Author: admin

Presenter:     Prof. Adam Acar (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)

Date:            Sunday, April 22, 2012  (2:00pm~4:00pm)

Place:           Nishinomiya Daigaku Koryu Center (ACTA East Tower 6F,

                       Seminar Rm2),

                       2 minutes walk from Hankyu Nishinomiya Kitaguchi Station.

                       http://www.nishi.or.jp/~daigaku/info/index.html,  

                       Tel.(0798)69-3    155

Fee:              500 yen for members and students,  1,000 yen for non-members

Language:     English

 

Description of the presentation
When compared with Westerners, Japanese tend to have a higher fear of negative

evaluation and low levels of online self-disclosure. However, currently there isn’t

enough information about online social network services like Twitter, Facebook and

Mixi in Japan. To close this important gap and better understand how Japanese

online behavior impacts the adoption of online social network services, we have

been conducting several studies for more than a year. In the course of this　

presentation I’d like to share the findings and explain the similarities and

differences between the both sides of Pacific.　

Questions answered in the presentation:

1- What do Japanese users think of Facebook?

2- Why is Twitter so popular in Japan?

3- Do Japanese and Americans use social media in the same way?

4- What are the differences between Americans and the Japanese when it comes to Twitter usage?

5- What are the differences between American and Japanese companies in terms of social media use for marketing?

6- How do Japanese Twitter users utilize this service to learn languages?

7- How did the people in Northern Japan use social media after the Tohoku earthquake? 

8- What do Japanese people think of Google

 

Profile of the presenter

Associate Professor of Communication at Kobe City University of Foreign

Studies. Before joining KCUFS, Adam Acar worked as a brand equity consultant for several global brands operating in Japan and part-time lectured in marketing strategy at the International University of Japan. He started researching about digital marketing in 2004 and wrote about online social networks as early as 2006. He is the author of several social-network related papers including “the antecedents of social networking behavior” and “Twitter usage during the Great Tohoku earthquake.” His current goal is to do as much research as possible to learn more about the adoption of new technologies both in Japan and all over the world. He is hoping to contribute to the science and society by describing the dynamics of the mass adoption of innovations, especially new communication tools.

In an event co-sponsored by SIETAR and Osaka JALT, about 40 people gathered in Takatsuki on February 12, 2012 for a film screening of “A Grandpa from Brazil” and a question-and-answer session with the director, Nanako Kurihara.

         The documentary introduces us to Ken’ichi Konno, born in Suita, Osaka, who emigrated to Brazil in 1931 at the age of 19. After more than 70 years there, he was very much at home in Brazil. However, since 1992, he made an arduous 26-hour flight alone to Japan each year. The film focuses on the journey Konno made in 2004 when he was 92 years old.

         Some of the places he visits in this film–his former school in Tokyo, the Japanese Overseas Migration Museum in Yokohama, the Kobe Emigration Center–are connected with his past. We get glimpses of the harsh economic conditions and government policies that led to his emigration to Brazil, and the “past sufferings” that Konno had experienced. His trip, however, has less to do with nostalgia and more with his concern about the fate of the Japanese-Brazilian migrant workers who have come in large numbers to Japan since the 1990s. While Konno is happy and at peace in Brazil, he recognizes that the first and second generations of immigrants of any new country will struggle greatly. From his own experiences as an immigrant in Brazil, Konno feels the pain and understands the hopes and problems of his friends who work long hours to earn money in Japan and who hope someday to return to live in Brazil where life is more enjoyable. He listens to their stories, gives advice and cares deeply about their children. 

         There is one family that Konno always visits in Hiroshima. They seem to be only distantly related to him, but the two boys, Fabio and Douglas, welcome him as their very own great-grandfather. Konno visits their schools, talks to their teachers and pointedly asks if the boys or other Brazilian children at school are experiencing problems such as bullying. Foreign children are not subject to compulsory education in Japan, and many Japanese-Brazilian children do not attend or drop out of Japanese schools altogether for various reasons, including bullying. Konno worries that Brazilian children, without a proper education and without language skills, will not be able to fit in and have a good life in either Japan or Brazil. We get the feeling that if Fabio and Douglas speak Japanese fluently and seem happy and well-adjusted to their life in Japan, it is perhaps in part thanks to the efforts of their “grandpa” who keeps in touch with their family, and visits them, their teachers and schools every year.

