The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2021

The Internationalist

Nishimachi International School Spring/Summer 2021 Vol. 66

2

The Internationalist

Head of School

Director of Advancement

Karen O'Neill '78 Matt McKinney

Marketing and Communications Manager

Kacie Leviton '95 Mayumi Nakayama ‘90 Anne Papantonio Akira Tomomitsu (Mashup LLC)

Managing Editor Editor

Art design

The Internationalist, Spring/Summer 2021 vol. 66, is published by the Advancement Office for alumni, parents, students, faculty, and friends of Nishimachi International School.

Article Contributors

Alice C. Grade 4 Franco C. Grade 4 Andrew Deane Lalaka (Ogawa) Fukuma ‘90 Charlotte G. Grade 8 David Green Noriko Hayashi Yoko Hojo Kazuhiko Hotta Daiya K. Grade 4 Junko Kawai Alistair M. Grade 4 Mayumi Nakayama ‘90 Toshiko Ohta Kit Pancoast Nagamura

Photography

The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2021 Vol. 66

In This Issue...

Intertwined Destinies:

The Legacy of Nishimachi International School ...

4

Kit Pancoast Nagamura

Grade 4 Teachers Grade 8 Advisors Kazuhiko Hotta Makiko Ichiura ‘59 Toshiharu Kitajima Haruko (Kawai) Kohno ‘85 Wendy Kobayashi Suzanne (Lowell) Krogh

Nishimachi International School Advancement Office 2-14-7 Moto Azabu, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-0046 Japan Tel: 03-3451-5520 Fax: 03-3456-0197 E-mail: development@nishimachi.ac.jp

alumni@nishimachi.ac.jp URL http://www.nishimachi.ac.jp 学校法人 西町インターナショナルスクール 〒 106-0046 東京都港区元麻布 2-14-7 渉外開発室 電話：03-3451-5520 ファックス：03-3456-0197 メール： development@nishimachi.ac.jp ウェブ： http://jp.nishimachi.ac.jp

松方種子先生の ルーツを辿る旅 堀田一彦

12

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

3

Grade Four Government Unit Research

20

Aleks Kostic, Terry Morris, Victoria Robinson

14

Sayonara, Sasayama-sensei

David Green, Noriko Hayashi, Yoko Hojo, Junko Kawai, and Toshiko Ohta

4

The Legacy of Nishimachi International School…

12 松方種子先生のルーツを辿る旅 14 Sayonara, Sasayama-sensei 18 Grade Eight Tea with Alumni

Nishimachi-Kai News

28

20 Grade Four Government Unit Research 26 Outreach Scholarship Walkathon 2020 28 Nishimachi-Kai News 31 Postmarks

4

The Internationalist

Intertwined Destinies:

The Legacy of Nishimachi International School and Tané Matsukata Living on in Makiko Ichiura ‘59 and Suzanne (Lowell) Krogh

Kit Pancoast Nagamura

M

ost readers of the Internationalist already know that Nishimachi International School was founded in 1949 by Tané Matsukata. At the end of World War II, when Tané returned to Japan after a 17-year stint of studying in the United States, she found a ravaged landscape, in desperate need of physical and psychological healing. In her vision, the best way to approach reconstruction was through education. With the help of several other key women, she opened what would become Nishimachi International School.

But what was the school like in its developmental days?

In an interview via Zoom, two remarkable women with answers—Makiko Ichiura, one of the school’s first four students, and Suzanne (née Lowell) Krogh, one of the school’s earliest teachers—divulge sharp memories of Tané Matsukata and how she helped them carve out unique and meaningful lives.

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Zooming in on Makiko Ichiura Makiko, a woman with a generous deep laugh, expressive eyebrows, and a pixie-like demeanor that belies her 78 years, was the child of intellectually progressive parents with a fascination for western culture. Makiko’s father, Ken, was a widely-respected architect and friend of Isaku Nishimura, the founder of Bunka Gakuin. “My mother went to Bunka Gakuin,” Makiko says, “and was one of the first students at that school, which Nishimura started for his own daughter. There were no good schools for girls after the age of 13, you see, so he started his school, and my mother studied there.”

Education for girls and young women, Makiko suggests, was on her mother’s mind. Eiko Ichiura was not about to have her daughter relegated to a life prescribed by the social norms of the day.

Japanese, but they weren’t really; during the war, they had both been at Principia College [in Elsah, Illinois], and they stayed there, so they were, in a good way, ‘westernized.’ As role models, they were independent, with careers.

They had a nice place to live, and a car…can you imagine that, in 1949?!” Makiko exclaims, chortling at the outrageousness of the idea. “It showed us kids what could be possible.”

The Matsukata sisters were longtime friends with another founding figure of Nishimachi International School, Yuri Murata. Yuri, a devout horticulturalist, and her husband, Masachika (the architect who later designed the 1964 Olympic Park Stadium in Komazawa) returned to Tokyo in 1945, from where they had sheltered in Karuizawa. The ruined aspect of Tokyo left Yuri “aghast” and worried about how the country would ever recover.

Eventually, she, Tané, Haru, and Makiko’s mother, Eiko, found their concerns aligned; the women then began to discuss how education could best help turn things around.

“My parents sent me to Nishimachi for the bilingual side of it,” Makiko says, “because after losing the war, they realized Nishimachi’s original four students with Miss Kiriyama. From left: Kiyokuni that language Hasegawa ’59, Kiyoshi Murata ’59, Makiko Ichiura ’59, and Hiroshi Murata ’57. The Muratas was a big thing. had been But also, having encouraged by the Matsukatas to build a home a something, such as language skills, was on the corner of the Matsukata property.

That crucial to making your way in the world as an home became known as the Nishimachi House, independent female in those days.” and it was there that the first four students— Yuri’s two sons Hiroshi and Kiyoshi, Kiyokuni When asked if the Meiji period didn’t ensure that Hasegawa, and Makiko —attended classes. women received an education, Makiko shakes The nearby Matsukata house, today the iconic her head. “I’m sure you know Japanese society,” façade associated with the school “was then she says wryly, “so you can imagine it was hard still occupied by an embassy,” Makiko says. The for girls back then to have their own lives. It was Matsukata House housed both the Swedish and the time when you finished school, got married, Romanian embassies during the war—which had kids, and let your husband support you. My might have been spared it being bombed—and mother had experienced that, so she wanted me it was occupied by the Venezuelan embassy to be more independent.” well into the 1960s. “At any rate,” Makiko says, “I never studied in the Matsukata House, but at Westernized Women first we met at the Muratas’ house next door, on the corner of the big street.”

Makiko’s mother was fortunate to meet both Tané and Haru Matsukata when Makiko was still very young. “The Matsukatas were both career women,” Makiko explains, “which in those days almost didn’t exist in Japan. They looked

Haircuts Growing Roses According to Makiko’s memory, the Murata

5

6

The Internationalist

House “had a study attached, and we had classes there…and there was a back yard. Mrs. Murata was into growing roses and things, and she’d give us haircuts, because she could use the trimmings for fertilizer! Isn’t it weird that I remember that? The yard was full of trees. The whole thing was a kind of home schooling.”

Makiko doesn’t recall any discomfort being the only girl in the class. “We all just climbed trees

Makiko’s parents at home, having a western-style breakfast. Circa 1931.

in the Muratas’ backyard” she says, with a mischievous grin, “that was all I knew, so it was fine.”

Despite the bucolic setting, in those early days Makiko had a significant commute to get to the Muratas’ house. “We had evacuated to Sendai during the war. Our house in Komaba, that my father designed, survived the bombing, and we returned there when I was three years old,” Makiko recounts. “But the commute [from Komaba to Nishimachi] was long. I had to take the Inokashira Line, and then a streetcar to Tengenji, then walk up the hill…and I was only 6 years old! Getting into the train was just like being pressed into sushi; sometimes I couldn’t get in, because it was too crowded. So I was late. I was late so often that Tané told my parents to move.”

