Volume 15, Number 9 |
What do yo imagine when you think of Norway? The Aurora, midnight sun and strong Viking women? Ninomiya House is now sponsoring a monthly forum in English on subjects of interest to the international community. This month, two Norwegians will be the guest speakers, and they will give an introduction to Norway, Norwegian music and food on October 12. You will even have a chance to taste some special Norwegian delicacies! The speakers are Dr. Lennart O. Jerdal of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Ms. AnneNonia Hafskjold.
The forum begins at 6 pm and goes until 8 pm. If you've never seen Ninomiya House, you will have the opportunity to take a tour at 5:30 pm before the forum. The forum takes place in the 9th floor "Salon". As alcoholic and soft drinks will be served, there is a cover charge of 500yen per person. Pre-registration is required, and so if you would like to come, please call at 58-7006 by Wed., Oct. 10. jistec.or.jp/house/ninomiya/news_sep/frame.html
1. Field Meeting
Autumn is a wonderful season for sports activities. The event for this month is a field meeting. We will play some games with our children. If you have time, let's have lunch together afterwards. In case of rain, the activity will be postponed until October 22.
When: 10:30-12:00 October 15, Monday
Where: Matsunoki Park (in front of Ninomiya Jidokan)
2. Let's Play Together
We will enjoy some stories and songs. If your children's birthday is in this month, don't miss the Happy Birthday song.
When: 10:30-12:00 October 29, Monday
Where: Takezono-Nishi Jidokan
Contact/Inquiries: Ms. Ishihara at 51-0284
The Tsukuba Catholic Church in Matsushiro will hold its annual bazaar on Oct. 21 from 10 am to 1 pm. Clothing, household utensils, etc. will be sold at cheap prices. A lot of fun activities are also lined up, like: food sales of international foods from Asia, South America, Europe, Africa, etc. and special attractions like international songs and dances. Come one, come all and join the fun! Contact information: call 0298-36-0203 after 6 pm.
Tsukuba Gakuen Church near Daiei also has its annual bazaar in October, coming on the last Saturday, the 27th. A variety of goods and foods will be sold from 12:00 to 2:30 pm. Contact the church at 51-1713.
Another bazaar is a week long affair, running from the 15th to the 21st. It will be held at the NH House in Sengen (1-18-17) from 10 am to 5 pm each day. There will be clothing, kitchen utensils, toys, small furniture, etc. Contacts are the NH House at 51-4025 (Ms. Tsuchiya), Ms. Mizuno at 51-9983 or Ms. Hanafusa at 55-4225.
"My impression of Japan from the viewpoint of an old man" is the theme for this month's coffee hour. Mr. Ma Moon Hun from Korea will be our guest.
The Koreans have a traditional culture based on devotion to their family and on Confucian ethics, which is characteristic of oriental countries. They are very proud of respecting and taking care of their parents and the other elders in their neighborhood. This wonderful tradition has changed drastically in the past few years?it has been affected by western ideas of individuality.
Since it is common sense for people to take care of elderly parents in Korea, a welfare policy for the elderly is not well developed in Korea, at this time. The government supports only 10% of living costs and some other expenses such as public transportation. It is very important for Korean society to construct a more realistic policy because the traditional relationship between families is being destroyed.
This month's guest is Mr. Ma Moon Hun who came to Japan from Seoul last June. When he came to Japan, he was very impressed with the good medical service and the well-organized nursing system especially for the elderly. All of us inevitably will get older. When you are old, will your family help you? And your country? Let us discuss this important issue together.
Come and join the crowd at the monthly Coffee Hour at the Tsukuba Information Center on Wed., October 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. Refreshments will be provided.
An English language interdenominational worship service is held once a month normally on the fourth Sunday of every month at 2 pm. at the Tsukuba Gakuen Church near Daiei. The October service in on the 28th. It is followed by an informal fellowship time at the Tsukuba Christian Center next door. The Japanese language congregation meets every Sunday morning at 10:30, and the service is translated into English over headphones. There is also a Bible Study in English every Tuesday evening at 8:30 in the Christian Center. For more information or help with transportation, call Tim Boyle at 55-1907.
The Tsukuba Catholic Church has an English mass at 8:00 am every Sunday and the Japanese masses on Saturday night (6 pm) and Sunday morning (10 am) are accompanied by an summary of the message in English. There is even a Spanish mass on the 3rd Sundays at 3 pm. On the last Sunday of the month, there is a coffee social after the English mass. For information, call the church at 36-1723. The Tsuchiura Catholic Church offers an English mass on the last Sunday of each month at 3 pm (tel. 21-1501). There is also a Portuguese mass on the 3rd Saturday at 7 pm. The Tsukuba Baptist Church offers an English language Bible study before the Japanese service every Sunday from 10 to 11 am. It is located in Inarimae just east of Nishi Odori on the street closest to the meteorological observation tower. Tel. 58-0655.
