The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2022 Vol.68

The Internationalist Nishimachi International School Spring 2022 Vol. 68

Head of School Karen O'Neill '78 Interim Director of Advancement Mary Margaret Mallat Marketing and Communications Manager Kacie Leviton '95 Managing Editor Mayumi Nakayama ‘90 Editor Anne Papantonio Art design Akira Tomomitsu (Mashup) The Internationalist, Spring 2022 Vol. 68, is published by the Advancement Office for alumni, parents, students, faculty, and friends of Nishimachi International School.

Article Contributors

Photography

Elisha B. Grade 9 Victoria B. Grade 9 Shehryar C. Grade 9 Susan Grigsby Thien-Thi H. Grade 9 Nina Kelly Mayumi Nakayama ‘90 Anna Q. Grade 8 Alasdair R. Grade 9 Marie Staples Michael S. Strickland Sally Y. Grade 9

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Joanne Elliott Grade 9 Advisors and Students Erica Nakayama Nishimachi International School Sayaka Sato ‘97 Marie Staples Fumitsugu Tosu ‘94 United Nations World Food Programme Brian Webb

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

Web . 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： www.nishimachi.ac.jp

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Features

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Alumni

This Nishimachi Thing

How two alumni have drawn on Nishimachi’s multicultural and multilingual ethos to become the humanitarians they are today.

Alumni Parent

Banking in Four Languages

Nishimachi head Karen O’Neill ’78 talks with retired oilman and banker Masamoto Yashiro about the value of having more than one language in your back pocket.

News & Notes

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Student Article

Grade Eight Students Know, Care, and Take Action A group of eighth graders met in March to talk about helping a charity and then collected over twenty boxes of basic necessities for those in need.

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Student Article

Grade Nine Students Explore Hiroshima, Nara, and Kyoto Grade nine students experienced the Japanese cities they studied.

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Teacher Article

You Can’t Have a Rainbow, Without a Little Rain

Here are the reflections from three Nishimachi staff members who attended the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade, on a gray and rainy day in April.

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Retirements

Keiko Isobe-Hotta and John Beirne Share Reflections of Nishimachi

The two long-time Nishimachi staff will be leaving after decades of service.

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Postmarks & In Memory

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This Nishimachi Thing Michael S. Strickland How two alumni have drawn on Nishimachi’s multicultural and multilingual ethos to become the humanitarians they are today.

“I

think it’s this Nishimachi thing where you only speak three languages,” laughs Sayaka Sato ’97, regional partnerships officer for the Asi and Pacific regional bureau of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in Bangkok, Thailand, when discussing the advantages she gained from Nishimachi’s multicultural and multilingual ethos. “Nishimachi really helps you think that way—that you’re not special just because you speak English, and Japanese, and some other language”—in Sayaka’s case, French.

“I took French in seventh and eighth grade at Nishimachi,” Sayaka explains. “My sister Mizuki [Nishimachi class of ’91] said I should take it.

I said to her, ‘Come on, it’s optional, it’s more homework, I don’t want to take it.’ But she said, ‘You should, you really should.’ And she convinced me to take it, even though it would be extra work—English was already hard enough for someone from a Japanese-Japanese family like ours!”

Sayaka explains that one of the requirements for working in a United Nations agency like WFP is the ability to speak, read, and write at least two of the six official UN languages—English, French Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Spanish. Those two years of middle-school French at Nishimachi, plus the native fluency in English anyone who attends Nishimachi K–8 acquires, gave her the base she built on later to ace the language requirements of the UN’s Junior Professional Officer program i December 2009 and start her career with WFP. Although English and Japanese sufficed for th first three postings of that career—consultant at the WFP Japan Relations Office in Tokyo program officer, first, at WFP’s Yemen count office in Sanaa (November 2010–May 2011), the at WFP’s regional bureau in Cairo, Egypt (June 2011–October 2011)—French was de rigueur for the four years (November 2012–December 2016) Sayaka spent at WFP’s country office in Bangui Central African Republic. “You have to be fluent,” she explains. “It’s not like, ‘Bonjour, je m’appelle so-and-so’—you have to be able to do meetings and such. So my work in the Central African Republic was done almost entirely in French. I spoke French so much that I forgot English. Even my interviews with the media were in French.”

Fumitsugu Tosu ’94 at a school in Sekong Province, southern Laos, for which the World Food Program (WFP) provides lunch, November 2019

Opening doors

“I also took French from sixth to eighth grade at

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Fumitsugu’s family photo in traditional Burmese attire, December 2019

Nishimachi,” adds Fumitsugu Tosu ’94, Head of Program at WFP’s country office in Vientiane, La People’s Democratic Republic, “and then later in high school at The American School in Japan. I studied French a total of six years, but somehow it didn’t stick. But Chinese I learned later on in college—it just came more naturally to me. So my second UN language is Chinese.”

Fumi also comments on how the multilingual and multicultural atmosphere of Nishimachi, which he attended from first through eighth grade, laid the groundwork for his future career in WFP. “It’s sort of unfair,” he says, “but English is so important in these international organizations. Going to Nishimachi really opened the doors, both in terms of language and also these multicultural aspects.”

With students and teachers bringing the sociocultural wealth of at least four continents spanning both hemispheres of the world into the familial warmth of its cozy campus, “Nishimachi’s diverse environment,” Fumi adds, “is actually sort of a unique environment”—a diverse, unique place imbuing students with the confidence to feel competent enough to communicate sans contrainte.

Fumi further explains that his father, a professor of linguistics and anthropology with a specialty in bilingualism, went to graduate school in the US when Fumi was four years old. “When we went to the US,” he says, “we started having two languages in our life. We were there for two years and when we came back to Japan when I was six, my father was convinced that we should try to maintain our English and that the American-style of education was preferable to the Japanese system

at the time. That’s why I ended up enrolling in first grade at Nishimachi.”

These multicultural aspects

“The linguistic aspect brings us back to the multicultural aspect,”Sayaka comments. It’s not uncommonly the case that people who’ve received a less multicultural education find it harder to interact readily with people perceived as too different from themselves. But because Nishimachi is so diverse, one gets used to speaking to and interacting with people from different backgrounds and cultures from an early age. Such familiarity with difference that one acquires at Nishimachi breeds a sort of fearlessness, or “so-what mindset,” as Sayaka calls it, that makes engaging with a diversity of people almost effortless.

