Schoolhouse of the Rising Sun : Japanese-Language Classes Keep Fresh Traditions of the Homeland
The signs of Japanese economic power are evident all around the South Bay, from the shimmering glass Nissan high-rise in Carson to the expansive 101-acre Honda headquarters under construction in Torrance.
At least 194 Japanese-based firms have branch operations between the Port of Los Angeles and Los Angeles International Airport, according to the membership rolls of the Japanese Business Assn. of Southern California.
Corporations and small businesses have arrived with executives and office workers who demand the kind of traditional education for their children that they received in their homeland. The result has been the blossoming of Japanese-language education in the South Bay. Eight years ago two schools taught 356 students. This year, 1,430 children nearly fill three campuses in Hermosa Beach, Torrance and Gardena.
The International Bilingual School of Los Angeles is a weekday alternative to the public school system, while Asahi Gakuen and the East-West Japanese School are part-time supplements to American education. All three schools are attractive to Japanese businessmen, who spend an average of just five years in the United States, because they promise to prepare their children for successful re-entry into the highly competitive Japanese education system.
“The parents worry more than the kids do,” said Yasushi Kobayashi, a Torrance businessman whose children attend the Saturday school Asahi Gakuen. “In Japanese society, you have to go to the big-name school. That is the target for the Japanese student. If they go there, they can get a good job.”
Students are accustomed to the hard work. A group of junior high school students at Asahi Gakuen, or School of the Rising Sun, said recently that they don’t mind schoolwork seven days a week.
Extra Homework
Mika Osada, 13, who attends the private Rolling Hills Country Day School during the week, also attends Asahi Gakuen. She studies four or five hours a night and half of Sunday to keep up with homework for the two schools. That leaves just Sunday afternoon for free time.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” Osada said during a class break. “Sometimes I want to spend more time with my friends, but it’s OK.”
Minoru Osada, an executive with Pentel of America Ltd. in Torrance, may be ordered back to Japan at any time, so Mika’s mother, Junnko, follows the girl’s schoolwork intently. “My mother checks on my schoolwork because she understands (Japanese) more than I do,” Mika said. “She wants to make sure how I’m doing.”
Mothers in the close-knit Japanese community frequent the South Torrance High School campus, where Asahi Gakuen rents space for its classes, to work in the library as volunteers or raise money through craft sales. Some of the money they raise will be used to buy gifts for the 47-member faculty.
Junnko Osada and three other mothers gathered in the school auditorium to discuss their children’s progress. In halting English, all four said they anxiously await the results of the Gaku Ryoku Shiudan, a test given each year in February that measures the achievement of Japanese students.
“The parents are very worried about this test in comparison to (the performance) of students in Japan,” said Assistant Principal Marie Yoshinaga. “They must be able to keep up with their classmates in Japan. That is our job.”
Even more important are high school entrance exams, parents said. Only the top students are admitted to prestigious schools in Japan that, in turn, feed that nation’s best universities and corporations. The three South Bay schools, which offer classes from kindergarten through ninth grade, have become the best hope for parents intent on preserving their children’s competitive edge.
Asahi Gakuen operates four campuses in Los Angeles and Orange counties, including South Torrance High and a high school campus in West Los Angeles. The Torrance school opened in 1980 with 400 students and is now almost bursting out of its rented space with 773 students.
At Asahi Gakuen, tuition is just under $600 a year, with a one-time registration fee of up to $150.
Administrators credentialed by the Japanese Ministry of Education oversee a strict academic program that attempts to cram a week’s worth of language, math, science and social studies into one day.
The East-West Japanese School in Gardena also caters to students who attend American public schools. Registration is $230 and yearly tuition $780 for elementary students, who spend two hours each weeknight in classrooms on LaSalle Avenue across from the Gardena Civic Center. (Fees vary slightly for kindergarten and junior high school students.)
The school is sponsored by the Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as an outreach to the Japanese community. The Gardena Seventh-day Adventist Church adjoins the East-West classrooms.
Although most of the students come from Buddhist households, they participate in 10-minute Bible studies each night, according to Principal Akira Nakamura.
With 402 students, the school will run out of classroom space if enrollment continues to grow, Nakamura said.
The International Bilingual School of Los Angeles offers the most comprehensive program in the South Bay, with classes five days a week from 8:30 a.m. until as late as 4 p.m. Students receive 210 days of instruction a year, compared to 180 days in California public schools.
Founder Tadao Hara said the school is one of only three weekday Japanese schools in the United States. Elementary school tuition is $2,640 a year, in addition to a one-time registration fee of $200.
Hara started with just six students in 1979 and now has 255 students and 25 teachers in the old South School, a closed elementary campus rented from the Hermosa Beach City School District.
The school has a short waiting list for some of the elementary grades and is searching for a larger campus, Hara said. About 40% of the students transfer directly from Japanese schools. The rest come from American schools.
Parents whose return to Japan is imminent often pull their children out of American schools and enroll them at the international school, according to the school’s business manager Takatsugu Watanabe. “They come to our school to have something closer to the education in Japan,” Watanabe said.
Administrators at all three schools said they expect enrollments to continue to expand. The number of Japanese firms in the South Bay has increased 73% in the last five years--from 112 to 194--and educators said they see a direct correlation with higher student enrollments.
Many Japanese executives moved to the South Bay to be closer to their businesses, Watanabe said, but now the schools have become a magnet. One San Diego businessman moved to Irvine because he wanted his son to attend the daily Japanese school. The father commutes to his job in northern San Diego County and his son takes a bus to the International School in Hermosa Beach.
Teachers say it is just as important for students to maintain Japanese customs as it is to excel in the classroom. “They can keep up academically,” said Asahi Gakuen teacher Hiroko Horie, “but the behavior patterns are so different, they face difficulties when they go back.”
The individuality encouraged in American schools may not wear well when the children return to Japan.
“They have to keep Japanese,” said Tomoko Homma, chairwoman of the Asahi Gakuen Parents Assn. “The school is not enough. We teach them at home also.”
Mitsuhiro Saotome, spokesman for the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles, confirmed that readjustment to Japan can be difficult. Saotome, of Rancho Palos Verdes, said his children bridled under the stringent discipline of Japanese schools after living four years in New Jersey. His son was cut from his high school baseball team in Japan when he refused to adopt the short, razor haircut demanded by his coach.
“They had no problems with reading and writing,” Saotome said, “but some of the social customs were a problem. Their behavior and thinking was like American schoolchildren. They had some difficulties with the Japanese high school.”
Parents like Yasushi Kobayashi, 40, said they will return to Japan, even if they are not ordered back by their companies.
“One reason I decided to go back to Japan is my children don’t know what the Japanese school system is,” said Kobayashi, who manages the Torrance office of the international firm Dai Nippon Printing Co. “They have been here for 12 years and if they stay for 15 or 20 they will become American. They will not know Japan.”
Daughter Shima, a bubbly 13-year-old, is happy in the United States. The girl said she finds equal pleasure in Palos Verdes High School, where she plays volleyball and tennis, and Asahi Gakuen, where she is reunited once a week with her Japanese friends. She also meets for two hours each weeknight for juku, or tutoring, with a small group of Japanese students.
“I’ve been here almost all my life,” Shima said. “I don’t want to go back.”
But the Kobayashis will probably return to Japan in the next year and Shima will face the weighty high school entrance examinations.
“Once she gets back to Japan,” Kobayashi said, “she’ll have to study all day and all night, 18 hours a day, to catch up and get into a good school.”
Shima said she is resigned to the hard work ahead. “I’m going to take all the tests,” she said, “and try to get into the best school that I can.”