Tané’s Tinkering Tané Matsukata seems to have exercised a powerful influence over those she cared about. To solve the issue of Makiko’s arduous commute, Tané insisted that the Ichiuras move

to Zaimokucho, an area near TV Asahi, so that her young pupil could walk to school in the morning. “I was, then, on time,” Makiko laughs.

“I think that Haru actually bought my parents’ house, so that we could move more quickly,” she adds.

Within the first year, with both Haru and Tané teaching classes and Sanae Kiriyama hired to teach Japanese lessons, the school started to attract additional students, more than the Murata study could easily accommodate. In order to raise funds to build a new school facility, Makiko clearly remembers helping out at clothing sales on weekends. These were streetside sales of clothing donations solicited by the Matsukatas through their friends and contacts at Principia College. They received generous shipments each month. In a time when even basic foodstuffs and staples were lacking in Tokyo, clothing, too, was a hot commodity. People queued up to buy everything on sale those summer weekends in 1949.

Nonetheless, Makiko recalls that as she walked to school, “the local kids would make fun of me because I was dressed in clothes from America…the kind that at the time were not sold in the store. I’m not sure where we got them from, or if my mother sewed them.”

Thoroughly Modern Makiko Makiko, it seems, was unperturbed. “After all, my parents were very modern—very Mobo and Moga,” she says, referring to the then slang for “Modern Boy” and “Modern Gal.” “My mom dressed in the Charleston style, and my father would carry patent leather dancing shoes in his bag and pick her up to go dancing at the Athénée Française! They never lived in a traditional Japanese house, and we always had a Western style breakfast—toast, coffee, and eggs—never Japanese home cooking. My father liked pork chops and potatoes and bread… and we even didn’t buy an electric rice cooker, which was the thing in the 1950s. I’d never seen my parents in Japanese clothing, and we called them “mama” and “papa” instead of the Japanese equivalent.”

By the mid 1950s, Makiko was studying in new school buildings, which her father helped design.

“By the time I was in sixth grade,” she says,

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

“there were, like, 16 different nationalities at the school…there were nearly too many nationalities and students. The school itself, since it was small, was all mixed and we were always together. It had a family atmosphere, communal, and it was a very happy comfortable place.”

Nancy who?

When asked about her academic performance, Makiko gives out a wee groan. “I don’t recall her name,” she says laughing, “but I had a strict teacher who taught spelling, and that class was really hard!” Bravely, Makiko agrees to share her report card from 1954-55. A glance at a copy of the report reveals that she was a polite and serious student who struggled with math, grammar, history, and Japanese, but aced all other subjects. The surprising thing, however, is the name on the card: Nancy Ichiura.

“I gave myself an American name—Nancy— because I had a haircut like the comic book character in Nancy & Sluggo,” Makiko laughs, “and Tané let me do that!”

Makiko studied at NISHIMACHI until the end of 6th grade, at which time Tané once again stepped in to guide her life. “She advised my parents on what to do with me,” she says, “so I ended up going to boarding school for three years at Keimei Gakuin, in Tachikawa, which was mostly for returnee students. Then I commuted for high school, and in my third year, I went abroad to Plymouth, Michigan as a high school exchange student.”

With Makiko abroad, the Ichiura household was left with a vacant room in their home.

Tané, like a champion at the game of Tetris, immediately found a use for that space, as housing for her new overseas-hire teacher, Suzanne (Lowell) Krogh, whose story appears later in this piece.

she needed help in the administration office, and offered me a job there. I did that for one year, then in 1967, I went to Toronto. I became financially independent, and it was wonderful that my parents let me do that. I made about 70 dollars a week, as a filing clerk and civil servant, with a college degree. My boss said I was overqualified.”

Makiko agreed, and decided to pursue her study of art, in London. “I’d majored in Japanese art history, and the more you study that, the more you realize how much came from China. So in 1969, when I heard that SOAS, at the University of London, had just started this Master’s program in Chinese art and archeology, I went.

There were only three students,” she says, laughing at how the class size, at least, was familiar.

The Art of Staying Single On her return to Japan, Makiko attended Keio University and graduated with a degree in Aesthetics and Art History. “In those days,” Makiko recalls “girls at Keio all had engagement rings by the time they graduated. But not me. I didn’t want to get married. And anyway, my mother kept telling me, you’ve got to be financially independent before you get married! When I finished college, I was kind of idling away, and Tané saw that, and she said

Suzanne’s second-grade class, visiting the local fire station (between 1960 and 1963).

7

8

The Internationalist

Studying the Past, Finding the Future Makiko’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. “The University of London had just been gifted this fabulous collection of Chinese pottery, the Sir Percival David Collection, now at the British Museum,” she recalls, “so there we were, three students with wonderful teachers and the ability to touch Sung dynasty pottery.” Though at the time, Makiko didn’t have the desire to create pottery herself, this crucial influence later fueled her passion.

After London, Makiko’s next major move was to New York City, where she worked a 9-5 at Kodansha International U.S.A. from 1976-86.

“But, there was a glass ceiling there,” she says, “and on top of everything, I was a local hire, so it was limiting. I met a lot of famous authors, though, such as George Nakashima. But I soon learned that authors need to be coddled…if they don’t find their books in the bookstore, they weep.”

Makiko’s interviewer nods in sad agreement, and soon they are both laughing.

Makiko next moved to LA, where she landed a job as a “coordinator” for magazine Kateigaho. “I got to set up a lot of fun articles for the writers and photographers—like articles on food and female chefs, or private homes, such as the Frank Lloyd Wright homes, where the original owners were still living. In those days, there was no email or anything, so I met the crew at the airport, with a rented car, and set up everything. It was a fabulous job!”

age. So I offered to come pick her up at the airport. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I want to do it all by myself.’ Her independence was still so strong, and impressive. That’s the way she was. She was quiet in social situations, but privately, she was strong. No small talk, no weather talk, but strong.”

Our talk circles back to Makiko’s mother, Eiko.

By 1989, Makiko thought it time to move her mother from Japan to Seattle, where Makiko and her partner had settled. “She was familiar with Seattle, had friends here, and spoke English,” Makiko said.

Eiko lived at Makiko’s house for 13 years. “She was a really creative lady,” Makiko says. “She loved knitting, but she started getting forgetful, so she’d knit half-made vests and sweaters with no arm holes and things all over the place. I felt bad for her, so I signed her up for a ceramics class instead and we made things together, but

From left: Makiko, Haru (Matsukata) Reischauer, Tané Matsukata, Naka (Matsukata) Rawsthorne, and Yuri Kobayashi.

Going around, Coming around Even as her careening careers took her across continents, Makiko was conscientious about returning to her roots. “Every time I came home to Japan,” she says “the first thing I would do was, with my mom, go say hello to Tané Matsukata, to show her I was still alive. The last time I saw her, I guess it was in 1987, and at the time I was living in LA. Tané told me she was thinking of visiting LA, on her own, which was sort of an adventure at that time, at her

she had zero interest in that.”

Earthsongs and Grounding However, this brought art history studies and creative urges back into Makiko’s life. She started sculpting clay works in the 1990s, and continues to this day. Her current ceramic artworks, which she shows in galleries, are architecturally solid structures that reference 4th-7th century Japanese haniwa. Her figures, clad in warrior’s armor, hold yoga poses or offer Namaste greetings, thematically combining elements of strength, self-protection, and peace.