“Because I was used to speaking to classmates from different countries—Pakistan, Singapore, China, wherever—I was not scared!”

She further points out that, while some linguists insist that a major hurdle when learning other

Sayaka Sato ’97 with her family

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languages involves something called “linguistic distance”—the distance deemed further, the hurdle deemed higher, between, say, Japanese and English than between English and French—the inclusive, multicultural, anxiety-free environment cultivated by the students, teachers, staff, and parents at Nishimachi ensures that such “linguistic distance” need not be a barrier to language-learning at all. Even new students hailing from places as diverse, for instance, as Turkey, Ukraine, and Finland, quickly become, thanks to Nishimachi’s nurturing pool of cross-cultural teachers, as swimmingly at ease in both of the school’s social and instructional languages as they are in those they speak at home.

2017 to March 2022, there was a think tank—and this same confidence-boosting father of one of her Nishimachi classmates was serving there as its director. “He was really high up in the State Department,” she says.

Humanitarian, wife, mother

Pin the label on the country

“It’s not just school, but family also,” Sayaka adds. She explains that her parents owned a women’s apparel fashion brand and that her mother worked full-time as a fashion designer.

“My mom was both working and cooking lunch for me and my sister Mizuki everyday,” she says.

“It was not as normal back then as it is now to have a working mom, but she showed me that it’s possible to have a full-fledged career and be a mother at the same time.”

And it so happens that, owing to one of kismet’s myriad whims, just across the hall from WFP’s Washington, D.C., office where Sayaka worke as a government partnerships officer from Jul

Sayaka emphasizes, “just like that.” What had been a family duty station when she and her family arrived in November 2012, suddenly turned, three weeks later, into a non-family duty station. “The rebels arrived the first week of December. It was

In addition to this “so-what mindset” deriving from the casual Sayaka was following internationalism her mother’s of Nishimachi’s example when “special she moved with environment,” husband Yoshiaki Sayaka also and daughter Yurika points out that to Bangui, Central many of her African Republic. classmates’ “I first went with parents were my family,” Sayaka diplomats. “I explains, “because had one specific we thought that it parent who was a nice place and inspired me,” she it was categorized as says. “This was a family duty station.” during one of the Even though “one of bike trips that our Sayaka providing ready-to-use supplementary food to the principles of being science teacher malnourished infants at a health center in the Central African a humanitarian worker,” Mr. Green used to Republic, April 2015 according to Sayaka, host for the kids “is that you don’t and their parents. I went on this bike trip and one choose where you’ll be assigned” every few years, day we played a board game where we had an WFP workers are allowed to choose between unlabeled map of the world and a set of labels a “non-family duty station”—such as Sayaka’s and you had to pick out at random the name of earlier posting to Sanaa—and a “family duty a country and pin it to where you thought the station”—such as Bangui was at the time. “Since country was on the map. I forget which country I I’m a humanitarian and a wife,” Sayaka clarifies, picked, but it was a very obscure one, and I just “whenever I apply to a new posting, I only apply if happened to know it, and my classmate’s father my husband says, ‘Okay, I’ll be okay if I go to that who was a diplomat was so impressed that I knew country.’” it. He said, ‘Good job!’ That really boosted my selfesteem.”

“But when a coup d’état happens, it happens,”

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counters, “my dad works, my mom doesn’t.” Still, he explains, there’s something about the nurturing multicultural environment he thrived in from first to eighth grade—characterized, on the one hand, by Nishimachi founder Tané Matsukata’s phrase, “Our ultimate goal is that every Nishimachi student learn to live harmoniously in, and contribute to, world society,” and, on the other, by a philosophy neatly summarized by Sayaka as “No stereotypes!”— which links up with his and Sayaka’s work both within WFP itself as well as in the international environments where they work.

“This photo was taken during Model United Nations.

We studied countries, came up with proposals, drafted resolutions, and so on. I proposed “saving the Earth” by reducing water consumption by 10%.

Amazing training in just fifth grade”–Sayaka

around Christmas when we got on the UN plane.”

While her husband and daughter were evacuated to Tokyo, Sayaka went to live in the neighboring country of Cameroon. There, on July 15, 2013, she recorded a video of herself celebrating, alone, her daughter Yurika’s first birthday. “Then I went back to Bangui,” Sayaka says, “but not with family. I went back to our apartment and literally everything was looted. It was as if I was moving in for the first time.

Sayaka stayed on in the Central African Republic until the end of 2016. “Every six weeks I would go back to Tokyo from Africa, which takes three days, just to stay with them for three days, and then get back on the plane for another three days to go back to Africa.” Sayaka stayed on in CAR even after she became pregnant with her second child. “In a non-family duty station, you’re allowed to bring your family,” she jokes, “as long as that family isn’t born yet. I would hear explosions and shootings, and meanwhile my son was kicking me and my boss was saying, ‘You’re so brave…”

Sayaka stayed on in CAR up to week 35 of her pregnancy—“The last week,” she explains, “you’re allowed to get on the plane to go home.” Sayaka’s first son, Eiichi, was born in Tokyo on December 14, 2016.

The business of helping people

“I come from a more traditional family,” Fumi

“Looking at my friends who’ve gone to Nishimachi,” Fumi elaborates, “we’re now in very different fields, but I feel that a disproportionat number of them are in the business of helping people, whether it’s UN-type work or other careers. So I think there’s definitely something about Nishimachi that helped guide us in this direction.” In Fumi’s own case, that “something” instilled by Nishimachi proved especially pivotal when he decided to switch careers from the business of seeking profit to that of helping people.

My boss and his boss and his boss

Majoring in both Chinese and Economics at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Fumi spent his first half dozen years after graduation as an economic consultant. “We would develop models, for example, to estimate financial damages to shareholders in lawsuits,” Fumi explains. “It was quite stimulating intellectually and I liked my colleagues. But there was one meeting, when I was about to turn thirty, where I had a kind of revelation—I saw my boss and his boss and his boss, and I could see where my life would go if I stayed in this job. That’s when I realized I had to make a change, that this was not a life-long career for me.”

“So I quit and over the summer of 2009 did a volunteer program in Kajiado, Kenya, a small town a couple hours south of Nairobi, near the border with Tanzania, where I was placed in a school and taught English and helped out where I could, and then I went back to graduate school as a way to change careers.”

Fumi applied to a program offered by Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York that was new at the time, the Master of Public Administration in Development Practice.