The Megumi Church in Tsuchiura (489-1 Kami Takatsu) also offers English translation of their 10:30 Japanese service over ear phones. An English Bible class is held every Sunday morning at 9:00. There is also an International Fellowship group that holds a monthly pot luck dinner usually on the third Saturday. For information on that, call Melissa Ishio at 38-1374. For more information, call the church at 22-2244 or e-mail LDN03144@niftyserve.or.jp (Also see their Tsuchiura Megumi Church Web Page at http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/ro/tmc/index.html).
The Tokyo International Church, Tsukuba Branch in Amakubo 3-3-5 (across from Tsukuba Univ.) offers a 10:30-noon Chinese (Mandarin) service interpreted into both English and Japanese. There is also an English language Bible study every Sunday evening at 7 pm. For information, call Rev. Huang at 52-6820. The International Christian Assembly meets every Sunday at their new building just off of Tsuchiura-Gakuen Sen east of Tsukuba (just behind the restaraut with the dragon on the roof) from 10 am for Bible Study and 10:30 for worship. For more information, call Tony Shreffler at 57-9006.
The Nozomi Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tsuchiura (23-27 Komatsu 3-chome) also offers programs in English, including a worship service Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm and a Bible class on Sunday mornings at 9:30. English Bible information courses are available any time. For more information, call Glen Hieb at 0298-21-3578. The Tsuchiura Christian Church offers an English message translated into Japanese every Sunday morning at 10:30 am. For information, contact Paul Axton at 56-2167.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Tsukuba ward is located at Sakura 2 chome 35-2. Services are translated into English over headphones. The Sacrament Meeting begins at 10 am followed by Sunday School at 11:10 and Priesthood and Relief Society at 12:00. A Gospel Doctrine class in English is also offered. For more information, contact 57-9795. The Jewish Community of Japan, invites anyone of the Jewish faith in the Tsukuba area to feel welcome at any of their programs in Tokyo. Sabbath services each Friday at 6:30 pm followed by Sabbath dinner; Kosher Kitchen, Saturday morning, 9:30 am. Contact 3-8-8 Hiroo, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo 150; tel. 03-3400-2559, fax. 03-3400-1827.
by Stephen Marshall
It is midnight, Arakawaoke station forecourt. I face the choice of an hour's walk home in the dark, or a 3000 yen taxi ride. Since there is a typhoon due, I opt for the taxi and skipping lunch for a week. Not for the first time, I curse the fact that Tsukuba does not have a railway station, that the bus services shut down for the night so early, and that the so-called 'international city' of science lacks so many of the amenities of a real city, and even some of a normal town. Worst of all, I curse the fact that none of this is an accident, since Tsukuba is a planned town, deliberately placed on the plain 50 km removed from Tokyo, and wilfully situated at a king's ransom away from the nearest railway station.
This September, Tsukuba's International Congress Center was host to the New Garden City Conference 2001, attended by many town planners from around Japan and from abroad. The conference was part of a celebration of 100 years of town planning, or more specifically the centenary of the foundation of the first Garden City, at Letchworth, near London. The founder of the Garden Cities movement was a Victorian gentleman called Sir Ebenezer Howard, regarded by many as the father of modern town planning. Howard's ideas were inspired by a combination of social, economic and environmental ideals. His plans featured a series of settlements connected by railways, and were as much to do with the reform of land ownership and forestalling revolution as they were to do with gardens. Howard pioneered the construction of Letchworth and subsequently Welwyn Garden City. The idea caught on, and new towns have been built in the utopian spirit all over the world ever since.
The Garden City was a nineteenth century idea. It was supposed to allow people to have a decent living away from the evils of the Victorian city - the slums, poverty, vice and pollution. The people would live in self-contained and largely self-sufficient communities. Ebenezer Howard's proposed solution, the so-called 'Town-Country', was supposed to be the product of the marriage of Town and Country, combining the best of both worlds.
However, Garden Cities and new towns are not without their critics. In practice, new towns have often turned out to be suburban dormitory towns with underused land, poor transport, lack of facilities and social isolation. Arguably, the 'Town-Country' has neither the amenities and convenience of a real city nor the rural appeal of the real countryside. For better or worse, Tsukuba is part and parcel of the town planning movement. Its conception was bureaucratic, at a Cabinet Council meeting in September 1963. Construction started in 1968, and the first residents braved moving into this 'experimental city' around 1972. The conference heard that in the early years, Tsukuba suffered from being an inconvenient place to live, with poor morale, and an unfortunate suicide rate. However, its morale and external image apparently improved significantly after the Tsukuba Expo in 1985.
