JAPAN FOUNDATION WORLDWIDE

Photograph: Courtesy of the Jim Thompson Art Center

Jim Thompson is famous as a brand of Thai silk, and the Jim Thompson Art Center, supported by the James H.W. Thompson Foundation, holds “Tomyam Pladib” an art exhibition of Thai and Japanese contemporary art on March 19 through June 5. The exhibition features Japanese art eminences: Yoshitomo Nara; Yasumasa Morimura; Tsuyoshi Ozawa; and Ryota Suzuki as well as Thai artists: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, film maker; Jarupatcha Achavasmit, young fashion designer; and Wisut Ponnimit, manga artist.

The Japan Foundation, Bangkok supported Tomyam Pladib seminar JAPANESE ART AND CULTURE: INSIDE OUT/OUTSIDE IN, held by the Jim Thompson Art Center. The seminar featured presentations by three renowned curators from Japan: Yuko Hasekawa, chief curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Mami Kataoka, senior curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Hayward Gallery, London; and Raiji Kuroda, chief curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka. Each museum they work involves in introducing Asian artists. They talked enthusiastically about the phenomenon of Japanese contemporary art and what museums are doing from their own viewpoint. Moreover, they expressed their views and introduced examples showing that Japanese art now is a complex of diverse genres, how performance-oriented or politics-oriented artists are working, a position of Japanese art in the context of the Western art, artist’s view based on his/her generation, artist movement relying on local communities. Later, they had a question-and-answer session with audience of about 90.

In Asian countries including Thailand, contemporary art draws increasing attention. The Japan Foundation, Bangkok believes it is important to provide an opportunity for searching background and meaning of exchange, and to build a network for artists and curators, in addition to supporting events. In that sense, we would like to thank Ms Gridthiya Gaweewong, Artistic Director, and the staff of the Jim Thompson Art Center, who made every effort for Tomyam Pladib exhibition.

There are about 6,300 Japanese-language learners in Mexico according to 2006 survey by the Japan Foundation, and most of them have little chance to speak with Japanese native speakers except their language teacher.For Japanese learners, speaking with Japanese except their teachers is very effective not only in practicing what they learnt but in getting confidence in their command of Japanese and increasing their desire to continue learning.

To improve the situation, the Japan Foundation planned Volunteer Program for Japanese-language Education in cooperation with Asociacion Mexicana del Idioma Japones A.C.In this program, we ask Japanese expatriates in Mexico to become volunteers to have conversation with Japanese learners in Japanese.As a way to give shape to the program, we tried to compile a manual for the volunteers to participate in the Japanese-language classes to talk with the learners.We hoped that the volunteers can work in many schools with this manual.

From February to January in 2008 the program was tried at three Japanese-language schools, using the manual.In the trial, several groups with one volunteer and a few students were made and they talked freely on a theme in Japanese in each group.

Japanese-language learners were not always good at conversation, but it seemed that they enjoyed a talk with the volunteers and they became highly motivated.The teachers for the classes said the students expressed themselves so lively, which they never did in the class before, that they were much impressed.

The volunteers who participated in the program also made positive comments, saying it was a good opportunity for them to contact with Mexican people and to have another look at Japan.

In this way, we made sure that Volunteer Program for Japanese-language Education is as effective as we expected.We hope that many Japanese-language educational institutions will have such classes using the manual to enhance learners’ motivation and mutual understanding and exchange between Japanese and Mexicans at the grass-roots level.

The Japan Foundation London Office supports Japanese language education in the UK in many different ways. Our main activities are aimed at teachers, for example, providing teacher training workshops and developing teaching materials. However, we also hold courses and events to motivate learners of Japanese. Here are two programmes that we have recently held.

Firstly, in February we held the Third Japanese Speech Contest for University Students. This year, students from 14 universities around the UK applied. The finals were held at Imperial College London, and the ten finalists competed for prizes while demonstrating the hard work they had put into their Japanese studies. The winning finalist in the category for those majoring in Japanese spoke about “The unique Japanese approach to showing consideration for others”. Giving examples from the novel Saga no Gabai Baachan (Gabai Granny from Saga) he gave a persuasive explanation that this is characterised by showing consideration while trying not to let the other person notice the care you are taking. The quality of the speeches has been increasing from year to year and made the listeners notice unexpected things they had previously overlooked. There were also many enthusiastic suggestions for Japanese people, and the audience of over 150 enjoyed the event very much.

Another of our programmes is the advanced Japanese language course Talking Contemporary Japan, which allows participants to study aspects of Japanese culture in Japanese. This four-part course is targeted at those at or above level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It aims to allow them to learn about Japanese culture and society while improving their language skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening. To date, the participants have used television news and newspaper articles as source material for debating current social issues, and also considered the culture and history of a specific region, in this case Okinawa. In the February course, the participants watched Akira Kurosawa’s film “Dreams” and discussed the relation between humans and nature, environmental issues, and attitudes to death. Some differences between Japanese and British ways of thinking became clear, and the course content was extremely interesting.

Our regular activities to support Japanese language education are usually focussed on schools, and we have few opportunities to make contact with adult learners of Japanese. However, musicians, financial workers in the City, and natural science researchers are among those who have signed up for repeat courses of Talking Contemporary Japan. Through activities like these courses, we want to continue to enlarge our network of Japan-enthusiasts who speak Japanese.