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Fumitsugu with farmers and their donor (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) in Luangnamtha Province, northern Laos, September 2019

“What attracted me to this program,” he says, “was that it was more of a generalist program for practitioners who want to work in the field. We had courses in nutrition, agriculture, food systems, management, public health, and more.”

In October 2009, while still in graduate school, Fumi co-founded the US office of TABLE FO TWO, a Japanese NGO that seeks, with its “meal sharing” scheme, to mitigate both obesity in overnourished parts of the world and hunger in undernourished parts. He continued to co-lead the operations of TABLE FOR TWO for two years after earning his master’s degree, until November 2013.

“Part of the work I did for that organization was to raise funds from the private sector for school feeding in East Africa,” Fumi says, “and one of the recipients for our funds was WFP. That’s how I started working with WFP, and eventually decided to work for WFP.” From November 2013 to February 2014, Fumi worked as a consultant in the nutrition unit of the WFP headquarters in Rome.

“Then I switched over to the JPO program,” he says.

JPO

“Fumi and I are both alumni of this program,” Sayaka explains. The Junior Professional Office program, utilized by a wide range of United Nations agencies, is a system of training young professionals for potential careers in the UN. Candidates typically have graduate degrees, at least two years work experience, and are sponsored by UN donor countries—Belgium,

China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

The time Sayaka and Fumi spent at Nishimachi helped them readily pass a hindrance that keeps all but 10% of those with the above qualifications from being accepted. Applying to the JPO program sponsored by Gaimu-shō (外務省), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Sayaka explains, “I stood out because my TOEFL score was perfect or almost perfect. And you can’t get perfect TOEFL scores unless you’re essentially a native speaker—TOEFL stands for ‘Test of English as a Foreign Language’ and it wasn’t a foreign language for me! You have to start English early enough so that you stand out.”

Once accepted to the program, Sayaka explains, “Gaimu-shō paid three years of my salary, hoping that I would get converted to full-time proper WFP staff. And I did. My first posting was to Yemen November 2010, as a JPO.”

WFP and WFP and WFP

“But my initial encounter with WFP was actually in 2004,” Sayaka continues, explaining that, a week before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from Sophia University, Tokyo, in March of that year, she received an acceptance letter from her first-choice graduate school, Fletcher School at Tufts. “They said that, being a professional school, they’d like me to obtain some professional experience before going there.”

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Having already started a twelve-month internship in WFP’s Japan Relations office in January 2004 Sayaka reserved a spot in graduate school for the following year. She furthered her pre-graduate school professional experience with an internship in the legal unit of UNHCR Japan from February to July 2005.

Unlike Fumi, who worked for several years in the private sector, the focal point of Sayaka’s life outside of academia has been humanitarian work in either of two UN organizations, UNHCR and, mainly, WFP. “I’m like WFP and WFP and WFP only. I don’t know the outside world,” she says.

However, Sayaka’s interest in the United Nations began even before she heard about WFP. “I learned the term United Nations in fifth grade,” she says. “We had a Model UN project at Nishimachi as part of social studies where every student was allotted a country. I remember it so well because it was not just a one-day event. Each of us did research on her allotted country, wrote to the respective embassies to collect more information, prepared talking points, came up with proposals and pledges, and practiced writing draft resolutions. I represented Venezuela. On the day of the Model UN General Assembly, when it was my turn to make a speech, I proposed to all member states to conserve water consumption by 10% to Save the Earth. It’s amazing how we were trained to do all this in just fifth grade. I still remember the skirt and sweater I wore, because I was so excited to be the delegate of Venezuela!”

Muchos años después—that is, many years later, Sayaka would almost get a chance to finally visit the country she had so proudly researched and represented when she was ten years old. In 2019, while she was based in WFP’s Washington, D.C., office, Sayaka went to Cúcuta, Colombia, on th border with Venezuela, as part of the USAIDfunded operation serving hot meals to displaced Venezuelan children. “As the partnerships officer, she comments, “I’m the person connecting the WFP office in Colombia with the donor, USAID. At the time, the Venezuelan border was closed and WFP did not have an office inside th country. “Today, though, WFP does provide food assistance inside Venezuela through a school meals programme” she explains.

Saving lives

Sayaka explains how WFP’s slogan—saving

Sayaka’s first day at the WFP office in Washington D.C., July 2017

lives, changing lives—“really depicts the nature of the work we do. First, saving lives. This is the emergency humanitarian work that WFP is best known for: providing food assistance to people in conflict zones, people affected by natura disasters, people displaced by disasters and conflict.

For instance, much of the work Fumi was involved in during his time (March 2016–July 2019) in Myanmar before moving to Vientiane in August 2019 entailed providing emergency food assistance to people in Rakhine State during the Rohingya crisis beginning in 2016, and then again in Yangon and environs after the military coup d’état of 2021. “Last summer I went back to Myanmar,” he says, “to help out with our emergency response after the coup and I felt something really similar to what I felt in Rakhine State, where this terrible tragedy had happened— where the situation was quite sad, because I had been there during some good times in Myanmar.

And now everything was being reversed—and yet people were trying to make the best of the situation and move forward.”

Fumi further explains that, during his first posting as a program policy officer, from March 2014 t February 2016 in WFP’s country office in Dar e Salaam, Tanzania, “The largest program we had there was to support the refugee camp in the northwest part of the country that was hosting refugees primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

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Changing lives

“The other part of our work,” Sayaka continues, “is changing lives—helping people who already have some sort of livelihood and work, but not enough yet to let them develop their lives in the way they want to and can really flourish. This objective takes more time, it’s not immediate in the way that emergency assistance is.” Sayaka explains that WFP is not as well known for this sort of resilience work as it is for the emergency operations for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

“One standard program that we have in WFP,” adds Fumi, “is called ‘Food Assistance for Assets.’

That’s a program where we provide food or cash in exchange for labor. With that labor we ask communities to build an asset that provides a long-term benefit. It could involve, for instance, building a rainwater collection tank, or clearing a path to the fields or to a market. The idea here is that by working on both of these aspects, you address the short-term impact of food insecurity through the provision of food or cash, but then there’s also an asset that provides longer-term benefits that contribute to long-term resilience to future shocks. So if there were to be a drought or flood, for instance, the community would be better able to deal with that situation long-term.”

