2022 Tazuko Ajiro Monane and Noma-Reischauer Prize Winners Announced

On Monday, December 5, 2022, faculty, students and staff gathered in the spacious first-floor seminar room at 5 Bryant Street, Cambridge, to celebrate the awarding of 2022's Tazuko Ajiro Monane and Noma-Reischauer Prizes. Co-sponsored by the Japanese Language Program and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the virtual ceremony honored four Harvard students for Japan-related academic achievements.

Professor Wes Jacobsen, Director of the Japanese Language Program, welcomed the participants, explaining that the Monane Prize is given to either one or two outstanding students in the Japanese program, while the Noma-Reischauer Prizes are awarded, one to a graduate student and one to an undergraduate student, for outstanding theses. He announced his intention to announce the Monane Prize first before handing the floor to Professor Mary Brinton, Faculty Director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, to give the Noma-Reischauer Prize. Professor Jacobsen told the audience that the Monane Prize was instituted after the sudden 1991 passing of Tazuko Ajiro Monane, a professor whose impressive and valued legacy of teaching Japanese our department strive to still follow today - in fact, he pointed out, one of our current faculty, Kageyama-sensei, was a student of Professor Monane, and is carrying on her work. He also explained that this award is not one that students apply for, but rather one that faculty meet and agree on, based on the promise shown by each student in using Japanese in their career, as well as their outstanding character, which they believe will contribute to U.S.-Japan relations in the future.

Jacobsen first announced the awards: one for the third-year student Moses Stewart, and another for the fourth-year student Bozhen Peng. He then invited Stewart's current Japanese sensei, Mihoko Yagi, to the podium to say a few words about her student.

 

"He just started his study of Japanese in September of last year," Yagi-sensei expressed, "But not only did he continue his study of Japanese at Harvard Summer School, completing both Japanese 130a and 130b, but he also studied additional materials on his own. His performance and active participation in class have never failed to exceed our expectations. His passion for Japanese has been remarkable and not limited to inside classrooms. He is a regular at the events on campus held by our Japanese program as well as the Reischauer Institute, and in the Japanese Table held online. His Japanese language skills have always impressed native speakers of Japanese outside of our program. He is traveling to Japan for the first time next summer to present his study at the University of Tokyo, on behalf of one of his professors."

Yagi-sensei smiled as she commented, "He got qualified to go to Japan and selected as the recipient of this prize on the same weekend!" to delighted exclamations from the audience. "It has been my great pleasure to have stood by you, Moses." she continued, "You have been working so hard with your journey in Japanese. We are so happy we got to recognize your achievement in the form of this Prize. I hope you will continue to pursue your interest in Japanese and use Japanese to advance your study in economics to impact the field. Stewart-san hontou ni omedetou gozaimasu! (Great congratulations to you, Stewart-san!)"

After Yagi-sensei's introduction, Moses Stewart was invited to give an acceptance speech, first in Japanese and then in English. He recited his speech without notes, first telling a charming story in Japanese full of anecdotes about his journey towards the Harvard Japanese program, making the Japanese speakers in the audience laugh out loud as he referenced the influence of the Japanese animated show Gundam and other childhood inspirations. Then, he began in English by thanking the Japanese Department and the Reischauer Institute for the award. "When I decided to take Japanese as a first-year student, I wasn't expecting to find a community of such heart-warming, hard-working individuals who are trying their best every day to change the world through language." Stewart enthused, grinning. "Even though I'm a student of the greatest language program in the world, I struggle to find words to express how grateful I am for this opportunity, and it makes me happy that in the future you guys will continue to be able to impact many students' lives in the same way you did mine, so thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. I'm so glad to receive this award."

Next, Professor Naomi Asakura came to the front to give remarks on her student Bozhen Peng, whom she calls "Hachi" in class. She pointed out that Bozhen had begun his Japanese study only one year before, but in that time his passion for Japanese had propelled him to the point of studying fourth-year material. "In the summer he joined a language school, where he not only improved his language skills, but made friends, some of whom are here online," she smiled, waving at the monitor where some audience members were attending via Zoom, prompting a cheer. She continued, "This semester he kept looking for opportunities to use the language and understand the culture, and he came to events organized by our Japanese Language Program. He also competed in the Boston Area Japanese Speech presentation last month, and gave a terrific speech in front of the consul general of Japan. He interviewed in both Japanese and English at the Boston Career Forum and received an internship offer from a Japanese company."

