NORTH CAROLINA JAPAN CENTER
COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2003-04

I.  Center

The North Carolina Japan Center was established in 1980 at the request of Governor James B. Hunt.  The Japan Center’s internet website is:  www.ncsu.edu/ncjapancneter

II.  Director

Francis A. “Tony” Moyer, Director   Street Address of Japan Center
North Carolina Japan Center    Spring Hill House
North Carolina State University   705 Barbour Drive
Campus Box 8112     Raleigh, NC  27603
Raleigh, NC  27695-8112

Telephone and facsimile numbers are general for the NC Japan Center, there are no direct personal lines:   Telephone:  (919) 515-3450  Fax:  (919) 515-3686

Director’s e-mail:  tony_moyer@ncsu.edu

III.  Mission Statement

The North Carolina Japan Center is a state-wide resource, based at North Carolina State University, which serves to promote mutual understanding and closer relations between the people of North Carolina and Japan in academic, business, cultural, educational, scientific, and technical matters, to the benefit of our state and its people.

IV.  Activities Report:  2003-04

The major concern of the North Carolina Japan Center during the 2003-04 fiscal year has been the total loss of our appropriated funds budget due to budget cuts in the University of North Carolina System and specifically within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS), North Carolina State University, of which the Japan Center is a part.  The need of the CHASS to focus its reduced resources on supporting classroom instruction has meant the extension and engagement activities of the College, including the Japan Center, have lost their budgets.  NC State University continues to provide office space and CHASS provides administrative assistance and technical support.  However, the loss of all state funds, the source of the Japan Center’s core operating budget since it was founded, has imperiled the Center’s prospects.  The lost funds, amounting to approximately $182,000, had provided the salaries and benefits of the Director, the full time Administrative Secretary, and half of the salaries and benefits for the senior professor of Japanese language at NC State University.  It also covered basic operating expenses such as utilities, telecommunications, supplies, postage, travel, etc., and supported some programs including lectures, and business orientations.

We remain in operation by using reserves from other sources, including a building fund.  In light of the changed financial circumstances of the Japan Center and the fact that we are housed by the university in a fine structure, and through the efforts of Ms. Joanna Johnson, CHASS Development Officer, the major donors for the building fund agreed to release their donations for use as operating money for the Center .  Without their approval the Japan Center would have been forced to terminate operations during the 2003-04 fiscal year.  We appreciate VERY much the generosity of these donors who are listed below in the final section of this report, and we thank Ms. Johnson for her efforts on our behalf.

The Japan Center continued to support Dr. John Mertz, the senior faculty member for the NC State University Japanese language program, covering half of his salary and benefits during the current fiscal year.  That role had been assumed when the Japan Center was established and we promoted the development of a strong Japanese language program as a necessary ancillary program within the university.  However, this obligation ends with the current fiscal year.  We will, however, continue for the summers of 2004 and 2005 to meet 1.5 months of salary and benefits for Prof. Mertz to keep him on a full annual contract in exchange for language and other advisory services to the Center.  We also paid for a teaching assistant for the Japanese language program; fortunately this student assistance could be taken from the Harry C. Kelly Fund as the Japanese student hired for the position majors in an engineering field.

Budget cuts meant staff reductions.  At the end of September we terminated the services of half-time bilingual secretary Ms. Reiko Chosokabe.  Later, at the end of March, Ms. Carol Tharrington, the full time Administrative Secretary retired after 40 years at the university, including twenty-one with the Japan Center.  Ms. Tharrington deserves special thanks for her long years of managing the Japan Center’s books, which she largely set up.  Her work has been loyal, practical, and very reliable and has helped the Center throughout its history.  Audits of the Center’s books have always led to strong praise for the quality of Carol’s bookkeeping, for which we thank her.  Fortunately for the Center, Ms Tharrington has agreed to work two half days per week to keep up our accounts.  From April Ms. Chosokabe returned to work one morning per week on secretarial duties.

