A Study on the Sino-Japanese Education and Cultural Exchange: Focus on the Case of the Ohira School
SUN XIAOYING (Tianjin Foreign Studies University Lecturer (China))
It is a great honor for me that my proposal, ” A Study on the Sino-Japanese Education and Cultural Exchange: Focus on the Case of the Ohira School “, was selected as the recipient of the 29th Trans-Pacific Academic Research Grant. I would like to thank all members of the selection committee of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Foundation for their great work. My research focused on the Japanese Training Center in the People’s Republic of China (called the Ohira School, 1980-1985), which was founded in the Beijing Language College in 1980. It has played a significant role in Sino-Japanese cooperation since the establishment of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations in 1972. The key to the founding of the school was Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira’s visit to China in December 1979, just after the Cultural Revolution. He promised to re-train a total of 600 teachers, 120 teachers per year for 5 years, in Chinese universities about Japanese-language education, as ODA aid. Professor Keizo Saji was the key person of Ohira School. Moreover, many famous Japanese language and Japanese education scholars (total 91), including Professor Haruhiko Kindaichi of Sophia University, were assigned in successive turns to lecture at Ohira School. The students who studied at Ohira School have built a big alumni network with each other. Now they have become leaders of many universities in China, and you can say that the Japanese education in China has been supported by the graduates of Ohira School for the past 30 years. The success of the Ohira School was made possible by the cooperation between the Sino-Japanese governments, which opened the possibility to send native Japanese teachers to China in order educate the local teachers in China. It played a big role in the upbringing of the Japanese language education professional teachers of the young people. Now that Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations have been built for more than 40 years since 1972, it is time we should review the history again, in order to look ahead to how to build new Sino-Japanese relations. Receiving this award is a great source of encouragement to me and I will continue to pursue these goals in my ongoing research. Thank you very much.
Education:
Born in Shanxi, China 1979. Acquired Bachelor (2003) and Master degree (2006) from the Japanese Department of the Tianjin Foreign Studies University. Started working in the same university at the Japanese Department in 2006. Transferred to the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China between year 2007 and 2009. Studied in the Graduate School of Education Waseda University from 2011. PHD degree is acquired in March 2015. Main fields of study are linguistic education methods, lifelong learning and teacher education. Main thesis: The Study of Japanese education in China and Sino-Japanese Relations after the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations – Focus on The Ohira School, Asian Education 7, page 35-47,2013-11.
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