Another aspect of this resilience work revolves around school feeding and gender equality. “Just take Laos as an example,” says Fumi. “One of the key objectives of our school feeding program is to ensure that, girls come to school—and the meals act as an incentive—and so, if girls come to school, they not only receive better nutrition in the short term, but they are also more educated, more productive, and marry later, all of which contributes to their long-term empowerment as well as long-term food security for the entire community, since they have the means to make a living and provide for their families.”

Fumitsugu tasting local porridge in Rakhine State, Myanmar, following the Rohingya crisis, October 2018

Let it begin with me

Both Fumi and Sayaka recall singing the school song, and how it links up with what they do now.

But for Sayaka, the song had a more personal impact on her decision to join WFP. “I attended Nishimachi from kindergarten to eighth grade,” Sayaka specifies, “so for nine years I sang the school song, ‘Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.’” She explains that what particularly struck her then, and has stuck with her throughout her career, making the goal of world peace and the organizations working towards that goal much more immediate and real, was the “Let it begin with me” part.

“Because when you talk about world peace,” Sayaka says, “you feel like you can’t really make a difference, because it’s so macro, and you think that you as an individual can’t make an impact.

But by repeatedly singing, ‘Let it begin with me,’ it becomes part of you. And so it wasn’t a difficul choice to make at all—it was so natural that I chose to work for WFP. I mean, if you want to find a workplace like Nishimachi—go to WFP!” Sayaka laughs.

“Nishimachi is a very special place, and if you join WFP, it’s just like Nishimachi,” Sayaka concludes—a special place where people from a variety of countries and diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and languages are all working together in different ways for a single priceless goal: world peace.

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Banking in Four Languages Masamoto Yashiro talks about a seven decade career built on a multilingual, multicultural education and his association with Nishimachi as an alumni parent, alumni grandparent, and member of the Board of Trustees (‘05-’21).

Michael S. Strickland

Yashiro-san visited Nishimachi and explored the interior renovations of the Matsukata House, in the Spring, 2022.

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ishimachi’s Head of School, Karen O’Neill, talks with retired oilman and banker Masamoto Yashiro about the value of having more than one language in your back pocket.

In 2004, Masamoto Yashiro, who was then CEO of Shinsei Bank, received, in quick succession, two communiqués in English from China, one from a bank, the other from a bank regulator, both requesting that he join their respective boards. “Wasn’t there a conflict of interest?” asks Nishimachi head Karen O’Neill ’78 who is meeting with Mr. Yashiro on the occasion of his retirement, at the age of 93, from Nishimachi’s Board of Trustees.

“I asked someone who knew China very well,” Mr. Yashiro laughs in response. “‘What do I do?

One offer comes from the regulator; the other, from the regulated. How can I be on both sides?’

He replied, ‘It’s not your problem. They will solve the problem.’” They did, and Mr. Yashiro was soon taking monthly trips to Beijing as one of two independent directors (独立董事, or dúlì dǒngshì in modern Mandarin) of China Construction Bank, with occasional detours to the Council of International Advisers of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Polyglot Mr. Yashiro’s exposure to the Chinese language, however, began long before his double entry into the China banking world. Like many Japanese people of his generation, Mr. Yashiro began learning kanbun (漢文), Classical Chinese— the language of official documents from the Nar period till the early 1950s—and kanshi (漢詩), Chinese poetry, in middle school. Kanshi and kanbun were among Mr. Yashiro’s favorite subjects during his time at Tōkyō Toritsu Daiichi Chūgakkō (東京都立第一中学校), or Tokyo Prefecture First Middle School. “I can write and read almost anything,” he elaborates when O’Neill asks about his current facility with the language, “but speaking takes practice, and I don’t practice.”

Mr. Yashiro’s other favorite subject was English.

“It’s quite interesting,” he says, “but all through the war, my school—this was probably unique in this country at the time—never stopped teaching English.” That is, when the school actually had classes. For Mr. Yashiro’s middle-school years coincided with the Second World War.

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“During my middle-school years,” Mr. Yashiro explains, “we didn’t study very much. We had to work in factories, either at the one built in the school, or go out to other places to work. Of the five-year period of middle school, I think I really studied only two and a half years at most.” One place Mr. Yashiro worked was at a depot for the Japanese navy. Another was in a factory for a company near Ōmori, in what was then Tokyo’s Kamata ward.

“That company was called Tokyo Keiki (東京 or Tokyo Instrument,” Mr. Yashiro says, “which, in the pre-war years, was a joint venture, or at least had a very close relationship, with an American company.” That company, a producer of marine navigation equipment, was the Sperry Corporation, founded in 1910 by Elmer Ambrose Sperry in Brooklyn. Mr. Yashiro’s task at Tokyo Keiki’s Kamata factory was inspecting gyroscopes.

That task came to an abrupt end when the factory was destroyed in an air raid in the spring of 1945.

計器),

At war’s end, Mr. Yashiro and his elder brother were the only two survivors in the family. His father, mother, and sister died, Mr. Yashiro specifies, “not because of the air raids, but because of sickness—they couldn’t get enough medical attention.” Bereft of all but the small house he had lived in with his family in Tokyo, Mr. Yashiro considered quitting school and working full time. But one of his teachers convinced him he should go to high school. Fortunately, his mother’s younger brother offered him a chance to continue his studies if he came to live with him in Kyoto.

At Third High School in Kyoto, Mr. Yashiro studied rika (理科), science as opposed to bunka (文化) belles lettres. “It so happened,” Mr. Yashiro says, “that I was assigned to class number six, where French was taught as the primary foreign language. So, from Monday to Saturday, we learned French. By the end of the year, I could read some of the old classic French books— Balzac’s Le Lys dans la vallée, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, Descartes’s Discours de la méthode.”

In addition to literary classroom French, Mr. Yashiro practiced speaking at the Institut FrancoJaponais du Kansai, and took private lessons in conversation and composition. “I came to know a young Frenchman,” he says, “who was a member of the French embassy in Tokyo. He was studying at Kyoto University and he and I would go around Kyoto together sightseeing and I’d speak French with him. I also came to know a French-Canadian Catholic priest who always spoke French with me.”

Yashiro-san at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Yashiro Media Center, 2007

Before then, however, a small incident occurred which buttressed Mr. Yashiro’s desire to keep learning English. “During our lunch break,” he says, “after eating, a classmate and I would go up onto the factory roof to study. One day we were sitting there reading an English book and a military officer assigned to the factory came by. He didn’ say anything bad to us; instead, he said, ‘Oh, that’s good—you should keep studying English!’”

