Japanese Firm Teaches U.S. a Lesson in Sharing

A dictionary lies on every desk. More are in the crowded bookcase, along with a copy Tolkien’s “Return of the King,” Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” and Shel Silverstein’s book of poems, “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” Flags of 11 nations hang from the ceiling. There is a cable hookup at the front of the classroom.

But the 260 children who attend Phoebe A. Hearst Elementary School in Del Cerro must share one television set and a videocassette recorder, and both are often unavailable when Mark Heinze’s fifth- and sixth-grade students need them.

One day last fall, the class was discussing “economic situations, and that necessarily involves Japan,” Heinze said. “I felt frustrated because I didn’t have the equipment to record” relevant programs.

Heinze wrote to several American companies and one Japanese company asking if they had any outdated or even broken equipment they might be willing to share with his class of 28 advanced children.

“I thought . . . since business has complained that education is not turning out a ‘product’ that is acceptable to them, they should get involved.”

Some of the companies he contacted had advertised in a magazine that reprinted an article about the problems facing the American educational system.

“I thought that would be a logical place to start, since they were representing themselves as being interested in helping out,” he said.

The U.S. companies--Magnavox, General Electric, Zenith, Radio Shack/Tandy, Sears and RCA--did not respond to his letter.

Only the Japanese company, Hitachi, wrote back--to say it would send a brand-new TV and VCR.

Surprised at his good fortune, Heinze asked if the company could also send a speaker, since the class was discussing the Pacific Rim.

So Masayuki Kohama, Hitachi’s top representative in Los Angeles, visited Heinze’s class Friday, loaded with the equipment as well as date books for the children.

The class gave him a bonsai, which, Kohama explained, “is the world in miniature.”

Kohama spent about an hour with the children, answering questions about the company: “What company is your greatest rival?”

“Our annual sales are almost the same as General Electric,” he said. But he explained that the company also manufactures semiconductors and electronic equipment, among other things. So it has many rivals.

And Kohama told the class about himself. He came to the United States from Japan in 1966. He learned a little bit of karate, “a long time ago.” But he was a black-belt judo practitioner. That also was a long time ago, he said.

When asked what the name Hitachi means, he drew the symbols on the board: “ ‘Hi’ . . . represents the sun. And ‘tachi’ . . . is a man standing.” He wrote the word “rise” on the board. “Hitachi means ‘sunrise,’ ” he said.

When asked if he learned origami in school, he made an airplane from a sheet of yellow paper.

In giving the TV and VCR, Kohama said, “Hitachi is only trying to be good neighbor.”

The children, like their teacher, were surprised that it was the Japanese company that responded.

“I thought it was weird,” said Henry Romero, 12. “One company--all the way across an ocean--when there are so many just around here.”

Another student, Asha Johnson, 11, said the companies that did not respond were “‘not very hospitable.”

The U.S. companies to which Heinze wrote could not be reached for comment Friday.