Tokyo Tech Visionary Project is a compulsory subject for the first-year students at Tokyo Tech. It encourages self-discovery and aims to motivate students to set individual goals so that they can envision their own path throughout the four years of engineering studies at the undergraduate level. The course alternates between lectures and group work. Throughout the course, students will listen to some talks about the non-engineering field that have not been encountered yet. It takes importance on the development of personality, sociability and creativity. It also allows students to identify, scrutinize, and convey problems, enhancing the interactive set of skills needed for efficient communication and presentation.
For this session the GSEP students and lecturers attended the talk given by Mr. Takayuki Masuda entitled “Japanese Mental Culture – Lesson Learned from Edo Period ” The lecture was held last May 12, 2016 at the Ishikawadai Bldng. 6, at the Creative Commons Center.
1. Lecture
Mr. Masuda started his talk by giving a brief history of the Japanese mentality dating as far back from the Edo period. He gave us a glimpse of the situation during the Edo period which shaped the mentality of the Japanese people, of which we can still see up to the present time. He talked about “Edo Shigusa“, which is a collection of social manners that sets which attitudes and behaviors were recommended which ones were prohibited. These manners were practiced during the Edo period that also helped in keeping the peace during that time because through these, conflicts were avoided.
He said that Edo Shigusa were passed on from parents to children, from generations to generations and are still applicable to present Tokyo life. In the middle of the presentation, Mr. Masuda asked the class to be divided in groups and then om to 16he showed some examples of Edo Shigusa and made each group guess on what is common among the Japanese social manners that he has showed.
From the examples he mentioned, he has concluded that from the ways of Edo Shigusa, the Japanese mentality seems to attach importance to three main points: maintaining social order, avoiding conflicts with others and lastly, preference to humbleness than too be outstanding. Mr. Masuda mentioned t1hat he think it’s the time to change the Japanese culture. He suggested that Japanese should stop using non-verbal communication but just instead just speak out. He said the Japanese should not be avoiding conflict too much as he believe that it is still possible to maintain social order in spite of doing this. At the end of his presentation, he appealed to the students in the class, which are all international students, to be more understanding of some ways of the Japanese that they may find strange. He is asking the students to make the Japanese people realize that speaking one’s mind is not being arrogant and that engaging in healthy arguments will not make a personal relationship go bad. And with this, he ended his talk.
After this, the students were given a Reflection paper where they can write the summary and their thoughts on the lecture that they have heard. It was given as an assignment and will be discussed on the next meeting during their group work session.
2. Group work
In the group work, the class was divided into three groups, each group having 4-5 members each. All of the students had their chance to share what they have written on their reflection note. Firstly, they are to write the summary of the talk and then their response, or thoughts and opinion. The students found the talk very interesting and educational for them. Below are the pictures of the entakun where the students freely wrote their thoughts, and some did some drawings as well.
For the class discussion, there were two questions where our discussion revolved. One question asked the students to compare the Japanese mentality culture to their own country’s mentality culture. The second question asked if they agree on what Mr. Masuda said on his presentation that it’s the time to change the Japanese mentality culture.
The students were asked to describe their own country’s mentality culture in one word, and then compare it with Japan’s. Some answers were: “DIVERSE” for Indonesia; “RESPECTFUL” for Mongolia; and “SENIORITY” for Thailand. As for Japan, they answered “HONESTY”.
In the second question, the students in the class had different opinions. Some agreed that the Japanese should make changes on their current mental culture while some said that like the Japanese mental culture as is its right now and they would want to preserve it and would rather not see it changed. Overall, the discussions were very active and the GSEP lecturers also engaged actively in the classroom discussion.
Speaker’s Profile: Mr. Takayuki Masuda
Our speaker is a lecturer at the Jissen Female University. He is also a volunteer at the Meguro International Friendship Association (MIFA) for 25 years. He served at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Japanese Red Cross, and is a certified Consultant on Disaster Management. Mr. Masuda is also a herbal therapist and more interestingly, he is also a ghost story teller.
Written by Eden G. Mariquit