While Mr. Yashiro’s verbal and written skills in French waxed superbly during these Francophile high-school years, his English waned, not to be revived until 1950 when he began studying law at Kyoto University on scholarship. “But the scholarship was not enough to live on,” he says.

“So I had to work.”

That work—part-time night-shift telephone switchboard operator—was an apt, well-paid, but rather lonely supplement to the lively discussions in the university’s English Speaking Society he frequented and the private conversations with the tutor who helped him overcome his French accent. “Near Lake Biwa, in Ōtsu city,” Mr. Yashiro explains, “there was a hydroponic farm built for the U.S. Army in Korea. I started working there

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my freshman year. Two or three times a week, I’d go there at six in the evening, and finish at six the next morning. I’d sit there by myself, with plenty of time to study, except when calls came in from American military people in Korea, ordering vegetables to be sent from Japan.”

It was also during this time, even before he began working for an American oil company in 1958, that Mr. Yashiro first set off on the internationalis cross-cultural career neatly encapsulated by his famous statement, “I do not think in terms of nationality or national borders.” In 1952, a grant from the Committee for a Free Asia enabled him to attend, as vice-president of the International Student Association of Japan, that year’s congress of the National Student Association at Indiana University. In 1953, he participated in a UNESCO-sponsored summer camp in Kristiansand, Norway. And in 1954, he started a master’s program in international relations at Tokyo University.

on June 1, 1958. He oversaw the company’s transformation to Esso Standard Sekiyu, becoming a member of the board of directors in 1964 when he was 35, then, a few years after the company became Esso Sekiyu, he became its president in 1986, a position he held until he retired in 1989 at the age of 60.

Of the thirty-one years Mr. Yashiro worked for this U.S.-owned oil company, nine and a half were spent on U.S. soil, the rest in Japan. It was during one of their inter-American lulls that Mr. Yashiro was inspired to send Chizuko and his second daughter Michiyo, born in 1961, to the place he calls “the only reputable school where one can go.”

“In the early 1960s,” Mr. Yashiro explains, “I was talking to a neighbor, saying, ‘I want my daughters to learn English and not go to a Japanese school, because I don’t like Japanese schools. They just try to get students to memorize everything the teacher says. They never try to instill the students with “During the time I was an ability to think for themselves. I a graduate student,” want to send my children to some Mr. Yashiro continues, type of international school.’ The “I was also working at a neighbor replied, ‘Well, there’s one research institute near school nearby, it’s a community Tokyo Station called nursery school. And there’s Seikai Keizai Chōsakai ( also Nishimachi.’ So naturally I 世界経済調査会), the World started sending Michiyo to this Economy Research community nursery school, and Institute. This had been Chizuko to Nishimachi. She started set up in wartime to Nishimachi in fifth grade. Actually, study Japan’s economy, because her English was limited at the U.S. economy, and the time, she entered fourth grade, so on, to figure out how Yashiro-san and Karen O’Neill, 2021. and the next year she jumped to long Japan could hold sixth. She went to Nishimachi for out in a fight against the U.S. fourth, sixth, and seventh grades, and allies.” while Michiyo started in kindergarten.”

During his first year in graduate school, Mr. Yashiro Michiyo ’76, in turn, sent her children Yoko ’13, married the “headstrong” woman, Yoko, whom Shingo ’12, and Koji ’12 to this venerable campus a middle-school friend had introduced him to. In that fosters, to paraphrase Nishimachi founder 1956, Mr. Yashiro matriculated into the doctoral Tané Matsukata, international yet independent program, and Yoko gave birth to the couple’s first thinkers able to maintain their special identities daughter Chizuko. One day in 1957, one of Yoko’s while sharing, living, and learning together. A American friends invited the couple to a party in fitting heritage, indeed, from Yashiro-ojīsan, Nishiazabu. There, Mr. Yashiro met someone from retired banker and oilman whose internationalist Standard Vacuum Oil Company, and not long career founded on the early and continued study after, upon his first visit to the company’s offic of several languages—Chinese, English, French, in Yokohama, was offered a job there. A year after Japanese—truly epitomizes what Karen O’Neill this meeting, Mr. Yashiro finished his thesis at calls “the value of having more than one language Tokyo University and started working for Stanvac in your back pocket.”

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Student Article

Grade Eight Students: Know, Care, and Take Action Anna Q.

A

Grade 8

group of eighth graders got together in March to talk about helping a charity.

We all agreed that we wanted to choose an organization that worked locally, in order to give back to our community.

Through some of my family friends who have been involved in countless local charities, I was introduced to an amazing organization called Cornerstone I•SHI•ZU•E, which I thought would be the perfect fit for our project. Once I introduced the organization to my classmates, we all agreed that we loved their mission and goals and that we wanted to participate.

Cornerstone I•SHI•ZU•E works with single parents in need of assistance, assessing their individual family needs and working hard to supply them with the basics to meet those needs, items such as canned foods, prepackaged foods such as curry, rice and hygiene products. Their goal is to help these individuals feel independent through Cornerstone I•SHI•ZU•E’s support as well as to spread joy and kindness. Additionally], Cornerstone strives to help single parents regain stability throughout difficult times. By opening thei hearts, Cornerstone I•SHI•ZU•E has assisted countless financially vulnerable families through hard times.

We reached out to the leader of this organization, Ms. Hozumi, who supplied us with a list of all of the current projects they’re working on. They are currently working on multiple projects, including a sports package, a library package, and a welcome package. Of all of them, the care package project, which supplies daily necessities such as food and hygiene products to single-parent homes, stood out the most to us.

Over the last month or so, we’ve collected countless donations for our project. It is extremely gratifying to see how willing our community has been to give back to those in need. We still don’t know the exact number of boxes prepared, but we think that we have collected over twenty boxes of donated items. We’ve collected everything that Ms. Hozumi said we needed and more. The hard work that our group put into this project is about to pay off, and I can’t wait to see how our effort are making a difference to these families. I hope that our Nishimachi community was able to leave them with a good feeling, and made an impact on these families in need.

Nishimachi Mission: To develop learners and leaders who know, care and take action to bring value to others and to make a positive impact on the world.

Spring 2022 Vol. 68

Student Article

Grade Nine Students Explore Hiroshima, Nara, and Kyoto Grade nine students experience the Japanese cities they studied.

Alasdair R.