Delegates learned of Tsukuba's successes which relate to greenery, good amenity, infrastructure and architecture. There were also four so-called 'uncompleted purposes'. These are the failure to achieve a compact city (in other words, the town is too spread out); the failure to achieve mixed uses (in other words, there is too great a separation of houses, shops and employment locations); incomplete redevelopment of rural areas, and a failure of long term settlement by researchers. (The last point is interesting since 3% of the residents of the town are foreigners, many of whom are on short term contracts).
Surely to this list must be added the failure of Tsukuba to be connected to the railway network after 30 years. Getting to Tokyo can be so difficult. On a good day, the highway bus service is a breeze. But it cannot be relied upon at congested times. How many times must the pathetic line "Sorry, I live in Tsukuba" be used to excuse turning up late in Tokyo? Going for a night out in Tokyo is inconvenient or impossible. In what kind of 'city' does the last bus leave at 9.30 pm?
Yet, incredibly, to some planners, the arrival of the Tsukuba Express (not due till 2005) still appeared to be a mixed blessing. This is because planners have become beguiled by the idea of self-containment, that their creations should have unique identities and stand alone as independent entities. They fear that places like Tsukuba, instead of being proud independent cities, should become 'bed towns'. Now, if Tsukuba were a real city, surely it should not fear becoming a 'bed town'? And if it is not a real city, if it is lacking in a variety of jobs and services and cultural opportunities, who are planners to deny the citizens the right to access those in the bright lights of Tokyo?
What the conference did not discuss is that, ironically, some of the ideas which inspire the principle of self-containment are nothing to do with the practical problem of planning urban development, but originate in philosophical ideas from science, and in particular, biology. Central is the idea that the city is a living organism - a sentiment expressed more than once at the Tsukuba conference. If Tsukuba is an organism, the ideas goes, Tsukuba Center is its 'heart'. Similarly, the Namiki neighbourhood is a 'cell', and the Namiki shopping centre is its 'nucleus'. The influential urban writer Lewis Mumford was one of the greatest champions of so-called organic planning, and had a field day with organic analogies, arguing for 'cell-division' rather than 'amoeboid growth' as a model for urban development. Drawing inspiration from Aristotle, Mumford used biological analogies to justify why towns should have a fixed size, and when this size was reached, a distinct new town should be built somewhere else. This kind of rhetoric helped establish the professional climate in which new towns were deliberately created in the middle of nowhere. In summing up the conference, it was stated that the key aim of the garden city was for the benefit of its residents. But for whose benefit was Tsukuba created? When it was designated, no-one wanted to move here from Tokyo; and no-one here wanted it either. If anything, the abstract ideal of the nation's scientific establishment was to benefit, and, perhaps, the careers of the town planners themselves.
Planners often see their cities as works of artistic creation. Yet they also insist that cities are living organisms. A city can only be both an organism and a work of creation if the planner is God. Unfortunately, God chose to base the planning of Science City on Aristotlean biology, ahead of giving us a railway.
The author welcomes comments on this article and any opinions on Tsukuba, positive or negative, from its residents. s.marshall@asahi.email.ne.jp
by Paul Axton
(Editor's note: This article is reprinted from the Jan. '98 issue since it goes together so well with Stephen Marshall's article.)
"...the thing to be symbolized in this instance is Japan as a state. Willy-nilly, I was compelled to select a style that would stand for the whole Japanese nation..." (Isozaki Arata, Architect of Tsukuba Center)
As you walk along the oval plaza of Tsukuba, modeled as it is after the piazza on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, you might expect to eventually come to a center where, as in Rome, the emperor sits astride a horse or some other tower or monument that represents the nation. After all, the city itself is a kind of monument as the only new town project conceived and executed by the state after the war. Tsukuba was conceived at a time when Japan was beginning to feel a new confidence, and it was to serve as the resource and model of a state that was finding its voice and direction and was rediscovering its identity. The city planners did, indeed, want to express this in the central square of the city with some monumental structure to reflect a masculine nation state, but the architect, Isozaki Arata, defied them and created a city center revolving around an empty hole and a drain. He created a clearly defined central axis around which the center devolves to this empty, sunken, concave plaza.
He meant this empty hole and the surrounding buildings to be a metaphor for the city and the nation. The city itself was supposed to express the power of the state, but at the center of that state, Arata thought the most powerful image was of something missing - an absence. Tsukuba was itself an attempt to fill a hole, to rediscover identity, to mark a new direction, and yet the effort lacked a center.
