THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701050070
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 82 lines
After the Great Bridge Intermediate third-graders heard about the Japanese origami paper cranes, they couldn't wait to make them.
The students had learned from Japanese teaching intern Masako Miyamoto that the crane is a revered bird in Japan and that people often make paper cranes to honor someone special or to celebrate life.
Very nice thought . . . very hard task.
But after 20 minutes of folding, unfolding, unwrinkling and refolding with the guidance of Miyamoto, Nicholas Waits' crane was dive-bombing into a classmate's shoulder.
``You're going to hang yours on your Christmas tree?'' Waits asked a friend. ``Well, mine is going to fly!''
Great Bridge Intermediate students have been learning about cranes, calligraphy and Japanese cuisine through Miyamoto, a 59-year-old Tokyo housewife and yoga instructor who is teaching at the school this year.
Miyamoto began teaching in late October through the International Internship Program, which sends Japanese interns to other countries to give one-on-one expertise about Japanese life and culture.
There are 140 interns in the United States, and six are expected in Virginia this school year. Miyamoto is the only one in the Hampton Roads area, according to the IIP's Washington office.
The program began in 1979 when a Japanese businessman visited the United States and realized Americans were as ignorant about the Japanese as he was about Americans. ``He found out about America by being here,'' said Betty Taira, chief representative for the North America division of IIP. ``He felt it would be good to have Japanese teachers teaching and sharing their culture.''
The schools that participate have to contribute a place for the teacher - Miyamoto is living with assistant principal Linda Harkins - and develop a class schedule and curriculum for the interns.
Each grade level at the Chesapeake school has a specific agenda pertaining to life in Japan.
While third-graders are learning about the nation's culture, fourth-graders are studying its cuisine and fifth-graders are learning about Japanese family life. Next semester, some students will study bon odori, Japanese folk dancing.
Faculty and staff members get yoga lessons two times a week after school.
Miyamoto isn't earning a salary, and she paid for her own air travel. The benefit for her is what she's absorbing.
``I just want to see students, see how their life is living in Virginia,'' Miyamoto said. ``I want to tell Japanese wives and women about American life and education in American schools.''
Miyamoto lived in America about 30 years ago when her late husband's work brought them to New York for about a year.
But Virginia life in the '90s is different, she's learned, through visits to the opera, a hockey game and a University of Virginia football game. She took pictures on Halloween as costumed kids trick-or-treated at the Harkins' home, and she had Thanksgiving dinner with the Harkins family in Alabama.
Miyamoto took kimonos for the women in the family to wear and made miso soup, a soybean-based soup.
``We had a yukata Thanksgiving,'' Harkins said. ``American food in Japanese clothing.''
Miyamoto said she's learned a great deal in her short time here:
She says Japanese families look more alike or are less ``individual'' than American ones. American children also are raised to be more independent.
Miyamoto has three grown children who live with her in Tokyo, while in America, kids grow up ``and move away from their parents.''
``In Japan, even after they are married,'' Miyamoto said, ``young couples might live with their parents because living is so expensive there.''
Miyamoto's stay was highly anticipated; the school had been trying for more than a year to get an intern.
It couldn't have received a better one than Miyamoto, Harkins said.
``She's such an unassuming person, so giving,'' Harkins said. ``She left her family to spend a year here with us to share her culture. That says a lot about her.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot
Masako Miyamoto of Tokyo, Japan, shows Brandon Bills, 8, how to make
a paper crane at Great Bridge Intermediate School in Chesapeake.
Miyamoto is participating in an international program to promote
Japanese culture through teaching internships.