Journey to the East

In what seemed like a few minutes after I dropped off to sleep on October 3rd, the alarm went off at 3 AM. Time to get up and get started on one long trip to Fukui, Japan, to look at the city, its educational resources, and one Japanese-American Language Institute. Knights Limousine (a van really) pulled up at 4 AM and took me off to the Logan Airport, where I was greeted by a few blurry-eyed attendants at the United Airlines counter. Getting through their questions and boarding my flight went without a glitch. I had basically one concern, and this was for ample room for my long legs and not-small feet.

In San Francisco I asked the reluctant attendant whether I would be sitting in a relatively spacious area on my flight. To protect herself, she kept her distance while talking to me but reassured me that there was room enough even for one of my stature. When I got to my seat on the Boeing 747, I found that it was in the middle row directly facing the partition where in-flight entertainment is shown, a space that permits about three inches of leg room. All those people who'd made promises were soon left behind as the big jet soared out over the Pacific.

Nothing had prepared me for the size of my seatmate, a big US military type whose broad shoulders dug deeply into my seat space. There was no avoiding bodily contact because he was bigger, taller, and more in need than I. The next twelve hours passed in uneasy quiet. Changing seats was impossible. The flight was an airline's dream: not an empty seat in sight. The attendant did search sympathetically.

When the flight landed at Osaka nearly twelve hours later, I was ready to "deplane," a curious word I never liked. My instructions were clear: collect my bags, go through customs, go upstairs and board the train going in the direction of Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. My destination, for this night at least, would take me westward. I had to change trains in Shin-Osaka and then head on to Fukui, a city in central Japan, on the western side near the Sea of Japan. The train was a bullet, fast, quiet and with an amazing amount of leg room in a country where I loomed over even the tall. The journey took about three and a half hours. The names of the stops appeared both in Japanese and English!

On the train, I tried to remember my list of cultural and linguistic dos and don'ts for Japan and the east: be as polite and refined as an American might be; simplify my English language and leave out the sport and other confusing and culture-bound idioms; watch my feet, especially the soles should not be pointed in anybody's face and preferably be on the floor; watch the cross-legs and get ready to eat lots of fresh raw fish ("sushi") and enjoy the wonders of Japanese culture. I brushed up on my rudimentary Japanese, which included "hello" and especially "thank you." These all paid off wonderfully.

I was met by Ed Miller, the president of the Japanese American Language Institute (JALI) and Tetsuro Nosaka, the father of a Japanese student and president of the Fukui Warp Kniiting Company, Ltd. We had a short meeting, only two hours long, more a get-acquainted session than anything else. My hotel was Japanese, very clean, small and complete with bathhouse on the top floor. (A team of 16 sumo wrestlers, in town for a competition were staying at the same hotel.) Ed, an American from Massachusetts, spoke fluent Japanese, and Tetsuro had deep contacts in the business and education communities. Together, they guided me through the maze of the unknown and presented WPI and me in the best of light.

The next two days, my hosts took me around Fukui Prefecture to three institutions of higher education and to a high school. First, the Fukui Prefecture University Chancellor, who had set up the university after WWII, was not present, but we met one of his assistants. This university is large with an extensive technology program. The Fukui Institute of Technology seems to address some of the needs of the region for technology studies, but it was the Fukui University that expressed the most immediate and clearest interest in WPI. Its curriculum thought not as extensive as WPI's, had engineering programs that matched much at WPI. The team, including professors from the Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Civil Engineering, Human and Artificial Intelligent Systems and Applied Physics, had done their homework on WPI, were well-versed in the information on WPI's web pages and expressed written interest in establishing some kind of exchange program with WPI.

The general area (organized into what the Japanese call "prefecture") of Fukui with its three universities, with elaborate labs (computer and others) and libraries, well-stocked with English language journals, texts and other educational aids might be a place where WPI could establish another global project center. The city population is approximately 250,000 inhabitants, slightly larger in size than Worcester. The city offers a mix of educational institutions, industry and some of the other attributes of an urban setting with a definite small-town atmosphere. Additionally, the Japanese-American Language Institute is busy offering western culture in Japan, including language classes. Fukui captures the Japanese notion of harmony, especially with nature. Tree covered mountains jut out of an otherwise flat land to entice the visitor; a river traverses the city; cherry trees line its banks. I was told that in spring, the site is spectacular. The city is both large enough for those adventurous to discover its layers, yet small enough not to be overwhelming. The climate is gentle, with four seasons, although in early October it was still a bit warmer than many a summer day in Worcester.

My two days in Fukui passed in a flash! Soon I was on the bullet train to Tokyo to meet a group of about 45 university administrators to begin our recruitment tour to five other countries after Japan.