2020 Activity Report

March Activity Report

31 March 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

The lockdown continues in March, but I am doing well. At the beginning of this month, it was suggested that the measure would be eased and cafe terrace seats would be opened, but at the press conference on the 23rd, it was announced that the current measure would be continued, and this life will continue for the time being.

Of course there are various complaints. In fact, I often see restaurants on the street with posters such as "HORECA WEER OPEN (Resumption of hotels, restaurants and cafes)". On March 17, there was an election for the Tweede Kamer��House of Representatives��,and there were also political parties that called for deregulation. Among them, the remarkable progress of the D 66 can be said to be the focus of this election. The D- 66 won five more seats than the last time (2017), falling short of the VVD lead by Prime Minister Mark Rutte but leapt into the second party. D 66 included freedom under Covid-19 Crisis in its manifesto. To be concrete, they will increase the number of free corona tests and allow those who are negative to act freely. Ms.Sigrid Kaag, the party leader, succeeded in create the impression that she is an optimistic and powerful woman. Her picture of jumping on the table to express her joy in the wake of the election results made headlines.

There was a conversation course for third-year students this month too. Before the election, we had a discussion about the election. When we talked about VVD �� s chances of winning, all the students looked suspicious. It seems that VVD is not very popular among young students. Then, when I asked what kind of people prefer this party, the students answered that they are big companies. Among the students, political parties like Volt, which emphasizes Europe as a political community, and GroenLinks, an eco-friendly political party, seem to be popular. There are many political parties in the Netherlands, as shown by the fact that a tripartite coalition government is the norm and of course some of them are unique. One of the students said that he would definitely vote the Partij voor de Dieren (Party for Animals).

I still participate in conversation clubs for graduate students. This month's theme was food loss and hate speech. At the hate speech session, legal terms and official words were difficult to prepare for, but the students did their best. I talked about "hate speech resolution" in Kawasaki City as an example of Japan. They think it's an epoch-making ordinance, but that it would be too much to disclose names of groups and individuals who repeat hate speech even after expostulations or orders were issued. In the case of the Netherlands, the discriminatory remarks against Moroccan people by Geert Wilders, the leader of PVV, was mentioned. In a speech in 2014, Wilders insisted on "which is better more of fewer Morcoccans?." and ('meer of minder Marokkanen), which led to his trial. In the end he was not accused of any crime, but it became a famous remark that all the Dutch knew. He is a person who wouldn��t have learned from his lesson. In 2019, during a farmers' demonstration against the regulation of nitrogen emissions, he gave a speech on the side of the farmers. He used the same style of sentence, and at that time he said, "Which is better, more nitrogen regulations of fewer regulations?" and was teased on TV. By the way, the PVV lost three seats in this election.

Well, that's about it. See you next month!

February Activity Report

28 February 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

In February, we were very busy as classes, which are still online, just started. First-year students on the Hague Campus (Campus Den Haag) will begin language classes this semester. I asked them if they have online parties or if they are making friends: the answers were that they don��t have many chances to connect with online classmates. Freshmen seem to be the ones who suffer the most loss in remote education.

Even if you rarely go out of your house, nature changes every moment. February is a cold season, and although winter in the Netherlands is usually mild, we had heavy snow this year. A snow in mid-February covered the whole town overnight. That week, the temperature remained below minus 10 degrees Celsius, freezing over the canals. Over the weekend, people took to the ice to skate on canals, ponds and lakes all over the Netherlands. Everyone seemed excited that it was the first time in more than a decade that the waters were frozen enough to skate on in a natural environment.

The Netherlands is a country where personal freedom and responsibility is well respected, so it may be confusing if you see it from a Japanese point of view. But basically once the water freezes, you can skate there. You don��t have to get someone��s permission. That��s why a lot of people were skating eagerly, but at their own risk. Sure enough, there was a lot of news coverage about ice breaking under skaters and emergency services being called to the scene. (In one of those videos, a man drove around a car on the ice until it finally fell into the icy water.) The biggest news among them was the accident that happened at a famous pond called Hofvijver in front of the Parliament in The Hague: skaters fell through the ice and had to be rescued. If you go to a Dutch museum, you will see landscape paintings of the Dutch Golden Age where ordinary people enjoy skating. Some of them depict Hofvijver. Skating in the Netherlands is a winter tradition that has not changed since the 17 century.

As part of this month��s GJO activities, I started a non-credit course in the Japanese language department for third-year students with myself as a lecturer. Based on a questionnaire, we decided to focus on discussions, honorific language, and casual speech. The course started from the third week of February. For the first lesson, we practiced introducing ourselves using honorific language on the theme of konkatsu ( marriage partner hunting) and checked expressions used in discussions. The second session was a discussion about Dutch identity and a review of honorifics. Some students were from the class that I taught last year, and they all showed great progress and enthusiasm.