The original plan for Tsukuba included relocating the central government here to escape the overcrowding of Tokyo. Though this part of the plan was dropped, the city was still meant to act as the new center of internationalization. After Japan lost the war and the Emperor denied his divinity, Arata says, the national state vanished. There was a very literal attempt to relocate that lost center in Tsukuba.
Arata meant the city center to represent the rediscovery and melding of emperor, state, and capital, and the center hole represents the void that has brought about their amalgamation. The city was conceived in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ikeda in 1963, who, as we shall see, focused the political and national will on economic improvement. Ikeda, more than any other postwar prime minister, was responsible for reuniting the national effort and setting it on the goal of national prosperity and improvement. Tsukuba, which would be the centerpiece for that improvement, would be thoroughly modern and an attempt to plant modern thought and methods in traditional Japanese soil. It would be the national state's initiative to help stimulate Japanese modernization. So the convergence of state and capital and its future course was to be found in this new center.
The converging streams of water disappearing at the very center of the plaza are meant to represent the earth devouring the various symbols contained in the periphery. Among those symbols, there is no coherence or pattern but just "so much historical refuse crammed helter-skelter into a framework." Arata means this helter-skelter pattern to portray Japan's lack of a clear identity and the unsuccessful attempt to forge one. The form or substance of these images, including the state and the invisible imperial presence, are consumed by the earth - the one abiding reality in Arata's metaphoric conception.
Tsukuba's planners, in attempting to start from scratch and build the future, began figuratively and almost literally with a vacant lot. The land is not ideal for farming and the closest local industry, fishing, died off as Lake Kasumigaura became polluted. The national Housing and Urban Development Corporation was able to buy a large tract of land at the base of Mount Tsukuba in the area that was mostly rural farm land or woods. Though Tsukuba is only forty miles from Tokyo, the area has historically been one of the most insular and undeveloped in the region. Its location next to Edo (the old name for Tokyo) caused the Tokugawa Shoguns to create a cultural vacuum here that would offer no possible threat to the capital, and so the population was at one time among the most poverty-stricken in Japan.
Dr. Junichi Saga chronicled life in the area before the war, and the dominant theme of the period was survival. Rice was a luxury that most could not afford. Many were reduced to subsisting on barley or millet. Girl infanticide was an accepted practice and prostitution was one of the only successful enterprises of the area. There was little cultural infrastructure even in the 1960's to be accommodated. So the location presented the opportunity to construct a city that would leave little trace of the previous environment. It is, in other words, as close to a visible representation of the modern ideal, without interference, as it is possible to come.
The city, as an expression of the advancing national will, would pursue science, create an educational and intellectual center and embrace internationalization. The academic atmosphere created by the five colleges and the national university extends beyond campus boundaries to include most of the city. The 46 government research institutes and some 210 private institutes (some still in the planning stage), create a pervasive atmosphere of study and research. There are more Ph.D.s, more professors, and more researchers concentrated in this relatively small city than anywhere in the world. So Tsukuba has also been called the city of brains.
There are also more foreigners here per capita than in any other city in Japan. As the largest city in the world devoted to science, Tsukuba is the main point of exchange with the foreign scientific community. Japanese scientists from Tsukuba often spend a year or more abroad and many foreign scientists are invited to Tsukuba's research centers. Tsukuba University likewise, was built to be a new kind of international national university. It has the highest percentage of foreign students among the national universities, and it boasts a famous, Nobel Prize-winning, internationally-minded president. Meikei High School, the daughter school of the university, is likewise aiming at an international style education, and both schools have a special entrance system and program for Japanese students returning from overseas. So a greater percentage of Tsukuba's 150,000 plus residents will study and learn English, live overseas, live and work with foreigners and foreign ideas, than any other comparable group in Japan.
The makeup of the city contains the contradiction that is modern Japan. As Arata says, he sensed "the shadow of the nation in the task of designing a central set of facilities for Tsukuba Science City." The shadow of the state and its reanimation of right-wing conservative thought falls across the entire city. The national institutes are carrying out government research for state purposes and the national university is sometimes referred to as the "Monbusho University" because of its close ties to the Ministry of Education. Yet, it is this reconstituted conservative creation that serves as Japan's international and intellectual doorway. The place that is meant to be the most open and most international is precisely that place where state controls and state purposes are being worked out. Tsukuba and its institutions reflect the fact that Japan's effort at internationalization in all of its various phases is subordinate to its nationalization.
In this sense, Tsukuba is the ideal place to come to understand the direction Japan is headed. It is a living model of what the entire country is experiencing at different rates, and it is a concrete image of what the country has projected as its identity.
Meetings every Wednesday night at Hot Stuff from 9pm. Future walks and information at eve.bk.tsukuba.ac.jp/twmc. Please contact Tadashi Takemori at takemori@eve.bk.tsukuba.ac.jp.