Anne Cooper Chen, Reflection

As the first female to hold the Miura Kohei Visitng Professorship (April-June, 2001), I wanted to serve as a role model not only for female students, but for the guys as well.  To that end, I gave 21 guest lectures in various Chubu venues instead of the required three. My husband, Dr. Charles Chen, a former Miura professor with native fluency in Japanese, was a great asset during the professorship.

Moreover, seven years before that, Chubu had served as the host when l earned a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, 1992-1993. Arranging housing, providing an office, helping with connections—this assistance enabled me to write Mass Communication in Japan (Iowa State University Press, 1997). Thus Chubu served as a bulwark in my professional life for many of the 26 years l taught at OU.

My Chubu-related academic productivity included not only the 1997 book, but also conference papers and a journal article, “Public relations in Japan: The cultural roots of kouhou” (2007), which to date has had nearly 3,000 download reads.

The people who smoothed both of these sabbatical sojourns remain in my mind and heart. The Tanakas hosted meals at their home, took me to cultural events, and acted as my surrogate parents, 1992-93,  in a setting where I initially knew no one. (Charles’ teaching prevented him from accompanying me during my Fulbright.) Hiromi Imamura, a professor of English, helped acclimate me in numerous ways—including enrollment in a Japanese dance group that connected me with numerous non-academic friends and ended up in the local press. We still keep in touch to this day. Reciprocally, Charles and I hosted various Chubu friends, including President Yamada for the 20th anniversary and, later, Dr. and Mrs. Katsumori.

Because of my background experiences in the 1960s, my thinking and perspectives might not have changed as much as those OU folks who had little prior contact with Japan: an MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan, plus work as a reporter-editor for the Asahi Shimbun’s English-language sister newspaper and as an editor for a Tokyo publisher of English-language books on Asia.

However, I had not returned to Japan for more than 20 years, so the Chubu invitation for 1992-1993 gave me an eye-opening view of Japan’s changes-- from a nation recovering from war in the 1960s (the family I stayed with in Tokyo in 1966 did not even have a flush toilet) to a fully developed, first- world nation in the 1990s. The biggest single change that struck me: women driving. 

Let me close with a tribute to Noriko Sasaki, the Chubu student who was chosen to attend Ohio. In addition to taking one of my classes, she met us in D. C in 1996 where she had an internship, cementing our relationship. Tragically, she developed fatal leukemia after she returned to Japan. Her mother and brother came to Athens to hear a commemoration dedicated to Noriko. Similarly, the residence hall named for the Tanakas reminds us of the personal ties between our institutions.