The Deai Photo Essay Cafe Japan Visitation ProgramThe Deai—Real Encounter—Brought by a Photo Resource

The Japan ForumShinjuku Dai-ichi Seimei Bldg. 26F 2-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-0726, JAPANPhone: 81-3-5322-5211 Fax: 81-3-5322-5215 E-mail: takarabako@tjf.or.jphttp://www.tjf.or.jp

Publisher/Editor in Chief: Nakano KayokoEditing and Translation: Center for Intercultural

CommunicationDesign and layout: Iino Noriko (The Japan Forum)

Takarabako is published and distributed by the JapanForum. This publication follows the practice of placingthe Japanese surname first.

March 2006 No. 7

ISSN 1349-5860

The “Deai Photo Essay Cafe” website,launched in October 2004, is a placewhere students from all over theworld can communicate throughphoto essays they create themselves.The project is based on “Deai: TheLives of Seven Japanese High SchoolStudents,” a photo, video, and text resource, focusing on the livesand personalities of seven real Japanese high school students.

The goal of this project is to have secondary school stu-dents who have studied using Deai reflect about themselves

based on what they felt or thoughtabout in connection with the sto-ries and messages of the featuredJapanese students. By publishingthe entries via the Deai PhotoEssay Cafe website, the project alsoseeks to give students using Deai achance to get to know one another.

By the deadline in March 2005 photo essays had been re-ceived from 157 junior and senior high school students in Aus-tralia, Canada, China, Korea, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S.,and Vietnam where the Deai Kit had been distributed.

In July 2005, with the cooperation of the high schools inJapan that have helped TJF with its programs related to Eng-lish, Chinese, and Korean language teaching and internationalunderstanding education, TJF organized a Japanese receptionteam consisting of seven high school students. These studentsselected seven of the photo-essay contributors they wanted tomeet in person. These seven students visited Japan November

17 through 27 and participatedin a special program with theJapanese reception team. Theywent to Okinawa’s Izena Is-land, home of Deai studentTamaki Shun’ichi, where theyworked on joint photo essayprojects. Returning to Tokyo,the seven visitors stayed withthe families of the Japanesestudents and attended classesat their high schools.

The Japan Visitation Pro-gram is a firsthand experienceversion of the Deai project. Theparticipants visited Izena Is-land and met local people liv-ing there. They decided on a presentation theme and workedtogether to create a photo essay. Our hope was to provide anopportunity for each student, by taking part in activities withother participants, to reflect upon themselves and experiencethe process of adjustment to and interaction between differentvalues and perspectives, as well as to learn other languages. Inthis issue, we will report on the people and lifestyles of Izena Is-land as the fourteen students found them, as well as the stu-dents’ projects, research process, and what they thought andreflected on in the process. Let us see how the fourteen students,transcending differences in language and culture, got to knowone another and what they thought about through their en-counters with an Okinawan island and its people.

Feature

This issue is a special 20-page issue featuring the “DeaiPhoto Essay Cafe” invitation-to-Japan program carriedout in November 2005.Izena Study Tour, pp. 2-5Photo Essay Project, pp. 6-11Program Schedule, pp. 12-13Thoughts and Reflections, pp. 14-19Summary, p. 20

Deai: The Lives of SevenJapanese High School Students

The 14 participants from Australia, China,Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom,

the United States, and Japan

Participants try out the drums along with the members

of the Izena Shoen drum troupe

Deai Photo Essay Cafe website