participants
and from reports on the issues in the AJET Journal. A similar problem erupted
in 1989 over the tax status of Canadian participants.

7. Gregory V. G. O'Dowd, "Australia-Don't Miss the JET!" Japanese
Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia 12, no. 1
(1992):38.

8. John Moran, "Insurance Blues," JET Journal, autumn 1989, p. 72.

9. In 1989 France and Germany had 2 CIRs each; by 1991, the figures were
12 and 13, respectively; and by 1995 they each had 20 CIRs. The numbers of assistant French teachers and assistant German teachers remained in single digits throughout this period.

io. Shunsuke Wakabayashi, "Amateurs Doing Their Best," Japan Times
Weekly International Edition, 12 September 1987, p. 8.

11. Letters to the editor in the Japan Times: Kimberly Kennedy, "Professional Teachers Not Needed Yet," 9 September 1987; Michelle Long, "Sorry
English Education," 6 September 1987; Andrew Barnes, "Re-evaluating JET
Program," 9 September 1987.

12. lizuka Shigehiko, "We Welcome JET Teachers," Japan Times, 11 January
1988.

13. Minoru Soma, "The JET Program," Japan Times, Readers in Council, 27
March 1988.

14. Daniel Lester, "A Proposal to Improve English Teaching," Japan Times,
Readers in Council, 18 April 1988.

15. Indeed, at the 1987 Tokyo Mid-Year Block Seminar, two months after
Wakabayashi's letter appeared, a senior Japanese official on the stage loudly addressed the JET participants as "boys and girls," setting a disastrous tone at the
conference's outset. I also encountered this assumption at the JET Program Renewers' Conference in 1993. The speaker, a Ministry of Home Affairs official,
ended his talk by exhorting the hundreds of JET participants in the audience
with the slogan, "Be Ambitious, Boys and Girls." There was awkward silence,
then scattered laughter, as he sat down. The next CLAIR speaker, apparently
realizing the danger, hastily pointed out that the slogan "boys be ambitious"
had been made famous by Dr. William Clark in Hokkaido and every Japanese
student knows it-"it doesn't mean that you are boys and girls-you're much
older than that."

16. Merry White, The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 10-i1.

17. In recent years, CLAIR has adopted a more flexible policy on the age
limit, and several applicants over the age of thirty-five have been accepted as
JET participants. CLAIR officials scratched their heads, however, when they received an application from an eighty-four-year-old woman!

18. Morita Kiyoshi, "Beijin kyoshi ni bogen, taigaku sawagi: Eigo
kyoikukan no sa ga haike ni" (Verbal abuse of American teacher leads to student expulsion, controversy: Behind incident lies gap in views of English education), Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 November 1988.

19. Kathleen Brown. "A Note from'B-san,"' AJET Magazine, no. 4 (December 1988-January 1989): 12.

20. Ibid., 13-

21. "Mie Incident," CLAIR Newsletter, October 1988, p. 1.

22. "Teacher Torture," Tokyo Journal, March 1989.

23. Patricia Smith, "Jet Brag," Tokyo Journal, June 1989.

24. Karen Hill Anton, "Japan Pulls in Welcome Mat with Racial Insensitivity," Japan Times, 13 April 1989.

25. The Minority Support Group was not officially sanctioned by CLAIR or
the Ministry of Education but rather was formed and sponsored by AJET. That
two program coordinators and the head of the Counseling Division of CLAIR
attended this meeting indicates the concern over this issue.
- - -- - - -- - - -- - -

26. A prefectural official in Osaka offered this recollection: "I remember in the
early years of the program receiving a call asking me if I would'undertake the burden' (hikiukete kurenaika) of hosting an African American participant. I thought
that their phrasing of the request was really odd, so I told them, 'Of course, we
welcome African American participants. Send us as many as you want."'

27. See especially magazines published by quasi-governmental agencies and
"Japan Welcomes More JETers," Japan Pictorial 12, no. 1 (1989).

28. Mary Canz, "Foreign Teachers Find Fame," San Francisco Examiner, 18
December 1988; Keiko Kanbara, "How to Make English More Fun for Japanese
High School Students," Christian Science Monitor, 28 December 1988.

29. See Gerald K. LeTendre's three-part series in the Daily Yomiuri:
"AETs, Schools Find Working Together Brings Benefits to Fukui," 30 June
1988; "AET's Must Vary Activities to Succeed," 7 July 1988; "Students Learn
to Switch Cultures," 14 July 1988. Ironically, however, when LeTendre submitted a condensed version of these articles to CLAIR for publication in the
JET Journal, he received a rejection notice stating that because he was based
full-time in an "international high school," his experiences would not be relevant to the majority of assistant English teachers. Apparently, CLAIR did
not want to risk further raising the ire of the many AETs who were being
shuffled around to numerous schools under the "one-shot" school visitation
system.