A special thanks goes to Mr. Quinton Anderson who provided volunteer services for the Japan Center.  He has proved to be very helpful and his unpaid assistance has been cheerfully given.  Other community members have volunteered assistance in conjunction with specific activities and we thank them all for helping to keep Center programs active.
General Service:

The 19th edition of the annual “North Carolina and Japan:  Trade and Investment Conference” was held on Friday, September 19, 2003, earlier than usual to avoid a schedule conflict with the 2003 SEUS-Japan Conference.  As a result, the conference took place during the passage of Hurricane Isabelle up the East Coast.  The annual Speakers and Sponsors Reception and Dinner at the North Carolina Museum of Art took place amidst wind, rain, and falling branches, as Isabelle passed through the Triangle.  By the next morning the weather was beautiful here, but transportation along the East Coast had been disrupted and several speakers were unable to attend.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed a good turnout of over eighty participants.  Several of the key speakers were already on hand or, like Mr. Jay Bryson, drove up from Charlotte through the post-storm sunshine, and Mr. David Robinson allowed himself to be pressed into service as an emergency speaker.  The program was excellent and well received by the audience.  We thank the speakers who braved the storm, and the generous sponsors whose donations and support made the Conference possible:

(Actual) Speakers:  19th  Annual North Carolina and Japan: Trade and Investment Conference:
 Mr. Jay Bryson, Ph.D., Global Economist , Wachovia Bank, N.A.
 Mr. David Robinson, Attorney at Law
 Mr. Peter Cunningham, Director, International Trade Division, North Carolina
                 Department of Commerce
 Mr. Lloyd Melnick, Co-Founder, Octagon Entertainment, Inc.
 Mr. Robert M. “Skipp” Orr, Jr., Ph.D., President, Boeing Japan

Conference sponsors are listed below with our Corporate Members.

Current plans for the 20th edition of the Conference have us back to a more traditional schedule:  Friday, November 19, 2004, again at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel.  We are rescheduling some of those whom Isabelle prevented from speaking last year.

In October we participated in the North Carolina state delegation to the annual Southeast United States-Japan Conference, held in Osaka, Japan.  In collaboration with Mr. David Robinson we presented a pre-conference briefing for the members of the North Carolina delegation.  Thereafter, the Director traveled to Japan with Dr. L. George Wilson, NC State University’s Vice Provost for International Affairs for his first extensive visit to Japan.  In addition to attending the SEUS-Japan Conference, which focuses on promoting trade and investment, we also visited academic institutions in Japan including the Fulbright Office, the National Science Foundation Office, and one of NC State’s  partner institutions, Sophia University, all in Tokyo.  We also attended the Steering Committee meeting for the AC-21 academic consortium which another partner institution, Nagoya University, is organizing, and toured relevant facilities at Nagoya University.

An on-going issue that we have not yet to resolved concerns rules governing international applicants for a North Carolina driver’s license.  The Japan Center’s provision of a Japanese language edition of both the Driver’s Handbook and the written portion of the license examination have made our state more accessible for Japanese residents.  However, the state requires that anyone applying for a driver’s license must have either a Social Security Number or an International Taxpayer Identification Number, both issued by federal agencies.  These agencies have gradually tightened their rules for issuing such numbers and at present, several classes of international residents in North Carolina cannot secure them, especially the dependent spouses and children of international expatriates, and un-paid students and visiting scholars.  This affects not only Japanese residents, but all other nationalities, as well.  The Japan Center has been leading an effort to work with the DMV and the Dept. of Commerce to secure a satisfactory resolution.

The Director continues to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Language School of Raleigh (JLSR), a critical social resource for Japanese families in the eastern half of our state.  Enrollment has grown to over 265 students, K-12, reflecting an increase in the Japanese population in this part of North Carolina.  Due to both the growth of the operation and to concerns about the possibility that the school might loose its office space if the Japan Center were forced to close due to budget problems, the JLSR elected to move the Principal’s administrative office to a new location.  We were sorry to see the office leave, but understand their needs and concerns.  The key matter is that the JLSR continues to provide an important service.  We are pleased to have been able to assist the JLSR with a number of issues during the past year.

The NC Japan Center remains a major resource for both Japanese and Americans.  The book and video libraries attract users, especially pre-college teachers seeking materials, such as “Japan in a Box”, our popular artifacts collection for classroom use.   We have made some additions to our collection of circulating materials, including several sets of the kami shibai folk tale story cards, which are particularly popular for elementary school use.  During the summer of 2004 several churches have been using a wildly distributed vacation Bible school program which this year focuses on Japan.  As a result the “Japan in a Box” collection has continued in high demand right through the summer months.

Our Japanese language classes are popular with both working adults and with pre-college students.  Summer, Fall, and Spring Term sessions draw about 40 students per term, and Eisai Pharmaceuticals, in the RTP, hosts on-site classes for employees.  The teachers, Ms. Yoshimi Aoyagi and Ms. Natsuko Suwa, work with us through their company, Japan Culture Exchange.  We thank them for their excellent work and enthusiasm.