T

Grade 9

he first Tuesday after spring break, Nishimachi ninth graders took a four-day trip to Hiroshima, Nara, and Kyoto. We visited Hiroshima first and talked to one of the survivors of the Hiroshima bomb. The stories we heard from her were moving and really touched our hearts. The first day consisted mostly of train and tram rides; however, we did have an outlier in the form of a ferry ride. The large boat took us to

Miyajima Island. Ending off the day on Miyajima, we had okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake dish), messed around at the beach, and played with the deers.

The trip was not only a great experience, but a fantastic opportunity to practice our organizing and planning skills. The students were solely in charge of planning a half day of activities

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on Wednesday and a full day on Thursday. As a result of the small groupings, students were able to branch out and experience a wider variety of things. We explored Nara on Wednesday, my group visited Nara Park (overrun by deers), Todaiji, and Ukimido. Todaiji was home to two massive Daibutsu statues that made us look miniscule in comparison.

Daibutsu gazes out serenely from above. Some could say it was majestic and others it was terrifying. Ukimido was slightly underwhelming since we had seen pictures of the other Ukimido during our research; apparently there are two. But our disappointment quickly vanished when we realized we could ride in a rowboat. We had difficulties steering and may or may not hav crashed into other boaters.

Thursday, much like Wednesday, was planned by the students. We pretty much planned the whole day, other than the excruciatingly-long Zazen meditation in the morning. The rest of the day was spent in Kyoto. Unlike other groups, our group did not visit the well-known Kinkakuji. In its place we went to Shimogamo Shrine, where we bought and used water fortune slips. Eating good food and snacks was our objective for the remainder of the day. We had delicious green mochi and ice cream with deer cookies on top. For lunch, we had curry from a local restaurant and ate it promptly in order to stick close to our schedule. For dinner that day we went to a Chinese restaurant as a whole grade.

The food was really yummy and it’s safe to say that I definitely did not need any extra snacks from the conbini (convenience store) afterwards.

The final day’s main event was visiting Kiyomizudera, a temple located on the side of a mountain. We went there in the morning and spent a while buying omiyage. Eventually we went on to make wagashi (Japanese sweets) at a store. At no point during the whole process did I think “Wow, this is easy and relaxing!” My wagashis ended up looking squashed and deformed. After that we took the Shinkansen back to Shinagawa station.

The trip was a great experience, and I’m glad I was able to visit all of these new places.

ヴィクトリア B.

9年生 3月29日から4月1日まで、わたしたち9年生は、広島、奈良、京 都に行きました。グループに分かれてプランをつくりました。 1日目〜広島 まず、しんかんせんで広島に行きました。広島では、おぐらさ んの話を聞きました。おぐらさんは、げんばくひばくしゃで す。8さいの時、たくさんの人がなくなるのを見ました。子ども のしてんから、げんばくについて話してくれました。 お話しを 聞いたあと、へいわきねんしりょうかんまであるきました。そ こは、今まで行ったはくぶつかんで、一ばんこころがいたむば しょでした。げんばくにあった人、げんばくのせいで、後から なくなった人の話をしりました。それから、フェリーで宮島に 行きました。いつくしまじんじゃは、ざんねんながらこうじ中 でした。水に入って、しかとあそびました。レストランで、お このみやきを食べました。 2日目〜奈良 グループメンバーのサリーとタイラー、らうあと、東大寺に行 きました。東大寺はもっと大きかったですが、たてなおして、3 分の2の大きさになりました。つぎに、奈良こうえんに行きまし た。いい天気で、さくらもきれいでした。しかは、わたしたち のものをとろうとして、とてもこわかったです。それから、う きみどうに行きました。けしきが、きれいでした。さいごに、 わがしのおみせで、くずもちとまっちゃを食べました。ほんと うにおいしかったです。みんなでごはんを食べて、たくさんし ゃしんをとりました。

Spring 2022 Vol. 68

3日目〜京都 京都で、ざぜんをしました。それから、金かく寺と二じょうじ ょうに行きました。金かく寺の中で、おねがいごとをして、ろ うそくに火をつけて、おこうをたきました。二じょうじょう は、とく川いえやすがすんでいました。人があるくと、すずめ

Shehryar C. Grade 9

みたいなおとがします。それから、ちゅうかレストランに行き ました。まつかたハウスをつくった人が、このレストランをつ くりました。ホテルで、せんすをつくりました。わたしは、さ くらをかきました。 4日目〜京都 さいごの日は、きよ水寺に行きました。ラッキーなことに、い つもより人がすくなかったです。きれいなけしきを見て、おこ うをたきました。お守りの店が、たくさんありました。そし て、あいの石もありました。目をとじて石がさわれれば、こい が見つかります。外国人として、とてもおもしろいとおもいま した。それから、わがしをつくりにお寺に行きました。そし て、おひるごはんを食べて、しんかんせんでかえってきまし た！りょこうをとおして、日本のれきしやお寺のことをたくさ んまなびました。

Elisha B. Grade 9 Nagpunta kami sa Nara Park. Maraming usa sa buong parke at mga talulot ng sakura sa daan.

Nagulat kami ng atakihin ng isang usa si Cheema.

Napaka-cute at maamo silang tingnan na di namin iyon inaasahan.

[Translation from Tagalog: “We went to Nara Park and it was filled with deer, and sakura petals were on the ground. The deer, despite being cute, attacked Cheema for deer crackers.”]

[Translation from Urdu: “Ninth graders went to Kyoto, Nara, and Hiroshima for a field trip. I think it was a great opportunity for our class to have fun together because after this year everyone will go their separate ways. The most mesmerizing thing to see was Kinkakuji, and I still can’t believe that the whole temple is covered with real gold leaf. We got to know more about Buddhist culture by visiting Daitokuji, where we meditated and learned Buddhist practices. The trip was informative and gave us a new perspective on Japan, full of temples and culture.”]

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Sally Y. Grade 9 9학년은 이 봄, 히로시마, 교토, 나라에 갔습니다. 교실에서는 배울수 없는 것을 실제로 체험할 수 있고, 마음에 남을 좋은 추억을 만들수 있었습니다. 코로나 팬데믹 때문에 힘든 날이 오랜 기간 계속되지만, 니시마치 생활 마지막에서 즐거운 경험을 할 수 있었어 좋습니다. 벚꽃을 보고, 일본 전통문화를 느껴서, 재미있는 여행을 할 수 있었습니다. 졸업이 다가오고, 동급생들 이랑 같이 있는 날 도 얼마 남지 않아서 섭섭하지만, 마지막까지 만끽할수 있으면 좋겠습니다.