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

When asked if she feels that her early schooling with Tané was important to her life, Makiko responds without hesitation: “It’s really the groundwork of my whole self! Like the footing of a house, you need a good foundation, and that was Nishimachi for me. The Matsukatas, and the entire community, made me what I am.”

Zooming in on Suzanne On this note, the interview turns to one of Nishimachi’s earliest teachers, Suzanne Krogh.

A vibrant and witty 83-year-old with light gray bob, Suzanne was born in Oak Park, Illinois. She took her undergraduate degree at Florida State University, where she developed an interest in Asian History. However, she says, “rather than get a master’s in Asian History, I’d knew I’d rather go live Asian history. I wasn’t sure how I’d get there, and I wasn’t set on Japan.”

Suzanne’s first move in the right direction got her as far as Hawaii, where she found work with a travel agency. The real trajectory was never far from her mind, though. One day, she remembered eavesdropping on a group of college-age girls at FSU. “I heard someone say something about a woman who went to Principia,” Suzanne recounts, “a woman who had started a school in Japan, and that another woman, Roxanne Hopfer, who also went to Principia, had got a job teaching second grade at that school.”

Suzanne’s spy-like surveillance skills and recall were matched by her fearless ambition. She promptly wrote to the director of Principia Upper School to find the name and address of the mysterious school in Japan.

World’s Shortest Job Application Once Suzanne had the info she needed, the ball really got rolling. “I wrote to Ms. Matsukata a three-sentence letter, stupid really,” Suzanne says sheepishly, “and it went: ‘Dear Ms. Matsukata. I am a teacher. Do you need any teachers?’ Tané sent me a letter back and said, ‘yes, she did!’”

Of course, there was the matter of an interview for the job. Tané set up a meeting with one of her contacts in Hawaii, the wife of an admiral living near the foot of Diamond Head. As luck would have it, Suzanne was sharing a house with several friends in the very same neighborhood, just down the block.

Suzanne recalls the interview going something like this:

Wife: “Hi Sue, you remember me? I see you down the block all the time. I hear you want to go to Nishimachi.”

Sue: “Why yes, I do!”

Wife: “It’s just great, you’re going to love it. Bye.” “That was it,” Suzanne laughs, but admits that Tané was shocked when she heard about it later. Nonetheless, destiny had things all worked out. Roxanne Hopfer, the very second grade teacher Suzanne had overheard FSU girls talking about, was preparing to leave Japan in order to pursue one of the world’s first master’s degrees in ESL, in the states. Tané needed a second grade teacher to take her place, and there was Suzanne.

Would YOU buy this script?

When informed that her life story sounds like the plot of an implausible movie, Suzanne laughs.

“It gets even better,” she says, enthusiastically.

“This really good-looking guy, Bud, who’d also gone to Principia, came to church one Sunday in Tokyo, and I ended up marrying him. But before that, Bud was assigned to an aircraft carrier, heading north from the South China Sea and this other guy he went to school with was heading south on the same sea. They were both communications officers, back when they used flags. So, they’re messaging each other.

The other guys asks ‘What were you doing in Tokyo?’ and Bud says ‘I’m going to ask Sue to marry me.’ And the other guy says ‘What if I get there first?’ and then Bud replies, ‘I’m going to have her out of the country before you can meet her.’ Which in fact, he did. But that other guy on the ship? He went to the south part of Japan, and Roxanne Hopfer, after taking her master’s degree, came back to Japan, and married him!”

Rewinding the movie back a bit, to Suzanne’s first arrival in Japan in 1960, reveals important backstory to her life. “I had asked Tané in about three different letters where I was going to be living once I arrived,” Suzanne says, “because my salary included a place to live. Finally, it occurred to me that she had no idea where I was going to live, so I thought I’d help her. I asked if I could I live with a Japanese family for the first year. That’s when I learned that Makiko was going to the United States, and Tané would put me in her vacant bedroom!”

Just off the Boat Anyone who has just arrived to live in Japan can probably recall those first disorienting days. In

9

10

The Internationalist

Suzanne’s case, she landed with a suitcase full of Hawaiian muumuus and sandals which had been her travel agency uniform, and about 8 dollars to her name. “Tané picked me up at the airport and on the way to the hotel, she gave me an envelope, telling me she thought I might like to know what Japanese money denominations looked like,” Suzanne recalls. “The envelope held the equivalent of about 30 dollars. I lived on that for the first month I was there. I didn’t tell Tané that, but that’s all I had.”

Since Suzanne and Makiko are on the Zoom interview simultaneously, it feels a bit awkward to ask Suzanne what it was like to move into Makiko’s childhood room, but the question pops out.

“It was about 9’ x 11’, and small,” Suzanne says. Makiko looms forward into the Zoom camera, nodding. “It had only a bed and chest of drawers,” Suzanne says.

“And a window,” Makiko adds, emphatically.

“And a window,” Suzanne agrees, “but what was interesting was that the bed was made up backwards, with my feet at the wall, and my head where the foot of the bed was supposed to be. Of course…it took me the longest time to find out why. The wall was due north, so I couldn’t put my head there [because in Japan, corpses are laid out with their heads directed north]. The maid could not bring herself to make up the bed the other way.”

Fashion Fun Living with the Ichiuras had distinct advantages, though, Suzanne points out. “I didn’t fit into clothing in Japan at all,” she recalls, and since muumuus were not school teacher attire, “Makiko’s mother arranged to have seamstresses come to the house to make me a few things. But I didn’t have much money to do that, so I didn’t have a lot of clothing.”

Additionally, a mere two days after Suzanne’s arrival in Japan, newly appointed American ambassador Edwin Reischauer and his wife Haru (Tané’s sister) also arrived. “It wasn’t long before the Reischauers came to the Ichiuras,” Suzanne says, “to escape the embassy and have a good American dinner.” She and Makiko have a laugh at the irony of this.

Suzanne started work within a week of moving to Tokyo. She found the school itself “very, very basic. The playground was a gravel field, and there weren’t many toys, just some balls. Every

day, someone kicked a ball over the fence. Tané had to keep apologizing to the neighbors and trying to get the balls back.”

Though the school staff and other teachers were worldly and fun to get to know, Suzanne found facing her 13-14 students was another story. “It was scary,” she said. “I had not been in a second grade classroom since I was seven years old. I had a degree in history and social sciences, and my certification was in teaching high school history. I had no clue what I was doing, none at all. I remember wandering around the room and picking up books to see what kids were reading those days.”

What Tané was Really Like Suzanne offers a story which illustrates not only her struggles, but also Tané Matsukata’s ability to spin a situation. “I was supposed to teach my class long handwriting,” Suzanne says, slightly miserable even at the memory. “I have terrible handwriting, so they brought in Mrs. Walker from England, who taught 4th and 5th grade, and she was to teach me how to write on the chalkboard. She came up to my room every day for a week or so, then Tané came in after a few days to see how I was doing. They decided that I was hopeless. So, Tané had Ann Walker come in and teach handwriting for my class, and I was to go down to the kindergarten, where we had a tone-deaf kindergarten teacher, and I would teach music to the kids. The kindergarten teacher was then free to just prepare materials. It was perfect.”

When asked how she remembers Tané, Suzanne is quick to respond: “She was a very attractive woman, tall for a Japanese woman, on the thin side, with a lovely complexion and a really nice, warm smile.”

Was she cuddly?

“Nope,” Suzanne says, decisively, “that word would not have been in her vocabulary. She was warm, but not cuddly. Instead, she was very quietly observant. Personally she was very helpful to me. She never stepped too far into your personal territory, so, you’d tell her more than you might otherwise.”

