The Hindu Business Line : On a language mission

After a gap of close to three decades, Japanese volunteers would resume their mission to promote mutual understanding between the two countries through partnership in development-related activities that would centre mostly in socio-economic programmes in different parts of India.

At a gathering to mark the visit of the first volunteer as a Japanese language instructor from Japan to teach in Indian schools, Kaori Hirose took up her métier at the Delhi Public School.

A visibly moved Hirose emphatically stated that she would not merely be content with teaching the Japanese language the way it is being spoken and written in Japan, but also inculcate among the Indian students how to appreciate the finer points of the language, the racy tang and tenor of Japanese and the overall values which an average Japanese cherishes and brings to bear in his/her dealings with the rest of the world.

Hirose said that she trained Australian business people visiting Japan and her last posting was in Poland where she taught the Japanese language to the Polish people. She said that the idea behind teaching Japanese language is that with opportunities opening up for Indian business people to visit Japan and tie up projects, the facility of expressing in Japanese would enable Indian entrepreneurs to understand the nuances of negotiations without the instrumentality of interpreters. She said that during her 10-month stay in India to teach Japanese, she would also attempt to learn Hindi, as this would help her in perceiving the Indian ethos better.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) spokesperson told Business Line here that the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) was started in India following the understanding between the Governments of India and Japan through Exchange of Note on August 1966 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India.

During the period from 1966 to 1978, about 131 JOCVs were assigned to India and they fanned out to Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Karnataka, Delhi, Orissa, Madhya Pradsh, Maharasthra, West Bengal and Punjab. But subsequently the programme got moribund and was revived only during the visit of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to Japan in April 2005. The spokesperson further said the JOCV programme is extended under the Bilateral Cooperation Programme between Japan and India. Volunteers will be dispatched to the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, in September.