[Translation from Korean: “This spring, the ninth grade went to Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Nara. We were able to experience what we aren’t able to learn in the classrooms, and the trip became a good memory for us all. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we experienced long periods of hard times, but it was great to have an enjoyable experience at the end of our Nishimachi journey. We saw the cherry blossoms, experienced Japanese traditional culture, and overall were able to have a fun trip. As graduation nears, the time that we are able to spend with our classmates is coming to an end, but I hope that we will be able to enjoy the remainder of our school year to the fullest.”]

Thien-Thi H. Grade 9 Học sinh lớp 9 đã đến Kyoto, Nara và Hiroshima để tham quan thực tế. Điều hấp dẫn nhất để xem là lên thuyền tới đảo Miyajima và có cơ hội để chơi với các con nai.

Kyoto: Chúng con biết thêm về văn hóa Phật giáo bằng cách đến thăm Daitokuji, nơi chúng con thiền và học các phương pháp tu tập Phật giáo.

Nara: Tất cả sinh viên đi coi bức tượng của đạo Phật Nara Daibutsu.

Chuyến đi rất nhiều ý nghĩa chúng con trải nghiệm những điều không thể học được trong lớp học.

[Translation from Vietnamese: “The ninth graders went to Kyoto, Nara and Hiroshima for field trips. We went to Miyajima in Hiroshima, Daitokuji in Kyoto, and Nara Daibutsu in Nara. It was a very meaningful trip, and we experienced many things that can’t be learned in class.”]

Spring 2022 Vol. 68

Teacher Article

You Can’t Have a Rainbow, Without a Little Rain

It

was a gray and rainy day, but Yoyogi Park was alive and bursting with the colors of the rainbow! Here are some reflections from three Nishimachi staff members who attended the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade in April 2022.

Nina Kelly: In Kindergarten we say that “all are welcome ‘’ in our community, and I was proud to spread that message during the march in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. It was a special honor for us to represent our school with our “strength in diversity” banner and to share our values with the Tokyo community. It is important for us to model what we teach our students, and I was able to do this for a cause that I believe in. I look forward to participating with the Nishimachi community next year in order to keep this work going!

Marie Staples: Having only experienced Pride celebrations in the United States, I was surprised when I learned a few years ago that there was also a Pride celebration in Tokyo. I was ecstatic to finally experience the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade this year. To witness the countless numbers of people who came to support the LGBTQIA+ community in Japan was amazing. In just a few short years, I have observed a positive change in the way the LGBTQIA+ community is viewed in Japan. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to see that change firsthand, while representing Nishimachi as a school that believes there is

“strength in diversity” and accepts all for who they truly are. In the words of Zachary Quinto (American actor and producer),“Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizen of this country.”

Susan Grigsby: I felt so proud to represent Nishimachi at the Pride Parade. As a librarian, I have always believed that true social justice takes place in the library. Information is freely available there, regardless of race, religion, income, gender - everyone is welcome! That’s how I felt when marching, too. That everyone in the parade and everyone standing on the streets waving us on were saying, “We welcome diversity, we welcome all humans to live authentically, and we respect the right of all humans to live their true selves.”

The world can be a sad, frustrating, oppressive place, but that day I felt joy and acceptance and love—and we could all use a little more of that in our lives. And Stephanie’s balloons were the icing on that cake!

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Retirements 変わり続ける風景：西町での40年 西町渉外開発室

中山 真由美 (西町1990年度生) 堀田 （磯部）惠子さん （以下、磯部さん） は今学年度をもって、40年も

の西町勤務を終え、定年退職されます。 「どなた？」 って一部の方は思

われるかもしれませんが、二年前に定年退職された堀田さんの奥様、

と説明すれば 「あっ！」 っとなる方も多いかもしれません。 それだけで

はなく、磯部さんは1980年代から1990年代には西町に通っていた 同窓生の皆さんのTuition Invoiceを発行していた方なのです。9人

の校長先生を経た磯部さんの西町での40年を振り返ってもらいま

した。

今回は私が僭越ながら磯部さんにインタビューをさせて頂きました。 私が西町に入学した二年後に西町でのお仕事をスタートした磯部さ

ん。 当時の私の印象は、 「ロングヘアーの綺麗なお姉さん」 でした。 まさ かその時の 「綺麗なお姉さん」 と三十年後に同僚としてまた西町で再

会するなんて当時の私は夢にも思わなかったでしょう。今でも仕事中

に会話していると、 ふと気が緩んだ時に、 「真由美ちゃん」 と呼ばれる

事があり、 そんな時は二人の周りだけ1980年代に一瞬で引き戻され

る気がして、妙にくすぐったい感じになります。現在はとてもお似合い

Keiko Isobe-Hotta and John Beirne Inspiring Students, Cultivating Friendships Michael S. Strickland After thirty-four years, John Beirne retires from Nishimachi.

John Beirne came to Tokyo in November 1987, thinking he’d only spend a year here. Now, some thirty-five years later thirty-four spent at Nishimachi, he’s finally retiring and going back.

“There was an oversupply of teachers in Ireland,” John recalls, “so the Department of Education introduced optional career breaks. I took a year off and turned up here with two suitcases at Narita airport.”

With his primary school qualifications and diploma in children’s learning difficulties, John readily foun work as an English teacher. During his first winter in Tokyo, he learned about Nishimachi from a former colleague he first met at a winter school