The conversation club of graduate students was held once this month. Since it was the first meeting in a while, we chose a light theme: winter traditions in the Netherlands. We talked about Olive Bolen (Oliebolen), a donut-like snack; fireworks set off to celebrate New Year��s Eve; Stamppot, a traditional mashed potato based dish; and skating. The topic of winter traditions in Japan was also discussed, and since hot springs were mentioned, I asked about the bathing customs in the Netherlands. According to them, people usually take only a shower, but unless you live alone, it is not so unusual to find a house with a bathtub. The bathtub is mainly used when they bath children or when they want to relax.

That��s all for this month. See you next month!

January Activity Report

31 January 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

The New Year has arrived before we even noticed. The lockdown continued throughout January, and a night curfew was imposed starting January 23. We are not allowed to go outside between 9:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. in the morning unless there are special circumstances. During the first couple of days of the curfew, there were riots against the measures in Amsterdam, The Hague, and other large cities, and for a while, disturbance was in the air. But now such demonstrations seem to have stopped.

Those who violate this night curfew will be fined 95 euros but there are several exceptions. You will be exempted if you have documents to prove you had a valid reason to be outdoors: to attend an emergency; to travel from the airport; to be on the way to answer a judge or prosecutor; to go to take university/school exams; or to travel to or from a live broadcast that you are hosting or appearing as a guest. What is interesting is that food delivery and walking dogs are allowed after 9:00 p.m., and the Dutch people I know are all joking about buying delivery uniforms and getting dogs.

While dealing with this and that, the winter holidays started. But I stayed home every day. I enjoyed the peace, but half of the vacation flew away in a blink, and while we were getting ready for February, January was over before we knew it.

The conversation club activities for graduate students that I participated in were not held in January. It is scheduled to resume from February. From February, I will also be in charge of a conversation practice course for junior students of Japanese Studies of Leiden University. Although it is called a course, it is a non-credit course and more like a conversation club with voluntary participation. COVID-19 deprived the students of the opportunity to study in Japan and reduced their opportunities to speak Japanese. So this course has been planned in response to a request from the students to provide an opportunity to learn Japanese conversation. We are currently taking a questionnaire about what to do, but I think we will practice discussion for the time being. I haven��t seen the current juniors since 2019 when they were still sophomores and I was in charge of the first semester class, so I��m looking forward to seeing how their Japanese language skills have improved.

See you next month!

December Activity Report

31 December 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

��I heard that we will have to wear a mask even when we go to the supermarket from December.�� When a student told me this one day in November, I was so surprised that I almost couldn��t believe it. It seems like a distant memory now. The requirement to wear a mask was only the beginning: after Prime Minister Mark Rutte��s address to the nation on December 14, the country entered the second full-scale lockdown since this summer. Restaurants had already been closed since October 14, but the biggest change with this measure is that stores other than those dealing food and other daily necessities have been closed. The number of people in shopping streets have decreased drastically. Personally, I thought that I would be able to enjoy my life even amid the pandemic as long as art museums were open, but now they are also closed. People are requested to refrain from unnecessary and non-urgent trips until March. The current situation puts those living in the Netherlands in a very inconvenient situation.

In the midst of all this, the first semester of this academic year ended at Leiden University. Since we already had experience with online exams, there were no unforeseen problems, and in general, the semester went smoothly (all of my classes are team-taught, so it��s not so much to my credit as it is the work of the other teachers). Some of the students told me that they really enjoyed the class, even though it must have been difficult for the teachers to teach online. Despite that it must have been very stressful for them to learn online and not be able to see their classmates, our students studied very hard.

As for the conversation club for graduate students, I was only able to participate once this month, on which I will report here. On the second Tuesday of December, the participants talked about the efforts to reduce plastic bags. The Netherlands began charging for plastic bags in 2016, ahead of Japan, which began doing so in 2020. According to the accumulated data, the use of plastic shopping bags decreased by 80% from about 3 billion to 600 million a year. In Japan, the starting number was about 30 billion bags a year. We will see how much it will decrease in the future. There is not much difference between Japan and the Netherlands in terms of population ratio in the figures before charging.

The difference is the price of the bags. In Japan it costs 3 to 5 yen a bag, whereas in the Netherlands it��s 25 to 30 cents, about a tenfold difference. It is possible that plastic bags in Japan are so much thinner and smaller than those in the Netherlands that the cost is lower; but even so, the participants talked about whether this price would curb the plastic bag consumption in Japan.