Suzanne then recalls an incident that she feels sums up Tané’s way of thinking. A charity event for orphans was held at Nishimachi, and gifts of candy were meant to be distributed to the children. Tané insisted that the candy be packed into small bags, because she knew some children would want to eat all the candy

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Ethel Kennedy (in white) visited Nishimachi (between 1961 and 1962).

they got immediately, and others would want to take it back, and savor it slowly. She carefully accommodated various kinds of human nature.

Clear Sighted Though Suzanne doesn’t don rose-tinted glasses when looking back on her three years in Japan—“I got stared at, and commented about a lot,” she says, “and people would come and want to practice their English conversation, or tell me how terrible Americans are. And then, I had people who wouldn’t wait on me or would avoid sitting next to me on the streetcar, so it was not an easy thing, really,”—she nevertheless recalls brushes with famous people such as Ethel Kennedy and Shirley MacLaine.

Furthermore, the whole experience gave Suzanne what she says was “a much better understanding of many kinds of people, and third-culture kids, how to help them grow, and how to grow myself as a world citizen.”

Today, Suzanne is a retired professor of elementary and early childhood education at Western Washington University, and the author of a series of books on approaches and practical guidance to early education— The Integrated Early Childhood Curriculum—the most recent of which came out last summer, 2020.

“I write these books with local teachers,” Suzanne says, “and I wish I knew at NISHIMACHI what I know now; I would have been a much, much better teacher. Young children don’t think, when they are learning about the world, ‘Ooo, I just had a good math experience,’ or ‘Ooo, I just had a good history experience.’ They think, ‘I just had an

experience.’ With young children it works best, I think, if you don’t divide the curriculum into very specific areas. They should learn the things they are interested about, and bring in the things they need to know as they go along. It’s integrating the curriculum through inquiry learning.”

The Way of Time This sounds like something Tané Matsukata would have loved to have discussed with Suzanne. Sometimes the timing on things just doesn’t work out. And other times, it works out with remarkable results.

Both Suzanne and Makiko are on Zoom, but they are both in fact at Suzanne’s house, in separate rooms for social distancing due to the corona virus. The obvious question arises: how do they happen to be together for this interview?

“That’s another really crazy story,” Suzanne says.

“Nishimachi had its 50th anniversary party… and I wondered if Makiko had been there, so I looked her up in the directory and realized—oh my god!—she lives down the road from me! I was shaking. I was literally shaking. I dialed her number immediately. We’d been living near each other for 10 years…and didn’t know it.”

“It’s been fantastic getting to know this person,” Suzanne says, nodding toward Makiko, who laughs in agreement. These days, the two women often walk and travel together. Their full lives and friendship epitomize the wonderful legacy of Tané Matsukata and Nishimachi International School.

11

12

The Internationalist

松方種子先生のルーツを辿る旅 〜鹿児島と山口（いにしえの薩摩藩と長州藩）〜 堀田一彦

西町インターナショナルスクール 元職員 昨年37年間在職した西町を定年退職し、静かな隠 居生活をスタートさせた。そこで私に西町で働く機 会を与えて頂いた松方種子先生に思いを馳せ、先生

の課外活動施設として利用されている。 私は、在職中この鹿角キャンププログラムの運営 に深く関わっていたので、地元の方々から新井家の 話はよく伺っていた。 ただ、今回の旅行で松方先生の母方の御祖父に当 たる新井領一郎翁が、遠く長州藩（山口県萩市）の 思想家であった吉田松陰と繋がっていく姿を見る事 ができた事には心を揺さぶられた。正に近代松方家 の繁栄と西町スクールの創設には、薩長連合の流れ の支えがあったわけである。そんな訳で、薩摩藩（ 現鹿児島県）と長州藩（現山口県）にその足跡を求 めて、出かけた次第である。 松方正義翁

松方種子先生の父方の御祖父で、薩摩藩の武士と して鹿児島に生まれた。その後明治政府で総理大臣 を２度務め、日本銀行を創設した偉人である。今で も鹿児島市下荒田に生誕地があり、こじんまりとし た「松方公園」となっている。またすぐ側に銅像も 建っていた。 私は西町の帽子を被りお孫さんの種子さんがこん な立派な学校を作りましたよ、そして今や卒業生が 全世界で活躍していますよとお伝えしてきた。きっ と正義翁も我が孫がなしえた偉業を、誇りに思って いらっしゃるのではと思った。

のルーツを辿る旅に出てみた。松 方家の歴史は先生のお姉様である ハル松方ライシャワーさんが著作 された「絹と武士」に詳しく、今 回の旅行も計画の段階で大いに参 考にさせて頂いた。 「絹と武士」は大変興味深い名著で、江戸時代末期 から明治時代以降の激動の時代の移り変わりを松方 家の歴史を通して描かれている。表題の絹は、松方 先生の母方の家族である新井家を表し、武士は父方 の家族である松方家を表している。西町の鹿角キャ ンプは元々新井家所有の養蚕場だったが、現在は、 学校に寄贈され「キャンプ新井領一郎」として生徒

松方公園の近くに建つ松方正義翁の銅像。背後の 山は活火山の桜島である。 新井領一郎翁

松方種子先生の母方の御祖父である。群馬の豪商 に生まれ、当時の日本の基幹産業であった絹の輸出 をアメリカで立ち上げた経済人である。また、日本 人として初めてゴルフをした人物としても知られて いる。私が鹿角キャンプのある黒保根町の人々から 伝え聞いた新井領一郎翁の話は今後の機会に持ち越 すとして、今回の旅行で大変興味深かったのは、新 井領一郎翁と吉田松陰との繋がりであった。 吉田松陰は長州藩（現在の山口県萩市）出身の明 治維新における精神的指導者である。彼は松下村塾