Spring 2022 Vol. 68

なショートカットになった磯部さんは1982年の8月に入社。 当時の事

ころは働きやすかった事や一緒に働いた素敵な方々、 そして何よりも

仕事が出来る人を探しているの」 と言われ、元々会計の仕事に携わっ

初夏に開催され、 そのお祭りにも同僚の先生方が何人も磯部さんの

務長と磯部さんの共通のお友達の方に 「西町で英語の話せる会計の

ていたこともあり、西町に紹介されたそうです。松方先生との入社面

接の時には、 校長室で磯部さんが語学留学で通っていたイギリスの学 校と西町の雰囲気がよく似ている、 というような話で盛り上がったそ

う。松方先生の印象は、皆さんに分け隔てなく平等な方で、人から聞

休暇が長い事でした。磯部さんの住んでいた下町では三社祭が毎年 案内で楽しまれたそうです。色々と変化があった西町ですが、磯部さ

んにとっての一番大きな変化はIT／コンピューター化でした。学校は WindowsにするかMacにするかの分岐点で、最終的にはMacを選

択する事になったのですが、 当時の会計関係はIBMのコンピューター

いた話によると、松方先生は趣味も特に無く、生徒が大好きで、生徒

でドットプリンターを使用していたとのこと。今とは全然違いますね。

為にジープを自ら運転するような方で、生涯を教育に捧げられた方、

ッフの絆だそうです。生徒との学校内での交流はお茶の作法を教えた

ファーストな方だったそうです。学校が創立された頃はチャリティーの と言っても過言ではないような方だったそうです。最初はAccount-

ing Clerk (会計係) として西町でスタートし、1994年に今の人事課

に配属される直前は、2年程Chief Accountant (会計主任) のアシ

スタントとしても務めていました。

40年とはかなり長い年月です。 その40年の間に、磯部さんは同僚だっ

た堀田一彦さんと結婚し、生徒にお茶の作法を教えたりしました。 も

ちろん、 それ以外の数々の事があったと思います。 「1982年の新入社

員全員で松方先生と一緒に、清里にあるKEEPというロッジ施設と六

本木にあったしゃぶしゃぶのお店に行った時の事を今でも凄く良く覚

えているのよ」、 とおっしゃいます。西町の職員で良かったな！と思うと

逆に変化が無かったと感じる部分は、学校の基本的な雰囲気や、 スタ 位であまりなく、40年もの間に有栖川公園に生徒のお花見の引率に 数回行っただけでした。 あまりの交流の少なさに 「磯部さんは私みた

いに、遠足当日の朝、突然『引率者と生徒の割合が合わないから一緒

に来て！』 って駆り出されなかったんですか？」 と聞いみた。 「無いわよ、

だって、私が外に行って、 スタッフ全員のお給料がちゃんと振り込み日 に間に合わなかったら困るでしょ？」 ってマスクをしていてもわかる様

な大きな笑顔で笑いながら答えてくれました。生徒とあまり交流が無

かったのに対し、意外と生徒を覚えていて、80年代の中頃から後半の 生徒はよく覚えているそうです。特によく覚えているのは、 シャープ兄 弟で、 コリンとジェイソン、 そして加藤さんところのトシは可愛かった

わ、 と。 まだ彼らが学生だった頃、 学校が突然の大雪に見舞われ、 磯部

Look Back on Their Years at Nishimachi program at St. Mary’s International School. “He said Nishmachi was interested in diversifying,” John recalls. “There were mostly American teachers and they wanted more people from other countries. He said I should apply; they’d be interested. So I did. And they were.”

John started at Nishimachi in the fall of 1988 as an English resource and study skills teacher. Over the years he has also been a homeroom teacher in grades three and five. His homeroom work increased his interest in second-language learning.

“I saw many kids who needed extra scaffolding to access the curriculum and maximize their learning.

I wanted to learn more about second language learning and teaching, so I completed a master’s degree program through the University of Southern Queensland in 2003. Subsequently, in 2008 I helped pilot the use of the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing program at Nishimachi and took on the role of testing coordinator. My ongoing interest in ELL took me into Student Services and ELL teacher for grades K-9 in 2014.”

In John’s opinion, however, it is not simply the outstanding academic work and communication and problem solving skills that give Nishimachi students an invaluable grounding for their subsequent achievements in high school and university — it is also the relationships. “When students come back to visit,” John says, “they talk about the friendships they made here. And a lot of these relationships were solidified on the field trips to Kazuno and the ski trips, which are a strong part of Nishimachi’s program.”

At the core of any good relationship is communication — which is also the core of Tané Matsukata’s vision of Nishimachi as an inclusive multicultural place nurturing the individual while also developing and celebrating diversity, enabling multilingual students to communicate and collaborate with others in building a peaceful world society. “One image of Miss Matsukata that stands out vividly,” John recalls, “is of her in her office surrounded by children, reading them story. It always led me to think how engaged she

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彩な磯部さん、 オートバイに乗ってツーリングをしたり

もするみたいです。 口調が柔らかい磯部さんからは想像

もつかない趣味でした。毎日学校に出勤していたので、

よほど退職後はあれも、 これも、 と予定があるかと思っ

たら、今は特に何も予定が無いけれど、 「自由に、好きな 時に旅行に行きたいですね。 コロナが終わったら、 ヨー

ロッパに行きたいわね、 フランスももう三年も行ってい

ないし…国内も海外ものんびりと空いている時に行き

たいわ。」 と磯部さん。海外旅行は世界各国行かれてい

るのですが、今度は国内旅行も少しずつ増やして行き

たい、 と言っていました。 それ以外にも今まで溜めに溜

めたレシピの整理をしたり、昔撮った写真をデジタル化

したりもしたいそうです。

現在の同僚で会計係の種田さんが、 「とある先生が昔

の惠子さんの写真を見て言った一言がとても印象的

さんが車のタイヤに自分でチェーンを巻いていた時、 「すごーい！自分

で…その一言が 『チャーミング』 だったんです。 」 と教えて

でチェーン付けられるの？」 ってみんなで見に来ちゃって、可愛かった

くれました。私が小学生の頃から西町にいる 「綺麗なお姉さん」 の姿

のオークションで生徒たちに堀田さんの実家のベーカリーで,

ャーミングな磯部さん、愉快で豪快な堀田さんと

バースデーパーティーセットを出展し、 パン、 ピザ、 そしてケーキ作り

いしたいです！西町での四十年、 お疲れ様でした。

わ、 と微笑んでいました。堀田さんと結婚してからは、 十数年程、西町

を見かけられなくなるのはとても寂しいけれど、 チ

一緒に海外や国内を旅行している時に是非、 お会

を、延べ百数十名の子供たちにベーカリーで教えたりもした。趣味多

English version of Keiko Isobe-Hotta’s article

was with the students and made time to interact with them.”

John, with “his kind but no-nonsense manner,” as EAL colleague Marcella Catania describes him, is of a similar mold. “John gives his time and attention,” she says, “asking questions and remembering the things that are important to others.” A manner that inspires both students and colleagues to give their best, and enables John to return to Dublin, suitcases replete with the finest of souvenirs: the rich friendships cultivated during his thirtyfour years at Nishimachi. “At the end of the day,” John reflects, “everything comes back to relationships, because people are most productive when relationships are good and that makes things better for everyone.”

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