Professor Jacobsen then presented the award to Peng and invited his remarks, which he gave in Japanese first. In both languages, he expressed that he was honored and humbled to receive the Tazuko Ajiro Monane Prize, and gave "sincere thanks and appreciation to the teachers who have guided me and my friends who have studied along with me." Like Stewart before him, he expressed that his interest in Japan started in childhood, with the children's show Doraemon along with other animated Japanese shows. He spoke of his love for Japanese language and culture as "passion" and "insatiable curiosity." Quoth Peng, "A year and a half ago, when I enrolled in my first year Japanese course at Harvard, I thought, well, maybe in around like 5 years I will be able to communicate in Japanese with my Japanese friends... but with the support of my teachers, classmates, and friends I became able to do so at this point." This he directed at the smiles of his teachers in the audience. "The process of studying Japanese has completely changed my perception of how to learn a second language," he continued. "At Harvard and at Middlebury Summer School we were immersed in the Japanese language and culture...speaking and writing papers exclusively in Japanese. As a result, my Japanese improved dramatically in just one year. Besides this process of learning, Japanese has opened up an exciting new world for me, and I came to know the answer to the question of why we need to learn a second language. That is, speaking the other person's original tongue is the surest way to their heart."

Peng confided that his plan is to continue his concentation in computer science and secondary in linguistics while working on hard on learning Japanese, and that he has recently received a letter of offer from Modest, a human resources service and IT consulting company based in Japan, to do an internship over the summer. "In this context I hope to bring together my interest in and experience with IT with my insights into the cultures of China, Japan, and the US." He quoted the COO of Modest, saying, "Through a change in Japan's society with digital transformation, we hope to recover Japan from the last 30 years, and maximize the happiness and potential of people in society." Peng expressed that he is "more motivated than ever to put in as much effort as I can so I can repay the teachers who have guided me and the friends who have helped me along the way."

Jacobsen then handed the floor to Professor of Sociology and Reischauer Institute Director Mary Brinton, to introduce the Noma-Reischauer Award, who expressed her astonishment at the stories of those students who had just accepted. "So inspiring to listen to students who have studied Japanese for such a short period of time, speak so fluently."

Professor Brinton began by thanking the Japanese Language Program for making possible the awarding of both Awards in one combined ceremony, saying, "I appreciate our continuing cooperation and collaboration between the Language Program and the Reischauer Institute." She explained that the Noma-Reischauer Prizes are awarded for the best essays on Japan-related topics written by Harvard students, and that this ceremony represents the twenty-seventh year of the award. Announcing her intention to begin with the graduate student award, she called up Mayako Shibagaki Liu, a G2 in the Regional Studies: East Asia program. "Mayako specializes in the histories of modern Japan and Korea, mainly focusing on culture, representation, and identity in the colonial period. Her award-winning paper is titled, "Envisioning and Enacting Imperial Integration: Colonial Tourism in Northern Korea, 1931 to 1945". The essay examines colonial tourism in Northern Korea...during the period of Japanese imperialism and war on the continent. Her paper focuses on the ways that the representations and practices of colonial tourism enabled new ways of envisioning and experiencing communist integration." Professor Brinton explained that Liu is currently writing her Master's Thesis on wartime tourism, and that her award-winning paper developed out of a research seminar she took with Professor Andrew Gordon last Spring as she was looking for Thesis ideas. "Initially, she was interested in studying tourism in industrial sites in Northern Korea, when she realized that the entire region called Northern Korea...was being promoted in the 1930s and early 1940s by imperial Japan as a tourist site representing a modern and industrializing Korea...This led Mayako to question the relationship between tourism, spatial imaginaries and colonial identitiese in the context of Japanese expansionism and war." With that, Professor Brinton awarded Liu her Prize certificate, before handing her the microphone.

