‘Todai’ Days: Reminiscences of a year teaching at the University of Tokyo

In my book The Remarkable Resurrection of Lazaros X (2004) I recalled how as a child I would often rustle through the ancestral relics and how:

hiding among them were a couple of miniature hand-painted Japanese dolls that always looked out of place among the other leftovers … “These things are for accompanying you to the next world,” Tommy (my father) had said in one of those rare moments when he talked about his time in the war.
 
I often felt sad for the man from whom they had been stolen and whose tortured spirit, I imagined, was finally able to make its way into the next life as my father dropped the smiling dolls into the flames. (37)

More than the forty years later, I travel to Japan with my family to take up the position of Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo (Todai) for the 2005/2006 year. As the plane is manoeuvred into the terminal I recall the knowing look on the faces of the two dolls and, just for a moment, I wonder if they might have wished this for me all those years ago.

The Chair of Australian Studies is located in the Centre for Pacific and American Studies at the Komaba campus of the most prestigious university in Japan. It is a balmy October day and I am standing in front of my first class keen to make an impression. I have been advised only the day before that for the first two or three weeks students are allowed to ‘try out’ the different subjects. In this period they move from class to class assessing what is on offer, and I am warned, may even leave part way through the session so that they can look at what is else is available at the same time. ‘Do not be insulted if students do not stay. It happens to all of us,’ one of my very experienced colleagues reassures me.

But I am a little anxious, as the Australian Studies courses are offered within the elective stream and compete for students against other international offerings. I am also surprised when I am told that all students at the first level will be required to take up to twenty subjects. I begin to worry about how I will fit the material that I have planned for the courses into the one and half hours that is allocated for each subject over the next 13 weeks.

I have given great thought to content of the first session: white board, overhead, and some brief handouts. I had been warned by a previous incumbent of the Chair that at the first level it would be important to provide material that was very accessible. I take in a large map of Australia and work with a time line on the board. My teaching assistant who has seen a number of Australian professors come and go has already warned me not to try and deliver too much material in one session. ‘You must remember that many in the class will have chosen the subject so that they can also improve their English as well as learn about Australia. ’

I take note of what she has said but still find that in the first session, overwhelmed by the humidity, I can hear myself talking too fast. That night I lie awake reflecting on how I might have done things differently and worry that none of the students will choose Australian Studies.

But I am excited when in the following week many of them come back. In the coming months I draw on years of experience of teaching at one of the most culturally diverse universities in Australia (Victoria University) to take the students at Tokyo, and also later at Keio University, on a weekly ‘excursion to Australia’. Material on colonisation, debates about an Australian republic, as well as issues of identity, among other things, provide a focus for the first/second level class.

At the next level (3rd and 4th years) the class is made up of a small number of Japanese students, but also some international students that are keen to do subjects that are taught in English. With this group I explore current issues in Australian politics. Given the range of backgrounds in the classroom (Japan, Malaysia, Romania, Sweden, France and the United States) there is lively discussion about the way in which developments in Australia are either mirroring or contrasting shifts in governance internationally.

At the post-graduate level, I work with a student who has lived in Australia for a few years. Over the coming weeks we explore the texts of a number of Australians who have written about Japan. Humphrey McQueen’s Tokyo World, Robin Gerster’s Legless in Ginza, both former Chairs at the University of Tokyo, and Peter Carey’s Wrong About Japan, provide insightful material for looking at selective Australian’s interpretations of the country in which I am currently residing.

But at the core of my teaching at all levels is the idea that the nation is an imagined space which is always being reinterpreted or argued over. Working within this framework, my students are keen to know more about indigenous Australia and debates about rights and reconciliation. They are interested in the impact of colonisation on these communities and are clearly surprised that Australia still has a Head of State who is British. At Tokyo, as well more generally, there is considerable interest in Australian multiculturalism. ‘How is it possible for a nation to exist without a single identity?’ asks one of my students, while others want to know more about how Australia has ‘managed’ or battled over its complex cultural diversity in the post Second World War period.

One of the former academics who held the position in 2002/2003, Chilla Bulbeck, commented that she found the English language competence of her students at Tokyo ‘a pleasant surprise.’ I too find that many in the classes are highly proficient in English but even those with limited skills are eager to ask questions about the Australian nation and its history. Group work, bilingual approaches, use of visuals and films, all become the means of offering students an opportunity to ‘travel’ Australia in exciting ways, many of them for the first time.

Now approaching the end of my year in Japan, I can only agree with Allan Kellehear who held the Chair in 2003/2004 that this ‘position is definitely one of the great international professional opportunities of a lifetime’. And to my way of thinking, this is because not only has it offered me new challenges for my teaching, but I find that even though I rarely leave Tokyo, I am also a ‘travelling self’ in Japan. Before taking up the posting, I had assumed that Japanese students would not talk openly in the class, that the atmosphere would be highly formal or that my lack of Japanese would make teaching and living in Japan difficult for me. But through my contact with the students at Tokyo, and the Japanese people more generally, many of the assumptions about Japan slip away one by one.

The generosity and humour of the students and staff, the encouragement given to my project work, as well as the unique opportunity afforded for an engagement with Japanese academics interested in Australian politics, literature, and a range of other aspects of Australia, all contribute to a better understanding of how Australia is viewed in the Japanese context.

The excitement of learning some Japanese from scratch, the buzz of moving around the big commercial centres at Shinjuku and Shibuya, the lessons in Japanese archery at a temple in the mountains outside of Tokyo, and of course the teaching at the University of Tokyo, are only some of the many highlights for me of ‘travelling’ Japan.   

And, in all of this, I am reminded of the thoughts of Humphrey McQueen, who held the Chair in 1988/89. On being asked by an inquiring student why he had come to Japan, the Australian historian and writer answered by saying that he had travelled here to know more about his own country. I am not sure whether his rather creative response, that connected the history of Australia, Mexico and Japan, and which is described in his book Tokyo World, was ever understood by the inquisitive student. But for me, having now spent two exciting semesters ‘travelling’ across the political and social landscape of my country with similarly questioning students at Todai, I understand very well what the Australian historian was trying to say all those years ago.

Les Terry
Chair/Visiting Professor
of Australian Studies
University of Tokyo 2005/2006