Shari Berman
(1978-79)
Strolling down memory lane, few periods in my life come alive quite as vividly as my tenure at LIOJ. In the fall of 1978, I arranged a three-month internship to be able to work with Donald Freeman and other School for International alumni on staff at LIOJ at the time. I was pleased that the internship I had from January-March in 1979 was the beginning of a seven-year series of internships and a fruitful relationship between two institutions dear to my heart.
LIOJ was precisely half a lifetime ago. I had taught in Tokyo for two years before beginning graduate school, but LIOJ was my first professional position, and represents many beginnings for me. While I subsequently spent two decades perfecting techniques for using off-air video with students, the very first time I attempted this was at LIOJ. We had a Betamax with a wired remote control and a recording of Columbo with which to work. That was also the first time I worked with half-inch videotape-a few years later I wrote a monthly column about video equipment as a freelance correspondent for an Australian magazine.
Besides the precious opportunity to help breathe life into the ideals of an experiential education classroom, LIOJ was one of the most pleasant working situations that I could imagine. The faculty and staff were professional and the students were, mostly, highly motivated. The teacher's lounge had a certain gemutlichkeit that I tried to replicate when I later held administrative positions.
Many of the lessons I learned were outside the classroom. The teachers were mostly new to Japan. I had lived in Japan as child, studied Japanese in college, and spent two years teaching in Tokyo. I was reasonably conversant in Japanese and that made me a de facto ambassador to the community. The administration asked me to give a speech to the Odawara rotary club on "international understanding," and I was often "interviewed" by taxi drivers and shopkeepers who were dying to know what went on up the hill in Shiroyama, but would have thought it rude to ask someone Japanese and would not have been able to communicate with most of the other teachers. My interest in Japanese culture became even deeper.
I spent most of my weekends at the home of a former student, Yoko on the Tokyo end of the Odakyu line. Her 8-year-old son and I would choose a family of kanji and memorize them all during the week to then see who could remember and write the most characters on Sunday afternoon. Yoko was teaching me how to make the quintessential triangular rice ball, and I would also practice that during the week using my leftover rice in the LIOJ cafeteria. The ladies in the kitchen started saving rice for me, too. Yoko and another friend came to visit and observe one day at LIOJ and brought me umeboshi to put in my rice balls. Since Odawara is famous all over Japan for pickled plums, I had to believe that I might have been the first Odawara resident to receive Tokyo umeboshi as a gift.
LIOJ left me with strong aesthetic memories. I spent as much time as possible in the language laboratory at the top of Asia Center, because out the windows I could see the Pacific, the mountains, the plum blossoms and the mikan fields. This created a vision for me of what I wanted to look at in the future. I now telecommute-writing educational materials and translating from home. I live in Holualoa, Hawaii at a 1500 ft. elevation. To the west I see the Pacific and the town of Kailua-Kona. Out my eastern windows is Mt. Hualalai. To the South lie hundreds of my neighbors' coffee trees; to the north, papaya, avocado, banana and citrus trees.
As a short-termer, I lived next door to Asia Center. One evening, I went to another teacher's home. On the way back, I encountered a large barking dog. I quickly chose an alternate path and was very soon wandering in the maze of mikan fields. I soon realized that I no longer had any idea where I was. After I got through the initial panic, I could see the highway in the distance, so I headed in that direction.
I made it to the bus street. I located a pay phone. It was just before the dawn of phone cards, and I had two ten-yen coins in my pocket. I found the taxi company number and called for a cab. I said I was near the Hagiwara bus stop. Thankfully, the dispatcher figured out I meant the Ogiwara bus stop. The characters look similar except for the bottom left portion. It was after hours and the dispatcher was unsure the driver would be able to locate me. I said that I was a foreigner and I would be standing in the middle of the street, so I doubted the driver could miss me. After my rescue vehicle arrived, we sat quietly for a few minutes as the driver pointed the cab up the road to Shiroyama. The driver finally said, "Pardon me, for asking, but I was wondering what you were doing out here at this hour." Whereby he was the first person to hear the saga of my late night visit to the mikan fields.
One of the students in the community class gave me a calligraphy piece created by her husband. I don't recall the exact characters, but it was a Confucian saying the gist of which is "anyone you meet can become your teacher." More than anything that characterizes my three months at LIOJ.
January 2003
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