How Japan changes people’s mindset
By KENNEDY LIMWANYA
ARRIVING back at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg after a 13-hour non-stop flight from Hong Kong, my mind drifted back to how fulfilling the trip to Japan had been, having learnt hitherto unknown lessons and explored uncharted avenues into history.
Many a time, the team of six journalists that had visited Japan at the invitation of that country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was compelled to wonder whether Africa’s general state of deprivation had not been as a result of the colonial assault.
Japan had proven that with genuine human effort, and no over-dependence on foreign solutions, it was possible to achieve the seemingly impossible.
But after that 13-hour flight that begun with a three hours and 40 minutes flight from Narita Airport in Tokyo aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways plane, I was back in Africa where doing things in a lackadaisical manner was the order of the day.
It was 07:00 hours, and three hours later, I would be on my way to Lusaka, one of Africa’s most highly-urbanised cities, which is earmarked for a major transformation with the help of the Japanese government; by the way, the development plan will be the first of its kind in Africa.
As I awaited my connection flight, it was only my physical state that was in Johannesburg, but my whole mind was in Japan, going over the trip to the Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota City, and analysing United States of America’s dastardly and senseless bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.
The group of journalists from Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia had left the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with bitter feelings and, in the case of this writer, with resentment for scientist Albert Einstein who had been involved in the development of the atomic bomb that reduced Hiroshima to rubble on that fateful morning of August 6, 1945.
Indeed, at 08:15 hours, time came to a virtual standstill when, with a blinding flash, the bomb detonated approximately 600 metres from the city centre, giving birth to horrifying scenes that came alive during our tour of the museum that Monday morning.
It was a shameless act that should never be allowed to happen again, no matter how aggrieved any country might feel against one another!
The heat rays and blast of the bomb burnt and crushed nearly all buildings within two kilometres of the hypocenter, claiming thousands of lives while those who managed to survive, their bloodied clothes hanging in tatters, clambered over the rubble to flee the city.
It beats one’s understanding that the so-called super powers have continued to develop their nuclear arsenals that are many times more potent than the bomb whose deadly effects continue to be felt 62 years down the line.
The Hiroshima experience was just one of the many lessons of the study tour that also took the African journalists to Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya before arriving back at their Hotel New Otani base in Tokyo on May 23.
At Toyota City, we came face to face with the spirit that has catapulted the Japanese people to the dizzy heights of global glory, making Toyota the indisputable champion in the automobile industry.
On the day of the visit, the six journalists were only a fraction of the 506 people who had visited the company on that day of May 23.
It was amazing to be welcomed to the Toyota offices by a robot, its fingers manipulating the keys of a trumpet so dexterously as it blew out Stevie Wonder’s famous track, I Just Called to Say I Love You.
That was not the last time we saw of the amazing works of a robot, for we were soon to see more as we arrived at the assembly plant, some 15 minutes’ drive from the showroom.
At the showroom, where we were taken on a cruise into the future where we saw Toyota’s concepts set to be on the market in the next 10 to 20 years.
Well, unlike in places or countries where suggestions from employees are rubbished as a show of insubordination, our group learnt that Toyota, in fact, pays its workers for ideas that the company falls in love with and decides to adopt.
The general atmosphere at Toyota and the concentration with which every one did their work sent a very strong message to the visitors; that nothing is ever achieved half-heartedly.
Or, simply, that nothing is ever achieved and sustained by accident.
“Look at the level of concentration. You can’t afford to dose off or allow your mind to drift away. You come with a hangover here, forget it; you can’t work,” commented one colleague in the group of journalists.
Little wonder there are so many people who visit Toyota City. It is as if in the hope that the work ethic at the company would rub off into the visitor.
The moment you leave the company, your whole mindset changes and you begin to feel that with total commitment, it is possible to do what the Japanese have been doing with anything they lay their hands on.
From the beginning of the year 2007 up to that day we visited Toyota Motor Corporation, on May 23, a total of 108, 998 people had been to the company, bringing the total since the year 1960 to 13, 123, 769 visitors.
It was not any different when the journalists were taken on a conducted tour of Panasonic Tokyo where everything is planned well in advance, and it was even possible to peer into the future of electronics through the company’s innovation.