Mayako Shibagaki Liu first expressed her gratitude to the Reischauer Institute for recognizing her work, along with the Prize committee and other readers, for their thoughtful comments. She explained that, while I was initially interested in industrial sites specifically, the entire region of the Northeastern provinces of the Korean Peninsula began to regularly surface in her sources as a place that was being newly promoted as a tourist destination in the mid-1930s. "Utilizing travel guidebooks, postcards, travelogues and other sources, I examined how the space of the Japanese Empire was reconfigured to and by the development of these tour routes. In my paper I argue that tourism in Northern Korea facilitated new ways of seeing and experiencing Korea in relation to the larger Northeast Japanese Empire as an integrated space." Liu expressed gratitude to Professors Andrew Gordon and Carter Eckert for their "consistent support and excellent feedback", among other professors and her research seminar comrades.

Finally, Professor Brinton presented the Undergraduate Award to Harvard College Junior Kento Yamada, who is seeking a degree in Government. She noted that Kento is interested in quantitative research methods, and is pursuing the data science track of the Government concentration. "His winning paper," Professor Brinton revealed, "Is titled 'Meaningful contact with immigrants and support for immigration: Evidence from Japan.' He argues that meaningful contact with immigrants leads to higher support for immigration in Japan, even when the national context could be conducive to perceptions of immigrants as a threat to Japanese culture. Kento wrote this paper as part of his Government 97 tutorial, which is required for all undergraduate students concentrating in Government. In this course, students explore the various ways that people's political opinions are formed and learned, and how their social relations play a key role in shaping their opinions. One section was dedicated to learning about the effects of exposure to the output; Kento decided to make this the central theme of his research paper, as he is interested in how to make society more tolerant towards outgroups such as refugees and immigrants. Born and raised mostly in Japan, Kento has often felt that Japanese society needs to grapple with how to best accommodate immigrants, especially as the size of the immigrant population continues to grow. The theme of his course in Government made him realize that interactions with immigrants could potentially create support for this."

Holding the certificate, Kento and Professor Brinton smiled for photos at two different cameras, as Professor Brinton joked that Kento had two constituencies, in the Rieschauer and the Government contingents of the audience. Taking the microphone, Kento explained that the topic of his Government 97 tutorial was social influences on political behavior. "In this course we explored the various ways in which people's opinions are formed, and one week in the class was dedicated to learning how people's opinions are affected by exposure to outgroups such as immigrants and refugees, and this inspired me to write my paper. In my paper I explore whether contact with immigrants leads to support for immigration in Japan." Kento explained that, while the literature suggests that meaningful contact with the outgroup can help reduce prejudice against that group, a theory known as Contact Theory which has been tested numerous times, most of that testing has been done in American and European contexts. "I was curious to know whether this theory holds in Japan, which had low levels of immigration compared to the U.S. and many European countries in the postwar era, but has been experiencing an increase in immigration in recent decades."  Kento described his results as "strong preliminary evidence" based on the Japanese General Social Survey that suggests that contact with immigrants may lead to support for immigration, even in Japan. In other words, Japan is no exception to the generalizations of Contact Theory, and its potential usefulness in influencing public opinion. Smiling, Kento expressed that writing the paper was "A true pleasure," and that it motivated him to continue his study of Japanese immigration, making it the topic of his Senior Thesis, which he plans to write over the next academic year. "I am planning to study how influxes of immigration caused by immigration reforms have impacted attitudes towards immigration, and voting behavior," Kento said. "Thank you very much for the prize, it is truly an honor."

Concluding the ceremony, Dr. Jacobsen expressed that, "the formal part of the ceremony is over, but we have lots of food!" Before leaving the floor he also expressed "a word of thanks to the staff who worked really hard to bring this to fruition. From the Reischauer Institute, Jenni Ting, Catherine Glover, Gavin Whitelaw, and from the 5 Bryant [Language Program] staff, Becky Mahoney, Leo Rosenstein, Gus Espada, and all the Japanese language teachers, especially Mihoko Yagi for ordering the food." Jacobsen encouraged the awardees and the audience to stay and enjoy the food, mingle, and meet those who had not met each other before. Thus began the social exchanging of ideas among Japanese Studies enthusiasts, at long last in our first in-person ceremony since the COVID-19 pandemic.