The Japan Center provides meeting space for the Triangle Nippon Club, and the Director continues to serve on the Club’s board.  We finished the year by hosting the Nippon Club’s annual Picnic on Saturday, June 26.  Despite a rainy start for the day, the weather cleared and we had a crowd of nearly 300.  The Japan Center proved to be an excellent location and this helped introduce more members of the public to our resources.

A new off-shoot of the Nippon Club, the Triangle Cha-no-yu Club, has been conducting volunteer demonstrations of the Japanese tea ceremony (“cha-no-yu”) around the area, and the Japan Center’s Director has worked with them, providing introductory information and commentary on the ceremony during these demonstrations.  Among the many venues at which we have done this are the Raleigh International Festival, local schools, A Southern Season in Durham, and presentations on campus for the Talley Student Center Gallery of Arts and Crafts and for a Woman’s Center’s Etiquette Dinner.

The popular Japanese traditional drumming group, Triangle Taiko (also an off-shoot of the Triangle Nippon Club), moved its equipment and weekend practice sessions into the Japan Center space vacated by the JLSR’s Principal’s Office.  This has worked out well for all parties, and the Japan Center is delighted to support this lively club which has been very generous about performing at many different venues, including schools, concerts, a prison, and international festivals, from Greenville to Chapel Hill.

Through our linkage to the National Association of Japan-America Societies (NAJAS) we hosted Mr. Robert Whiting on April 14, speaking on his book, The Meaning of Ichiro.  In this volume he examined the introduction of Japanese professional players into the American Big Leagues and the impact of this on both American and Japanese baseball.  Whiting’s earlier work includes You Gotta Have Wa, an entertaining, insightful study of U.S. Big League players’ problems in Japan where baseball has been put through a cultural filter and came out as something different than the game played in America.

The Director continues to serve on the Board of the World Trade Center North Carolina, the University Committee for International Programs at NC State, and the NC State Study Abroad Emergency Response Team.  He was appointed, from the Spring Term, to the CHASS Internationalization Committee.  He is a member of the North Carolina World Trade Association, serves on the Board of the Japanese Language School of Raleigh, is Social Services Vice President for the Triangle Nippon Club, and represents the North Carolina Japan Center in the National Association of Japan America Societies.  The Japan Center is a member of the International House of Japan, Inc., and of the American Chamber of Commerce of Japan.  The Director serves as an advisory member of the committee to establish a Chinese Center of North Carolina.

Through JETRO New York, the Japan Center again hosted a visiting researcher from the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry.  In exchange for assisting this visiting researcher with her living arrangements and work in Raleigh, and for the completion for JETRO of a short report on NC State’s Centennial Campus, the Center received a grant of $8,500.  This arrangement will continue in the next fiscal year.

One human interest story this year was the return to Japan of a flag which had been brought home from the Pacific as a war souvenir.  Ms. Gayle Dworkin and Mr. Jeff Dworkin of Cary brought to the Center for identification a Japanese flag which Ms. Dworkin’s deceased father had brought back from WW II army service.  When they learned that the original Japanese owner’s name and home town were indicated on it, they asked if it could be returned to his family in Anjo City, near Nagoya.  The Japan Center, through Nagoya University and the Anjo City government, was able to send it to the original owner’s widow, now in her 90’s.  She wrote to us that her husband had been killed in the Philippines and that she had never received any of his effects following his death.  Thanks to Ms. Suzanne Jacovec of CHASS public relations, this event was covered in the News & Observer.

Academic:

The Japan Center continued to work with academic programs to promote Japanese language and area studies, especially at North Carolina State University.  In addition to sharing information and resources, the Director taught a double section (80 students) of an Asian survey history course at NC State University in the Fall Term (Hi 263:  Traditional Asia to 1800), and taught the Japan and Korea portions of the PS 342 Political Systems of China and Japan in both Fall and Spring Terms.