This hardworking culture was evident throughout the places we went to, including the ancient city of Kyoto, which we earlier visited after leaving Hiroshima by Shinkansen or bullet train Super Express Nozomi.
Kyoto is an old city that developed after the establishment of the Heiankyo (Capital of Peace in 794), and was home to the Emperor for approximately 1,000 years, with the founding Emperor Kammu describing it as a natural fortress.
Currently, Japan’s seventh largest city with a population of 1.4 million, Kyoto became a castle town following the completion of the Nijo Castle in the Edo Period (1603-1867).
Visiting the Nijo Castle was one of the most satisfying moments of the journalists’ visit to Japan as it helped to create a new understanding of how long Japan had come, and how the ascendancy to the lofty seat of greatness, was not by default.
Construction of the castle began in 1603 as the official residence of Tokugawa Leyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate (military government) and was completed in 1626 by the third Tokugawa Shogun, Lemitsu.
It is one of the finest examples of Momoyama architecture and it was in this castle that in October 1867, the 15th Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, announced the return of sovereignty to the Emperor, ending nearly 270 years of Tokugawa military rule and giving rise to the Meiji Restoration Government.
Today, Kyoto possesses many historical legacies known to be the treasures of the world, and is abundant with natural landscapes such as Arashiyama that reflect the archetypal images of Japanese scenery while its more than 1,600 Buddhist temples and 270 Shinto shrines attest to its importance as a religious focal point.
Before arriving in Kyoto, the journalists led throughout their tour by a time conscious and admirably knowledgeable guide, Miho Mizutani, visited the Osaka University of Foreign studies.
Welcomed by the university’s vice-president Takeshi Masuda, a professor in American history and associate professor in the department of African studies, Takemura Keiko, the journalists were informed about how four African languages, namely Ki-Swahili, Lingala, Yoruba and Chaga were being taught to students at the institution.
Professor Masuda explained that learning African languages was the best way through which Japanese people could gain deeper insight into Africa’s uniqueness and so place themselves in a more informed position to deal with the continent’s problems.
The African languages are taught by both Japanese and African lecturers, one of them being Albina Rogati Chuwa, who hails from Tanzania and has also taught in Poland and the Netherlands.
It was intriguing to be in a Ki-Swahili class as Dr Chuwa taught her Japanese students, many of whom had quite remote knowledge of Africa.
But they participated with fervor, piecing together words of a strange language from a continent where their country was actively involved in uplifting the people’s standards of living through sustainable development.
From what we saw at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and at the University of Tokyo, where we had had a meeting with Professor Mitsugi Endo, two days after arriving in the Japanese capital city of over 12 million people, the country was exhibiting genuine interest in the African continent.
The interest qualifies to be called genuine because it is with no conditions attached and no anticipation of receiving anything in return for the donor support the continent continues to receive through various developmental projects.
This point was re-emphasised in the visit to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) offices at the Shinjuku Maynds Tower Building where the journalists were hosted by team directors for southern and East Africa, Shimoda Toru and Jin Kimiaki respectively and media officer Abe Hiroyuki.
The Japanese government’s continued commitment to African development was earlier reassured in a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offices with the director of Second Africa Division, Osamu Sakashita.
Later in the evening, during dinner hosted by assistant press secretary and director (International Press Division) Noriyuki Shikata at a tempura restaurant in Ginza, the journalists had a heart-to-heart chat on Japan’s development vision for Africa.
The tempura in Ginza was a strange but welcome visitor to the African taste buds, just as sushi and tempura was, a lasting reminder of the healthy eating habits of the over 126 million Japanese people who populate the island nation that covers an area of about 378,000 square kilometres in the north-east of Asia.
As I arrived back in Lusaka from the tour that also gave me an opportunity to visit the Tokyo Tower, Tsukiji Fish Market, the Imperial Palace, Akihabara Electric Town, and many other exciting places, I was hit by an overpowering feeling that Japan, after all, is an ordinary country.
But it is an ordinary country made extraordinary by ordinary people desirous of achieving nothing less than what is extraordinary.
