Shikoku University: Prior Faculty Report
First week in Tokushima
Prof. Michael R. Mosher - April 2002
The 14-hour Northwestern flight from Detroit to Osaka was OK, and I enjoyed the Harry Potter movie as we flew over snowy Siberia and the Kamchatka peninsula. The Osaka airport made us realize how much it inspired Detroit's new terminal, except Detroit had to put the little red train inside. We then caught the bus to Tokushima, and marveled at the size of Osaka's bustling waterfront. Each time we crossed an inlet or harbor on a bridge we saw the water filled with ocean-going ships; the busy port that San Francisco should be. Kobe was a bit funkier, with narrow one-lane freeways and rusty, mildewing 1950s or '60s concrete maritime warehouses. Then came a verdant, mountainous island that reminded us of Marin County north of San Francisco. After passing through some seaside agricultural towns that reminded us of northern California ones like Half Moon Bay, Montara of Salinas, we arrived in Tokushima. By now it was dark, and we were met by Aoki Shegeyoshi and Fumitomo Junko from Shikoku University, who packed our luggage into two taxicabs. The university guesthouse is right by the university's front gate and the baseball field, and they had packed the refrigerator with good food for the weary travelers.
The next day we were given a tour of the campus met various faculty and university co-founder Mrs. Satoh, then went downtown to register for our Resident Alien permits. City Hall was like any other, but with more comfortable chairs and an armed services pamphlet (Army, Navy, Air Force all in one) that asked "What Will You Be?" We shopped for groceries and fish and met the burly Canadian who ran a Subway-knockoff sandwich shop. We then met and had tea with a newspaper editor who liked my questions about their editorial manga (cartoons). The top stories were scandals and upcoming elections, since top people had been found taking bribes from gangsters. Over the weekend, trying to get over jet lag, we walked down busy streets and in the rain by the river, where I found on the ground several CDs of chirpy pop songs.
I then prepared for my "International Understanding (English)" classes. Told that the students especially liked courses that used pop songs, I put together a syllabus "American Youth Culture 1970-2000" that uses pop songs to discuss aspects of teenage life and learn English vocabulary. Of course the playlist is heavy on the Michigan acts --Stooges, Madonna, the surprisingly pedagogical Grand Funk Railroad -- but also has Mary J. Blige and Nelly Furtado tunes in there. The 47 freshman and 45 sophomore English majors are pretty focused, the sophomores all carrying Japanese-English dictionaries they assiduously consult. Teaching the 80 flaky, flighty fashion-conscious freshmen Business majors feels like herding kittens, but I did get the room reciting Grand Funk 90's. "I'm your captain...I'm getting closer to my ho-o-o-ome..." by the end of class. Yet being in Japan has me questioning my own "Poetry Sweet", "Surfing the Crimson Web" and the impassioned "I Am Not Correct to Always World". And is the single word "Past" being worn on the shirt of a girl, as they said in the '40s, with a past...?
The neighborhood around the university is fun to explore on foot and Chrysanthe and I go walking right after sunup. There are houses, some in traditional Japanese architecture, and there are interesting midcentury apartment buildings. There are little farms, including flooded rice fields, as well as little concerns like flower nurseries or yards for recycled lumber. Though public transportation's supposed to be good there are too many cars, most in models I've never seen -- Chaser, Canter, Levin, Cedric, and one I swear is sized ones too, crowding the tiny streets. We saw one funny little car whose owner had filled it with furs and marabou feathers, a thick, crystalline and faceted lucite gearshift stick, and big translucent pink dice as the knobs on hood and trunk.
Everyone on campus has been extremely friendly and helpful, and there are two Americans and one Canadian who are on the faculty of the English Dept. where I'm based. There is a grand view of the river -- spanned by three busy bridges -- and green, misty mountains from my 6th-floor office -- from one delicious unversity banquet to recognize Retiring and New Faculty that served courses of sushi, sashimi, tempura, boiled and pickled foods during speeches, then got on to the business of everyone table-hopping around the room to pour each others' beer, sake, shochu (rice whiskey) and still more beer. Tonight is another banquet, thrown by my Department, and soon there will be another one for a visiting delegation of politicians from Saginaw. Like the customs of students taking off their shoes to work in the computer lab, or of students bowing deeply to professors, in the next three months I could get very used to life here in Tokushima.
Michael R. Mosher
Assistant Professor, Art/Communication Multimedia
c/o Art Dept. 103 Arbury
Ph: 989.964.4977
Email: mosher(at)svsu.edu
Here is a link regarding to the Twenty-Fifth Annual English Workshop in Shikoku University, where Prof. Michael Mosher concluded his guest presentation by teaching the students how to draw a realistic human face (www2.shikoku-u.ac.jp/english-dept/oldindex.html). Click the browser's window when you finish and you'll come back to this current window.