This past Wednesday, Professor of East Asian Studies Tomoko Steen was interviewed by the largest wire news service in Japan, Kyodo news.
Reporter Masakatsu Ota said that he chose to profile Steen because of her unique background as well as the interesting perspective on Japanese culture she brings. The organization came to Steen’s class, Science Policy and Diplomacy in Japan.
Having known about Steen’s work for many years, Ota said that his news service finally acquired the funds to speak with Steen and write a profile piece, which will be featured in 45 different newspapers in Japan.
Ota said that he has wanted to speak with Steen for a long time due to her unique teaching of a different perspective of Japanese history.
“It’s interesting, her general purpose to teach dark side of history,” Ota said. “She doesn’t want to defame Japan, she doesn’t want to do any extra damage to the Japanese people, but her own purpose, she wants to be a kind of bridge between people in the U.S. and people in Japan,” he explained. “Just knowing the real history is the first step in knowing each as a culture, and [having] understanding. It’s a gap between the U.S. and Japan regarding historical interpretation of history during World War II.”
Ota noted that there remains a gap in understanding between the United States and Japan as well as between South Korea and Japan. “Still, some people in Japan are justifying what we did in World War II. We are the losers, we lost the war, and we did a very bad thing to your people, [so] we are so sorry for that,” Ota said.
He also said that besides serving as a bridge crossing cultural barriers and transmitting information among countries, Steen’s role as a teacher is equally fascinating.
“She’s doing a very unique activity, sometimes introducing a student to a rival in Congress and showing a real document in history,” Ota said. “She’s a science-history professional, but she’s also doing a kind of argue research as well,” he stated.
“She can play a very unique role [teaching] history to school students.”
Ota stated that he believes Steen’s experiences and work will be enlightening for Japanese viewers as well.
“I think it’s a good case for Japanese readers to know this type of women [is] working for [the] United States and teaching a very unique history, so I’m interested in why she’s here, why she’s teaching the dark side of Japanese history. That’s my intention to be here today,” he said.
Professor Steen professed that she believes reporters find her interesting due to her language fluency and specialized knowledge of Japanese politics.
“Well, I deal with all these congressmen and senators from Japan, and they say it’s hard to find Japanese native speaker[s] and also someone who’s really into Japanese government, so that’s their interest,” Steen said.
“The Japanese government is interested in me because I’m the only person who speaks Japanese fluently and at the same time knows deeply about both countries’ tradition[s],” she added.
Ota said that while the news wire is interested in Steen’s work, he himself had a personal interest in interviewing her due to her personal history.
“I’m very interested in what she’s doing here in the United States. She’s born in Japan; she’s born in Nagasaki,” Ota said. “I don’t know whether you know or not, [but] she’s a second generation bomb survivor. She made a decision to move to the United States after graduating [from] Cornell and she went to the U.S. government.”
“She made a decision to be a U.S. citizen, and now she’s teaching Japanese history here at Hopkins,” he explained.
Steen explained her work in the United States as both research and teaching. She said that she provides scientific information for the U.S. and Europe to the Japanese government.
“Not only am I doing a two-government connection, but I’m also raising and teaching young people like you guys what’s going on in Asia,” Steen said. “Many people like me don’t want to do it; we’re busy, and don’t want to spend time coming out to universities to educate people.”
Students in Steen’s class attested to the success of her teaching style, stating that she inspires interest in the subject and presents it in a novel manner.
Juwon Park, a junior in the class, is particularly interested in Japan’s nuclear policy and its status with regards to Korea.
“So in terms of the class, I think the material is so specific that it really interests me [in] Japan’s future,” Park said. “The material is interesting. It’s even more interesting because it’s taught from a Japanese perspective, instead of an American perspective,” she added.
Park also said that Steen teaches the class in an international spectrum incorporating foreign sources. “We do get more of the Japanese sources academically,” he said. “She brings a lot of Japanese historians and academics even in her Powerpoints, so it’s very interesting.”
“She definitely knows what’s going on in terms of world politics. She knows what’s going on right now,” she said.
“It’s very rare to have an entire semester course specifically on Japanese science policy. It was really hard to even find a textbook on it. We’re very very lucky to have her and lucky to have such a class at Hopkins,” Park added.
Aymeric Petetin, a junior in the class, expressed enthusiasm for the class as well as for the presence of the reporter in class.
“That’s good for the reputation of our University, it’s a good sign of the knowledge of our professor and it shows that what she’s teaching can be applied to today’s issues,” Petetin said with regards to Ota.
Petetin said that an International Studies class he took last semester focusing on the Asia region only briefly touched on Japan and that he decided to take Steen’s class to improve his knowledge of the country.
“I have big expectations for the class. I think it’s going to be interesting, but I still have to see the other lectures because even today was not a normal lecture,” he said.