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

を通じて伊藤博文、木戸孝光、高杉晋作、山縣有朋

の松陰の精神的思想が楫取素彦、寿及び後妻の美和

など後に日本近代史に名を残す偉人たちに影響を与

子夫妻（楫取素彦は前妻の寿を病気で亡くし、その

えた。ただ、彼の唱えた尊皇攘夷の大義が当時の幕

後寿の妹の美和子を後妻に迎えた）を通じて新井領

府を刺激し、安政の大獄に連座して処刑されてしま

一郎翁に影響を与え、彼の新天地アメリカでの活躍

った。その後廃藩置県が行われ上州藩が群馬県に代

の支えになっていたとすれば、それはとても興味深

わり初代県令（現在の県知事）に赴任したのが、長

い事である。

州藩出身の楫取素彦であった。 実は楫取素彦は、松下村塾を通じて吉田松陰と関 係が深く、妻の寿は松陰の妹であった。そこで、若

松方種子先生

松方種子先生は、松方正義八男の正熊翁と新井領

き日の新井領一郎翁は、楫取素彦から支援を受け、

一郎長女の美代夫人の間に三女として生を享けられ

日本の国策としての絹の輸出の為にアメリカに旅立

た。

つのであった。そしてその旅立ちの時に、寿は亡き

先生は文字通り西町スクールの創設運営に生涯を

兄松陰の形見である刀を新井領一郎翁に授けた。松

かけてこられた方であった。私自身、松方先生と

陰には下田でペリーの黒船に潜り込んでアメリカ行

は、校長として約１年、また体調を崩されて一線か

きを求願した事があるほど強い思いがあり、この兄

ら身を退かれてからも約５年の間、折に触れてはお

の形見の刀にアメリカを見せて欲しいとの願いから

目にかかる事が出来たのは大変幸運な事であった。

だった。ハル松方ライシャワーさんによると、この

また御母堂の美代夫人は大変長寿を全うされた方

刀は今もアメリカの新井家子孫宅にて保有されてい

で、松方先生のご自宅に伺う度にお目に掛かる事が

るそうである。そこで私は山口県萩市に向かい、松

できた。

下村塾を訪れてみた。

ただ当時、私は右も左も分からない若造で、美代 夫人にお会いしても天気が良いですねぐらいの会話

松下村塾は本当にあの伊藤博文や山縣有朋などが

しか出来なかった。今思えばもっと様々なお話を伺

学んでいたのかと訝しむ程、質素な小屋であった。

っておけば良かったと、大変悔やんでいる。きっと

下は、後に日本近代史に名を残す事になる松下村塾

貴重なお話を沢山お持ちであっただろう。

出身者たち。 この松下村塾での松陰の精神的思想が楫取素彦、

そんなわけで、今回私なりに大変お世話になった

美和子夫妻を通じて新井領一郎翁に影響を与え、彼

松方先生のルーツを辿る旅をしてみた。何か点と線

の新天地アメリカでの活躍の支えになっていたとす

が繋がったような気がして、私にとってはとても有

れば、それはとても興味深い事である。そして当然

意義なものとなった。今後は松方先生が西町を創立

その流れは孫の種子女史に引き継がれていったと考

した思いが、次の世代に継承されていく事を心から

えても、不自然ではないであろう。この松下村塾で

祈るばかりである。

13

14

The Internationalist

Sayonara, Sasayama-sensei David Green, Noriko Hayashi, Yoko Hojo, Junko Kawai, and Toshiko Ohta

Sasayama-sensei

If

I remember correctly, even before she started teaching Japanese at Nishimachi, Sasayama-sensei taught shuji (calligraphy) during “Japanese” summer school. She also taught shuji as an after-school activity for many years after she became a fulltime language teacher. When she needed a classroom for her shuji classes, she would always come up to me and ask if she could use mine. I loved having her teach there, not because she would always leave the room spotless (which she did), but because it was such a treat to watch someone with such passion for her craft, with such enthusiasm and with so much caring for her students. At the end of each summer school, or after-school session, she would thank me.

Whether teaching shuji or language, Sasayamasensei was a professional. She knew her craft, and she knew how far she could push her students, whether they knew it or not. She wanted the best from and for them. She was stern, she was kind and fair, and she was patient up to a point, but knew when to pretend to get mad and when to raise her voice (in a kind way).

Just ask my daughter, Rebecca, and some of her friends.

Sasayama-sensei’s presence was commanding.

She delivered with dignity and poise. Her students (whether shuji or Japanese) understood that being in her class would make them better learners. As strict as she was, and as “scary” as she sometimes could be, her students always wanted to be in her class.

Decades ago, while I was teaching in the junior high school at Nishimachi and coaching basketball, the students and I designed T-shirts to sell to the Nishimachi community as a means

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

of raising money for our trips to Kansai to play basketball and to visit cultural sites in the area.

One of the ideas we had for the design was to create a Nishimachi logo using the kanji for Nishimachi.

Of course, the best person for the job was Sasayama-sensei. I asked her, very politely, if she would consider doing this. “No,” she said emphatically, explaining that she did not think she could not do nearly a good enough job. Of course, after a while, she relented, and the rest is history. The result was a T-shirt with a large kanji on the back and small romaji on the front.

Over the years the design has changed but, if I’m right, the kanji that appears is still the one that Sasayama-sensei designed many decades ago.

I was very sorry when Sasayama-sensei made the decision to retire, and sorry for all the Nishimachi students who wouldn’t have the opportunity to be in her class. But she knew it was time and did what was right and best for her. Those Nishimachi students who knew her were better off for having had her as a teacher.

And I am a better person for having known her.

David Green April 2021 Remembering Sasayama-sensei Standing tall, resolute, and graceful, Sasayamasensei was held in high esteem and affection by students, parents, and colleagues.

She was strict but fair and made her students work very hard. She had a wonderful sense of humor and had a ready smile for everyone. While her students looked forward to her summer school calligraphy class, graduates competed for the prestigious calligraphy assistant positions.

Most of her colleagues looked up to Sasayamasensei. She would share her ideas and give advice to anyone who asked. Up in the Japanese teachers’ offices on the third floor of the Matsukata House, she generously shared her mother’s beautiful books on wild plants and flowers and encouraged me to memorize their names.

Even over thirty years later, there is no student or colleague whose life she touched who doesn’t remember her with enormous affection and respect. I feel privileged and honored to have worked with such a wonderful teacher.

Toshiko Ohta

15

16

The Internationalist

追想 笹山美代子先生 河合潤子、 林 敬子、 北条庸子

教

科書の束を抱えて、校内を颯爽とお歩き になる先生。声をお掛けすると、しっか りとこちらを向いて、はっきりした声で

お返事をしてくださる先生。 ジュニアハイでお教 え頂いた娘の晴子は、ご指導は厳しいけれどいつも ユーモアのセンスを持って生徒たちに接してくださ る先生でいらしたとのこと。私にとっては、まさに 理想の教師と言える方でした。

学校のお仕事以外の時間は、書道のお稽古に熱心 に励まれていらっしゃいました。 毎年頂く年賀状 の美しい文字に少時見とれては、豊かな気持ちにさ せて頂いたものです。 先生が、西町スクールにお 残しくださった最大のプレゼント、それは、あの「 西町」という漢字のロゴです。 先生もご自身の文字が校舎の壁に刻まれたことを 「この上なく名誉なこと」と大そうお喜びでした。 わたくしたちに、素晴らしい贈り物を残して旅 立たれた先生のご冥福を改めてお祈り申し上げま す。

河合潤子 ◆◆◆ 笹山先生と言えば厳しく、個性が際立っていた印 象を抱いています。 何事にもご自分の意見がはっきりと述べられまし た。

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

皆様がご存知のように、西町のロゴは笹山先が書 かれたものです。 主だった書道展の常連で書道の達人でした。 百人一首を4歳で覚えた笹山先生、彼方でも楽し んでください。 林 敬子 ◆◆◆ 笹山さん！あなたとの思い出は、大阪の今宮中学 時代と、西町スクール時代の二つになりますね。今 宮中学では、国語教師の大先輩として。西町では、 日本語教師の同僚として。 あなたは書道の腕を、西町では大いに役立て、今 の“西町”のロゴを遺して下さいました。 西町から届くものに必ずあなたのロゴが入ってい て、見る度に、あなたを思い出しております。元気 一杯、時には関西弁も交え、ユーモアたっぷりに子 供たちと楽しそうに授業をしていらした姿を今でも 思い出します。 共に過ごせた西町での年月。今宮中学での出会い が、西町まで続いた不思議な“ご縁”に感謝しており ます。 多謝！！ 北条庸子

17

18

The Internationalist

Grade Eight Tea with Alumni Charlotte G., Grade 8

E

ighth grade students hosted a Zoom gathering with Nishimachi alumni on Wednesday, 17 February. We had the opportunity to ask questions and get to know the alumni over Zoom. It was a great experience for us, and hopefully for them as well.

Although we had prepared for the usual awkward beginning to a Zoom call, many of our alumni guests quickly recognized old friends and were excited to connect with each other.

They made it easy for us! We enjoyed listening to their stories from when they were our age at Nishimachi, and learning more about our school from their experiences. Their excitement to share memories from their time at Nishimachi made it interesting, and a lot of fun as well. The alumni in my group’s breakout room recalled their personal highlights from Nishimachi, and it was interesting to see how much has changed since then, and how much we have in common. Everyone shared the same love for Kazuno and the Ski Trip, and I was happy to see that those

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

memories stuck with them, as I know they will stick with us.

