This is a student of Tim’s English class. His name is Kotaro Fukada. He is 19 years old, and a sophomore in the Faculty of Agriculture. He has not decided his major yet, but his research interest is Agricultural Engineering. He is from Yamaguchi. He has parents and a 16-year-old brother. One of his hobbies is drawing.

When I saw the homepage Wired Antarctica, I started to want to go to Antarctica. On the website I found a lot of interesting words, for example “Science, science, science!  Plus, it's beautiful!” With that I felt their enthusiasm for science. They insist that it’s the last unspoiled place in the world. If that is true, it is natural for scientists to be fascinated with Antarctica because there is 100% perfect nature. Almost all scientists would like to go there. But they will also spoil Antarctica by inches. We should be careful. And on the website they say “Antarctica plays an important role in global cycles”. If they can understand the role, they can predict the effects of the changes humans are causing. That’s wonderful. I think this is a point to which natural scientists aim. In the future, I want to go to Antarctica and stay there to research in the long term as a scientist.    

             When I was a high school student, I went to Hokkaido while on a school trip. At that time I had been longing to go to Hokkaido University. I really wanted to look at the statue of Professor Clark . As the teacher gave us free time one day, I proposed going to see the Clark statue to my friends. In fact, they were not interested in going to Hokudai, but I forced them to accept.

              We went to various places. The hours went quickly. I suddenly realized that there were only one or two hours left. It was almost impossible to go to the university and return to the hotel on time. My friends said to me, “We should give up on going to Hokudai and return to the hotel”. I had worried someone would say something like this. Everyone was very tired, but I didn’t want to give up. I finally got them to go.  

              Hokudai was very large. It was very hard to even find the gate. It looked like a fortress to me. And what was worse, we didn’t know where the statue of Clark was! Finally my friends stopped walking and sat down on the street. They said to me, "we have decided to wait for you here. Be back here within 10 minutes." I ran. I asked at least five people where the Clark statue is. But to my surprise, nobody could tell me the way. I still don't know why nobody could answer. Perhaps I was unlucky. Anyway I thought that was a very strange thing at the time. I had thought every Hokudai student would know the statue of Clark. There was nothing to do but look for it by myself. I didn't have much time left, so I was in a hurry.

              After many detours I finally reached my destination. I did it! I took a quick look at the statue then I went back to my friends. We were barely in time to return the hotel.

              Now I am Hokudai student. I go by the Clark statue all the time. When I first found the statue, it seemed to face the road outside. But really that was wrong. It faces the road "Main Street" in Hokudai. Hokudai is such a large campus, it is only natural that some people don't know where the Clark statue is. 

I think that the plaintiffs will win. They are taking a firm stand against racial discrimination. If we permit onsens to refuse foreign people from entering that means that racial discrimination is allowed. I can't forgive such a thing.

But a lawsuit does not settle all of these problems. To solve a problem requires another long, sustained effort. The defendant, the onsen owner, brings up the foreigners’ bad manners. They feared Japanese also would stop coming to the onsen because of the foreigners. It is a matter of life and death to them. So first of all we must think of this problem.

 The beginning of all the problems seems to be the intoxicated Russian sailors. But now the problem is not only the manner of the Russians, because the onsen don’t refuse only Russians. They refuse all foreigners and foreign-looking Japanese people. Probably seeing one onsen started to refuse foreigners made others do the same thing.

 But they were wrong. They should have coped more wisely. A lot of foreigners just enjoy onsens. So surely they will follow the proper manners. If intoxicated people come, the onsen owner would have to refuse them politely and directly. And an onsen owner should take care of people, especially foreigners who come for the first time. They must be able to explain about the customs. They don’t need to refuse people.

Now many foreigners are coming to Japan to see the World Cup. If they go to an onsen and are refused, what will they think of this? People around the world will come to know Japanese prejudice and old-fashioned thinking.

Everyone has a dream. No one forgets the dream that they had when they were  children. I think people who have retired start to chase their dream again and they spend the rest of their lives to do work connected with that. For example, someone who wanted to be a photographer holds an exhibition of some of his photos. Others who were teachers establish a small cram school after retiring in order to help students one at a time, because maybe it is not easy for teachers to teach all students individually. They can find a reason to live through their activities and we can find that they still play an important part in our society.

Children brought up in the city don't know nature well. They think beetles are born in the department store. So when they go to the country on summer vacation and spend a few days there old men and women can teach them many things. They can experience the agriculture and find where beetles are.

I think that Japan International Cooperation Agency does the most volunteer work. This organization sends experts and engineers to developing countries and gives economic assistance. And there is a system of Senior Volunteers in JICA. 400 people who are 40~69 years old are dispatched each year. Nowadays it becomes popular. Kimio Fujita the ex-president of JICA left for his new post in Samoa, an island country in the South Pacific, after retiring as a president. In other words, the top of the organization is active on the scene in developing countries. He said 'I was impressed to see people do volunteer work actively. I want to turn my experience to an advantage and to share their troubles with them as a member of the Senior Volunteers.’ I am impressed by his way of thinking.    

Audrey Hepburn went to many foreign countries as an ambassador to help children in need. The reason she did well is that she was well known. Of course that is not all, but it is almost impossible for most people to do the same thing. Besides, I think that the scale is not so important. Everyone can volunteer because there is always something they can do.