          Following the film screening, the director Kurihara answered a wide variety of questions. She gave more details about Konno who had dealt with chickens, corn, and auto parts, changed jobs ten times, lost everything at one point in his life and took 30 years to become successful again. He and his large family (six children, 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren) had been able to see this film when it was screened in Brazil before he passed away in 2009, and the Japanese Brazilians laughed hard and long about how the Japanese government had said emigrants would become wealthy in a few years. Kurihara talked about the lack of a national policy about the education of foreign children, something that had even shocked a few people in the audience. At present, because of the economic downturn, there are fewer Brazilians in Japan than the 312,000 who were in Japan at the time the film was made, but the number who left Japan is smaller than the number who have continued to stay, and Kurihara is concerned how Japanese society seems to know so little about the lives of so many people who live in their midst.

         Kurihara, who has a doctorate in Performance Arts from the New York University, also answered many questions about herself. Although she was studying dance, she started her first film project due to the influence of a very good friend and Japanese feminist. That film, “Ripples of Change” (with the Japanese title “Looking for Fumiko”), about the feminist movement in Japan, went on to win awards. Her current project involves working with a percussion workshop for local Brazilian and Japanese children in Shiga, and documenting the workshop’s progress and performances.

         For those who are interested in having their own DVD of “A Grandpa from Brazil” (available with Japanese and Portuguese or with English subtitles), please check Kurihara’s website at http://nanakokurihara.com. She and Stephen Dalton, a teacher at Osaka Gakuin University, are also developing a study guide for interactive use in classes, and they welcome feedback and comments.

         Kurihara says she misses Konno-san very much, but his story resonates at many different levels with our own journeys through life, and her film makes him come alive as the grandpa we all wish we had and the wise senior we would like to become.

Linda Arai

A Grandpa from Brazil

The film, The Grandpa from Brazil, documents the life of Mr. Kenichi Konno, the son of a rice dealer in Suita who emigrated to Brazil at the age of 19 in 1931. Konno went abroad in search of a decent job, and he vowed to return only after achieving success. He worked very hard for decades, changing jobs at least 10 times. Sixty years after leaving Japan he began making annual trips back to Japan staying for a month at a time in order to check on Japanese-Brazilians who had emigrated in the opposite direction. The number of Japanese-Brazilians increased significantly after 1990 when the Japanese government allowed legal entry for people of Japanese descent (Nikkei) up to the 3rd generation. Konno was very concerned about the many difficulties that these Japanese-Brazilians face in Japan. He made these trips over a period of 15 years, and he has helped many people in the process.
This film follows this extraordinary ordinary man as he retraces his journey through the streets of Tokyo and Kansai, recounting his life in Brazil, and discovering more about the actual situation of Japanese Brazilians. This heartfelt documentary explores issues of migration, ethnicity, family and global citizenship.

After the film there will be a time to meet and ask questions to the filmmaker, Nanako Kurihara. Kurihara first met Konno when she was 19 while accompanying her father on a business trip to Brazil. She said, “I was impressed with his [Konno’s] intellectual, charismatic appeal and insatiable curiosity for everything that’s happening around the world.” The film is in Japanese and English, subtitles are provided.

 

Japan Times review in English
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081022f2.html

More info in Japanese
 http://nanakokurihara.com/documentaries/

Profile of the presentor:
Nanako Kurihara
A graduate of Waseda University and an award-winning Japanese producer/director. Her first film, Ripples of Change (1993), about the Japanese women’s movement in the 1970s, was shown internationally and was broadcast in the United States and Australia. Kurihara holds a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University.