While we learned a lot from chatting with our alumni guests, in preparation for the Zoom call, we all brushed up on our Matsukata House and Nishimachi facts, and learned some things that we didn’t know before this project. We had seen old pictures of Matsukata House, but it all became more meaningful once we talked to people who were actually there at the time. We knew that the main entrance used to be an entrance to the Swedish Embassy, and the alumni recalled kicking a ball into the embassy when they were younger. Hearing them reminisce on their middle school days was exciting, as the old pictures had personal memories behind them. Their stories brought the images to life for us.

As in many Zoom calls, there were times when things didn’t go as expected, or when technological difficulties caused a bit of disruption. This forced us to act in the moment

and think efficiently. The “We Make Connections” and “We Are Creative” NLEs definitely came in handy here! Members of my group were dashing over to other rooms to help each other out when they struggled with technology or were unsure of something. We all learned a lot from the leadership opportunity.

In breakout rooms, we showed our guests a virtual tour of campus, and they were all surprised to see how much has changed. Many of them also reminded us that when they were in middle school, they didn’t have computers, laptops or iPhones (unfathomable!). Despite all of the differences between their time at Nishimachi and our school life today, it was very clear, even from the beginning of the gathering, that the sense of community and family between students has not changed at all. I recognized the same kindness and closeness that we still have today, and our alumni guests definitely showed us that this doesn’t change or go away with time.

19

20

The Internationalist

Grade Four Government Unit Research Aleks Kostic, Terry Morris, Victoria Robinson Grade Four Teachers

D

uring the first semester, the grade four students learned about government. They learned about the similarities and differences between governments, the responsibilities people have towards their government, and how government affects the people. The unit culminated with the students learning about the ways a government affects its citizens.

The students researched several big issues in the world and created videos to spread awareness. They learned about “kids in cages,” the need for clean water, Syrian refugees, and education for girls. Finally, after learning how to write essays, the students participated in an essay contest to share their information with the Nishimachi community. The winning pieces follow.

Please note that these were written by grade four students and have not been edited or revised by teachers.

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Children in Cages Should be Free

By Franco

Im

C.

aging being locked in an old building for months, even years! It would be a nightmare! Unfortunately, this is actually happening at the U.S. border where children are being separated from their parents. Children should be free because they are kept in terrible conditions, they are mercilessly separated from their families, those cages were actually made for criminals trying to cross to the U.S. border not children and their families and this act violates the rights of a child.

The children are kept in terrible conditions. For instance, they only have a blanket of silver lining typically made for the inside of grocery bags.

These do not protect the children from the cold whatsoever. Another example is they are kept in the same clothes they were wearing when they tried to cross the border! Once a baby vomited on someone’s shirt and that someone asked if they could change their shirt. Guess what the officials said; if you said they said no you’re right. This shows the children are kept in terrible conditions and they need your help. They could get sick in those cages and die of illness with nobody to hear their last words.

Next, the children are mercilessly separated from their families while trying to cross the border while their families are put into prison. I understand the U.S. is paranoid about having their jobs taken but it is no excuse to put children in cages! Also it is a law so long as a child is accompanied by a guardian, the child

must not be separated from the guardian. In the case the child is not accompanied by one, to avoid a child being put into detention, quickly inform a national child protection authority who will identify the child and provide a temporary guardian for them.

Those cages were actually made for criminals trying to cross the border not children. The Obama administration made the cages but they were actually made for criminals trying to cross the border as I stated before. While the Obama administration did put children into detention centres, they were only there for fortyeight hours (Three days). However, the Trump administration made the choice to leave them there indefinitely though Trump says it’s only a “last resort”. Quoting my father, “No action all talk”.

Lastly, this act violates a child’s right to have a proper home and to be kept in good health.

Every child has the right to have a proper home and to be cared for when not in good health.

Trump dismissed all of these and put the children in cages regardless of their rights to be free. Children should have the right to free.

This act also denies legal rights to immigrants in extreme vulnerability trying to cross the border, fleeing for their lives.

In the end, I hope you believe children should not be put in cages because they are kept in terrible conditions, they are mercilessly separated from their families, those cages were actually made for criminals trying to cross to the U.S. border not children and their families and this act violates the rights of a child. You can help by donating to organizations like RAICES, The American Civil Rights Project or ACLU. Of course those are not the only organizations you can donate to these are just ones I recommend.

Thank you for reading this. I give you my gratitude and hope you will make a difference in the life of a child.

21

22

The Internationalist

Syrian Refugees Need Our Help!!

By Alice

C.

D

id you know that over 500,000 people have been killed during the war?! Also over 55,000 kids have died!! This proves that we have to help the Syrian refugees!! We have to help the Syrian refugees because they are dying, they are losing their homes, and most of all because they are losing

their artifacts and history.

One reason that we have to help the Syrian refugees is because they are dying. One example that they are dying is that many syrian kids do not have the proper materials to stay alive. For instance, a Syrian family was living in a city called Damascus when the war started, and because of that they got bombed in the middle of the night, so they had to get in their car and drive as fast as possible!! But the dad of the family had to go back and forth between the border to get his friends and family to a safe place, but it was so dangerous that they even had to turn off their headlights and drive in the dark!! Because of the war over 6.5 million people have become syrian refugees and 2.5 million of those are children!!

Another reason that we have to help the Syrian refugees is because they are losing their homes. Also, if that was not bad enough, the

Syrian refugees sometimes have to leave their friends and family behind. For example, a family in Aleppo had to leave their home because of the war, but they left in such a hurry that they had to leave a lot of things behind without knowing if it would still be there if they could even come back. But then when they came back their house was completely annihilated .

This situation has affected the Syrians so much that up to now over 12 million Syrians have lost their homes, and over 1 million Syrian children have been born in exile.

Lastly we have to help the Syrian refugees keep their historical artifacts safe. Some people are so desperate to save the artifacts that they die trying!! For example, one time while the war was happening the president Assad bombed a museum full of important artifacts in a city called pietro, and a LOT of people died trying to save a very ancient artifact that was destroyed. They also destroyed an artifact that was over 800,000 years old!!

All these facts show that the Syrian refugee crisis is a much more serious problem than we might think. We need to realize that these people are very important and that we need to start working to save them. We can help them by creating websites and spreading this essay all around social media for example, facebook, instagram, and twitter, or you can just share this news to all of your friends and family everywhere!! We can even make a donation website to Syrian refugees who have immigrated to Japan!! Considering that, the Syrian refugees are dying, have lost their homes, and have lost their historical artifacts, and we need to try to make sure that all of it stops.

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Education for Girls

By Daiya

K.

D

she would have been much more independent and free to do what she wanted to do. All girls should get access to education because they will be more independent.

Although all girls should get access to education because they will have a better life and they will be more independent, all girls should especially get access to education because they will improve their country’s economy. I think that all countries would want a good economy. With

id you know that there are over 2 million girls that can’t get education? Many girls haven’t been able to get education over the last decades. I think that is wrong. In my opinion, all girls should get access to education because they will have a better life, they will become more independent and most of all, they will improve the economy.

One reason why all girls should get access to education is because they will have a better life.

They will get a better life because they will get a well paying job. They won’t be able to get one without proper education. Also, when the girls become adults, they won’t be so helpless. This made me think that without education, people will have miserable lives. With a good education you can get a good job. With a good job you can be independent. With a good job you can have a good family. Once, a girl in Pakistan couldn’t get any education, she had to rely on her brother to cook, wash the dishes and do everything for her.

All girls should get access to education because they will have a better life.

Another reason why all girls should get access to education is because they will be more independent. All girls who do not get education, have to get married at around age 16 because they will be helpless without a husband. On the other hand, if they do get education, they will be much more independent and won’t have to marry at all. Being independent is crucial for life because you will be able to make decisions for yourself. Being independent is crucial for life because you won’t be helpless. Once in Pakistan, a girl had to marry at the age of 12, and her husband had to do everything for her.