In the Spring the Director designed and taught most of a six session Encore! program course for retirees on Japan’s Encounter’s with the West (thanks to former Director John Sylvester, Jr., for assisting with this program and teaching the session on Commodore Perry’s arrival in Japan).  This was a particularly appropriate theme for the continued celebration through 2003-04 of the 150th anniversary of Japanese-American relations.  The class was videotaped, and will be broadcast in the fall by Cooperating Raleigh Colleges.  At the request of Encore we will offer another class in the spring of 2005 on traditional Japanese literature.
Financial issues impacted the Center’s program of student scholarships, but we tried to maintain some level of offerings.  First, the Japan Center made commitments to assist NC State students with study abroad programs during the 2003-04 academic year prior to the loss of our appropriated budget; we honored those commitments.  Second, income from the Harry C. Kelly Memorial Fund is not available for the operations of the Japan Center, and continues to be used for financial aid to both Japanese and American students.  Third, we reduced the number and value of scholarships from general Japan Center funds, but we consider this encouragement for North Carolina students important enough to be maintained, even at a reduced level.  Finally, All Nippon Airways generously offered the Japan Center support in kind by providing some free round trip tickets on its flights between Washington, D.C., and Tokyo.  We used these to assist students.
During this past year we have assisted eleven North Carolinian and five Japanese students.  The North Carolina students included seven from NC State University, and one each from UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University, Guilford College, and Rockingham Community College.  Most (eight) used the funds for language study and student exchange programs.  One was supported for an internship with a Japanese paper manufacturer, another for a study tour of traditional Japanese furniture making practices, and a third to attend the annual Japan-America Student Conference.
Four of the Japanese used the funds for English language study at NC State University; they came from Nagoya University (2), Tokyo University, and Shizuoka Sangyo University.  The fifth Japanese recipient is a degree candidate at NC State University and was paid to work as a teaching assistant for the NC State Japanese language program.
The major development with the Japan Center’s local chapters this year was the death of Dr. Don Spence of ECU on February 8, 2004.  Dr. Spence was director of the first and the most active of the six chapters.  He focused on pre-college education programs about Japan and East Asia and in organizing and securing funding for programs which trained teachers to deal with these regions and help North Carolina middle and high schools to establish partnerships with schools in Japan.  His passing has been a great loss to the linkage between our state and Japan, and to the education community in North Carolina.  The Japan Center collaborated with others in Greenville to organized a memorial service on March 27.  At present, ECU and the Pitt County Economic Development Office are anxious that Don’s work be continued through the perpetuation of the ECU chapter of the Japan Center, but the way in which this will be managed has not yet been determined.

Additional academic initiatives include collaboration with the North Carolina School of Science and Math and Japan’s Iwate Prefecture in arranging a two-way exchange of high school student visits; assisting Pitt Community College in developing an institutional linkage in Japan; working with the 4-H/Labo collaboration to facilitate summer middle school and high school student exchanges between North Carolina and Japan; and presentations made by the Director at programs at schools in Wake, Durham, and Pitt counties and a guest lecture at St. Augustine’s College, Raleigh.

V.  Sponsorship and Support

The North Carolina Japan Center wishes to express a special “Thank you” to those companies and organizations which provided financial assistance to us during this past year.  As indicated above, our current financial situation has made these donations even more critical than in previous years.  Without this support we would not be operating.

Japan Center Corporate Members:  2003-04

The Japanese Language School of Raleigh
The Triangle Japan Business Association
ANA:  All Nippon Airways Co., Inc.
JT Proserve, Inc.
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave Corporation
Toyo Seal America Corporation
Renesas Technology America, Inc.
Ajinomoto, USA, Inc.
AMBTRA, Inc.
Dimon International, Inc.
Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Iwate Prefecture
NT Techno USA Corp.
O’Brien/Atkins Associates, PA
Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina
Sony Ericsson
Uchiyama America

The generous support of our sponsors made the 19th Annual “North Carolina and Japan:  Trade and Investment Conference” possible, and we extend a special thanks to them:

NC & Japan:  Trade and Investment Conference Sponsors:  2003

ANA:  All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd  AW North Carolina, Inc.
Duke Energy Corp.    Eisai. Inc.
Institute for Emerging Issues   Japan Travel Advisor, Inc.
JT Proserve, Inc.
Laurinburg/Scotland County Area Chamber of Commerce
Nippon Express USA, Inc.   North Carolina Department of Commerce
North Carolina State University College of Humanities and Social Sciences
North Carolina State University College of Management
Progress Energy
Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina
Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice  World Trade Center North Carolina

And a special thanks goes to the contributors to the North Carolina Japan Center Building Fund which has kept the Japan Center functional during this period of financial difficulty:

North Carolina Japan Center Building Fund Donors

Wachovia Bank of North Carolina
Progress Energy Foundation (Carolina Power and Light)
Sprint Mid-Atlantic Telecom (Carolina Telephone and Telegraph)
Dibrell Brothers
Bell South (Southern Bell)
Thorpe-Greenville Export Tobacco
Carolina Leaf Tobacco Company
Middle Belt Suppliers
A.C. Monk & Company
Universal Leaf Tobacco Company
James I. Miller Tobacco Company

We extend a sincere “Thank you” to all of the above supporters, both from the North Carolina Japan Center, itself, and on behalf of the beneficiaries of the programs which their support has made possible.
       Francis A. Moyer, Director
       June 30, 2004