If she was able to get education, she wouldn’t have had to marry at such a young age, and

a good economy, the country’s people would have better lives and the country would be well off. If all girls get access to education, the country would have more qualified people who can work in the economy. This is a big benefit for countries who do not have good economies.

Most of those countries are in Central Asia, which is where most countries do not give access to education for girls. The economy is important because the country won’t be developing anymore. The economy is important because there will be better financial services.

The economy is important because kids will get better education. Once in Pakistan, a girl was able to get proper education, she got a proper job in the economy and the country’s economy became much better. All girls should get access to education because they will improve their country’s economy.

In conclusion, all girls should get access to education because they will have better lives, they will become more independent and most importantly they will improve their country’s economy. Many people around the world are helping with this problem. What you can do is donate money to funding communities like “The Malala Fund”. I hope that now you have read this essay, you can support girls’ right to education.

23

24

The Internationalist

ow much do you rely on water everyday? Do you flush the toilet, take a shower or drink a cup of water? The average person uses 80~100 gallons of water per day. That is 378,541 ml. But some countries don’t have the water that we take advantage of. The water crisis or water scarcity is when people lack the amount of clean water they need to stay healthy. The amount of deaths caused by this crisis is more than 850,000 people yearly. That is more than the deaths caused

by Covid-19 in the USA, India, and Brazil combined. Humans are the root problem to this crisis. We are wild beasts to the earth, polluting the air, the ocean, animal habitats,

responsible for international health and a part of the United Nations states, “Water scarcity impacts 40% of the world’s population, and as many as 700 million people are at-risk of being displaced by 2030”. Especially people in extreme poverty are severely impacted as polluted water is the only available source of water to drink, they are forced to drink water that is unfit for human consumption. They can suffer from a range of diseases and health problems.

Although some of us struggle to live, some humans waste a lot of water, for instance in the USA only 10% of the water used by its citizens are reused.This could be because it is expensive to clean water so it cannot be reused. A solution to this is to use less water reducing the amount of water you use is the best and most simple solution to this crisis. It could be a simple action, like using less water when washing dishes, or making sure you always turn the tap off after using it. While some people that live in poverty drink unsanitary water, some people take baths and showers. Just by doing simple actions you can help the 1.1 billion people that suffer from lack of water.

The second reason this crisis is an issue is because it damages the environment. Water

and even the lives of humans. The water crisis needs to be solved because if we continue on this path, we will run out of water by the end of 2050.

The first reason we must end this global crisis is that it affects all human life. People need water to live and in some areas of the world sustainable clean water is not available. WHO the World Wide Organization

scarcity can lead to other issues like global climate change, and droughts. Climate change is when humans produce carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases which trap light from the sun and keep it inside the atmosphere. This light heats up the earth causing a slow rise in temperature. Climate Change has caused the combined land and ocean temperatures to increase at an average

Clean Water Around The World

By Alistair

M.

H

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

rate of 0.07°C per decade since 1880. However, the average rate of increase since 1981 is 0.18°C and is more than twice as great. Huge changes in temperature can cause droughts which weaken and dry out the soil. Droughts are a type of natural disaster that is cracks in the dry ground caused by a shortage of water and a lack of rain or snow. It can cause millions of dollars worth of damage, crop failure, wildfires, and animal migration. As water scarcity is a problem that we can solve, we should be concerned about how much water we use. We need to take action and prevent droughts that could cost millions of dollars worth of damage and climate change from occurring. We must protect nature and the environment we live in because water scarcity could damage the earth and its onec healthy soil.

The third reason we must take action is because it has a tremendous effect on wildlife and endangered animals. Droughts and climate change are just some of the several natural disasters that water scarcity can cause. Animals might have mass migrations, mass extinctions or lack of food and drinking water. This crisis also increases diseases in habitats of wild animals.

Droughts can create un-livable environments for wild animals therefore, habitats are lost, animals forced out of their homes, and mass migrations

can occur. Droughts cause lower water levels in reservoirs, lakes and ponds resulting in poor soil quality. The soil will become dry and will contain no moisture which can lead to wildfires. If a wildfire occurs habitats and wetlands will be lost and destroyed. So, once again I think it is better to be concerned about using less water than to destroy habitats and endangering animals.

In conclusion, we must prevent this water crisis from affecting any more people because there are three main victims. Humans, the environment we live in, and wildlife and animals.

We must ‘Know, Care, and Take Action’ because there are people on earth who struggle to drink water everyday and if we don’t act now, clean-drinkable water will be unavailable to six billion people on this earth by 2050.The simplest of actions can make a difference. It could be getting in the shower for a minute less and although a minute may seem like nothing, if everyone contributes then we can save a lot of water. As Vincent van Gogh said “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together” Once again, ‘Know, Care, and Take Action’. It is absolutely necessary to solve this crisis and as a whole we have the power to bring water scarcity to an end saving the millions of lives of humans, animals and the health of our planet and the environment.

25

26

The Internationalist

November 21, 2020

7th Annual Outreach Scholarship Walk-a-thon/Run-a-thon

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Andrew Deane Walkathon Co-Chair MS Humanities Teacher

D

oes anyone remember that Talking Heads’ song “Life during Wartime”?

Well, the COVID-19 pandemic can feel a little like that sometimes: “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, This ain’t no fooling’ around…”* So it was absolutely thrilling to hold our annual Walkathon despite challenging times.

To see our community rally in a safe, socially distanced, mask-toting show of support for one of our ever-popular annual trysts was a pleasure.

Directed by our intrepid leader, Jan Opdahl, all the way from Hawaii where travel restrictions— and a broken ankle—kept her physically but not emotionally housebound, we focused on flexible thinking and technological adaptation to overcome the restrictions imposed by lockdown.

Despite being unable to congregate in person at the usual Meiji Jingu Gaien Loop, a whopping 213 walkers—three of them in the United States—gathered remotely to “walk the walk.” Independently bubbled, participants tuned in at 09:00 on Saturday, November 21, to a livestream broadcast from our spacious gymnasium, where our Walkathon team, fronted by our head of school, Karen O’Neill, kicked off the annual event with a spirited welcome. The livestream was interspersed with pre-recorded videos of Dan Williams leading us through our pre-walk stretches, Josh Gibson and family reminding us about safety issues from the beach at Enoshima, and Mayumi Nakayama, Matt McKinney, and Andrew Deane thanking our sponsors from Meiji Jingu Gaien. Walkers walked wherever they and their family bubbles found themselves, and many took fascinating photographs to share on social media. The event concluded with a video of the draw for lots of fantastic prizes. Apart physically, but drawn together in spirit and bound by purpose, we raised an astounding ¥800,000 for our Outreach Scholarship fund.

We want to thank all of you who signed up and walked despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic. We are particularly grateful to all of our sponsors, volunteers, and colleagues who assisted with technology, videos, and the signup process. See you all next year back at the Loop!

* Lyrics retrieved 9 Feb 2021 from https://genius.com/ Talking-heads-life-during-wartime-lyrics.

27

28

The Internationalist

Food Fair 2020

Ih

Lalaka (Fukuma) Ogawa ‘90 Vice Chair, Nishimachi-Kai

ope that you are well and safe as COVID-19 still continues to affect our lives in one way or another. Food Fair 2020 was one of the many school events that had to be cancelled last year due to the pandemic protocols the school adopted.

In spite of this, however, Tomo no Kai (TNK), with some creativity, came up with a way to do Food Fair 2020 virtually.

The annual Food Fair Poster Contest was held as usual but virtually: students uploaded their artwork onto the virtual Google gallery room for the community to look at. TNK also supported local restaurants—this was where the “food” factor came in since we were only able to offer professionally made foods this year—by selling take-out obentos online and arranging for pick-up at the restaurant and/or front gate of the school. Nishimachi masks were made by parents and sold online as well. TNK also launched a Holiday Charity Raffle to compensate for the raffle fun Food Fair always provided along with the all-school raffle sales race, which has now become a tradition.

The winning class usually enjoys a pizza party; however, because we couldn’t hold parties this year, students got an Amazon gift card and were able to choose one charity to give a percentage of the raffle sales to.

As a part of this Holiday Charity Raffle initiative, Nishimachi-Kai contributed to Food Fair sales by selling gorgeous Nishimachi blue, holiday ornaments with the Nishimachi kanji logo beautifully hand-painted in white onto each and every ornament by Nishimachi alumna and current parent Haruko (Kawai) Kohno ’85. She made a total of a little over twenty ornaments, and all sold instantly. Some were purchased by fellow alumni who came to pick them up at school. (I know that alumni friends located overseas could not purchase them because of shipping and handling issues, and we apologize for the inconvenience.) The wonderful idea to create these Nishimachi ornaments came from alumna parent Wendy Kobayashi, who also donated the ornaments and ribbons. Thank you so much to Haruko and Wendy for contributing their creativity, talent, and time to NishimachiKai! Last but not least, it was a big disappointment, at least for me, not to be able to taste the delicious falafels Tal Kitaoka has been bringing to Food Fair for many years now. If anyone living in Tokyo misses them like I do, you can actually enjoy them, along with his other delightful dishes, and support his business by visiting his restaurant, Shamaim, in Ekoda, Nerima ward! https://www.shamaimtokyo.com/ I am hoping that the vaccines will reach many of us this summer and that we will be able to hold Food Fair 2021 and see many of your smiling faces again. Meanwhile, please stay safe, healthy, and happy during these tough and unprecedented times.

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Nishimachi-Kai News

Walkathon 2020 Mayumi Nakayama ‘90 Nishimachi Development Office

T

his year’s Outreach Scholarship Walkathon faced some major obstacles.

First there was Jan Opdahl, the alumna parent who spearheaded the previous seven walkathons, stuck in Hawaii, where she now lives, and unable to enter Japan due to COVID-19 restrictions. COVID restrictions further stipulated that we were not permitted to congregate in large groups.

So what did the Nishimachi Outreach Walkathon team come up with? A virtual walkathon!

Meetings between the organizers (Jan Opdahl, Andrew Deane, Matt McKinney, and myself) took place on Zoom. After much debating back and forth of scenarios, shifting the component parts around, and juggling time zones, we had 208 participants join in the virtual fun from around the globe, including twenty NishimachiKai members. (For a full repont on this year’s walkathon, please see p. 18.)

Until last year (and except for the fifth anniversary Rainbow Bridge walk), participants congregated for the walkathon in front of Meiji Jingu Gaien’s picture gallery, where the head of school welcomed everyone. After walking for an hour, we returned to our starting point for the lucky draw. Since we wanted to keep the format for this virtual get-together as close as possible to that of our traditional event (everyone walking the same route as a group), we asked all participants to go out and walk regardless of

their location, wherever they liked. Their mission was to explore and to take photos of what they saw to be shared with the Nishimachi community.

To add a little structure to their walk participants received a Photo Rally Card that they populated with their photos (instead of the lap cards children walkers usually receive). The photos that came in from participants far and wide turned out to be the highlight of the event, with so many different backdrops, so much imagination, so many smiles. Recognition for “furthest in Japan” goes to Philippe Eymard, Nishimachi’s former director of development, who joined us from Beppu in Kyushu. Recognition for “furthest worldwide” goes to former MS teacher, Roy Struble from Baltimore, Maryland. (To see the photos, please search #nishimachiwalkathon and #outreachwalkathon2020 on Instagram.)

Walkathon 2020 was a great success in spite of the challenges of the pandemic. We are hoping that Walkathon 2021 will be even better and can be run both in person and virtually, thus opening up participation to NishimachiKai members worldwide.

Alumni, parents of alumni, and former staff/faculty: Philippe Eymard, Lalaka (Ogawa) Fukuma ‘90, Philip Greenan, Nancy Hashima ‘83, Ryoji Kubo ‘90, Hiroko Lockheimer, Denise Miura, Kaz Miura ‘19, Toshi Miura, Nikko Miyata ‘96, Mayumi Nakayama ‘90, Karen O’Neill ‘78, Jan Opdahl, Peter Opdahl, Tokuya Sano ‘84, Grace Sekimitsu, Roy Struble, Naoko Takamori, Vandy Tam, Toyoko Tasaki ‘83, Dan Weiss

29

30

The Internationalist

Dear Nishimachi-Kai Members,

W

e hope that this message finds you well, wherever you are in the world. As you all probably know, we were not able to hold the annual Nishimachi-Kai BBQ last year due to the pandemic. This year, we wanted to try to get the alumni community together in a safe way, so we are holding a virtual gathering instead of the in-person BBQ and calling it the NishimachiKai Summer Zoom Gathering. We will be getting together on June 19 (Saturday), from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Tokyo time. We hope that this will be a great opportunity for the greater alumni community spread across the world to join in and share Nishimachi memories.

Karen O’Neill ’78, Nishimachi head of school, will join us for a brief update on the school from about 10:15 to 10:30 a.m.

We hope that many of you can participate if only for a short time. In order to have a better idea of numbers, we ask that you sign up if you are interested. We have an exclusive Nishimachi screensaver as a gift for those of you who do, which we will be sending along with the Zoom link at a later date.

Thank you. We look forward to hearing from many of you soon!

Stay safe, healthy, and happy.

The Nishimachi-Kai Board

Honolulu, U.S.A.

3:00 PM

Friday, June 18

Los Angeles, U.S.A.

6:00 PM

Friday, June 18

New York, U.S.A.

9:00 PM

Friday, June 18

London, U.K.

2:00 AM

Saturday, June 19

Singapore

9:00 AM

Saturday, June 19

Tokyo

10:00 AM

Saturday, June 19

Sydney, Australia

11:00 AM

Saturday, June 19

Spring/Summer 2021 Vol.66

Postmarks We have removed the Postmarks section from the online version for privacy reasons. If you are a Nishimachi-Kai member, please signup at www.nishimachi.ac.jp/address to receive the hard copy in mail.

31

36

The Internationalist

Last Day to Donate: July 31, 2021 The Matsukata House 100th Anniversary Project A Restoration A Campaign to restore the Matsukata House to honor Nishimachi’s history was launched at the school’s 70th anniversary celebration February 14, 2020. The Campaign runs through July of 2021. Our goal is to raise 40 million yen.

Nishimachi trustee and former parent Mr. Masamoto Yashiro has offered a ¥10,000,000 match for all new gifts to the Matsukata House 100th Anniversary Project. Your new gift will have double the impact!

Special Recognition of donors at the following levels will be made on the Donor Wall in the Lobby of Matsukata House:

¥2,500,000 or $25,000 ¥1,000,000 or $10,000 ¥500,000 or $5,000 ¥100,000 or $1,000

If you have already given and would like to give again to reach one of these special levels, we express our deep appreciation.

Photo by Toshiharu Kitajima

Matsukata House 100th Anniversary Project 松方ハウス100周年記念プロジェクト Credit Card Donation

Annual Fund

クレジットカードでのご寄付

年次基金

Outreach Scholarship Program アウトリーチ奨学金

Give to Nishimachi 西町へのご支援

www.nishimachi.ac.jp/giving