There was also a debate over whether reducing plastic shopping bags actually helps protect the environment.

What I found interesting was the topic of what the Dutch do as citizens and consumers on a daily basis in order to protect the environment. According to the participating students, there is not much they can do: 1) Avoid using disposable items such as straws as much as possible. Some shops offer a discount if you use your own cup, so bring your own cup with you. 2) Choose environmentally conscious supermarkets such as ��Ekoplaza�� (some called it ��an awfully expensive supermarket��), and 3) Engage in civil movements. I personally feel that in the Netherlands there are fewer people buying plastic bottled drinks than in Japan. Instead, many people have their own water bottles. One of the reasons is that plastic bottle drinks sold at convenience stores and kiosks are relatively expensive, although they are cheap in supermarkets.

Finally, since entering lockdown, although my daily life is limited, it has been quite peaceful. However, I must point out that it is customary in the Netherlands to set off fireworks all over the place during the last few days of the year, culminating in the moment of the New Year. Although this year, a complete ban was announced by the government, it was not observed. Even though the noise was more subdued than last year, the roar of the fireworks echoed through the night as if there was some kind of war going on. Where did these people get the fireworks when selling them was prohibited?

November Activity Report

30 November 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

Now that it is the end of November, it is not unusual for the temperature to drop to around 0 to 5 degrees Celsius, and the weather is getting cold day by day. Some deciduous trees still have red and yellow autumn leaves, but they will be leafless soon. In the Netherlands, restaurants and cafes have been closed for more than a month due to the new coronavirus countermeasure, so few people are on the streets despite Christmas illuminations and markets. The downtown area is crowded with shoppers on Saturdays, but with restaurants and cafes closed, it is not as lively as the usual holiday season. As delivery and selling food and drinks in front of shops are allowed, many people walk around eating french fries and other fast food, but at night the town is unusually quiet with restaurants and bars closed. Drastic measures have been taken, including a ban on alcohol sales after 8 pm (a serious matter for small vendors that sell alcohol after supermarkets close at 10 o��clock), reminding us of the huge impact the virus has on our lives. The use of face masks was not strictly required outside public transportation, but from December, it was finally announced that wearing a mask would be mandatory inside buildings frequented by large numbers of people (violations will be subject to fine). It seems that from now on we have to carry a mask wherever we go. (Wearing a mask has been a recommendation, and many people already wear masks on a daily basis.)

Second year students of the Japanese Language Department at Leiden University were scheduled to study in Japan for three to four months from April next year, but this was unfortunately cancelled, as it was last year. There are a few students who stopped attending classes around the time of the cancellation announcement, but the relief is that most of the students still seem committed to learning Japanese.

This month, a Japanese conversation club for graduate students was held online as before. I attended two meetings held every other Tuesday. The topic for the first meeting was Hanamachi, and we talked about the past and future of geisha while looking up some facts. The word geisha seems to be famous overseas, and all the Dutch graduate students who participated in the event seem to have known the word so long that they don��t even remember when they first heard it. In the past, geisha was seen as women selling their bodies, but as some students pointed out, in more recent years, geisha have become more tourist-oriented and more people see geisha as performance artists. When asked if they would like to see the performance art of geisha in Japan, some answered that it would depend on whether they had the money, and others were not so keen to actively incorporate it into their sightseeing schedule.

The topic for the second meeting was LGBT. Current events concerning the LGBT rights in Japan and the Netherlands were discussed, including discriminatory remarks against LGBT by members of Adachi District, Japan, and a statement by the Dutch Minister for Primary and Secondary Education and Media in parliament that Protestant schools have the freedom to request their students�� parents to submit ��antihomoverklaring (anti-gay statement)��. At first glance, this does not seem to be against the constitution, as Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution guarantees ��freedom of education.�� However, can the freedom of education be extended to prohibit homosexuality? Article 1 of the Constitution clearly states that all forms of discrimination are prohibited. This contradiction is at the center of the debate, and there seems to be various discussions in the Netherlands.

As for the difference in social acceptance of homosexuality between Japan and the Netherlands, the latter has legalized same-sex marriage since 2001, and compared to Japan where there is a partnership system at the local government level, the understanding of homosexuality seems to be already far ahead. However, there is a strong religious opposition to homosexuality in the Netherlands. And such religious groups�� movements to provide children with education that excludes homosexuals in primary and secondary education and the government��s response to it can make headlines.

What was interesting was that although same-sex marriage is allowed and LGBT rights are respected in the Netherlands, there is a slang to call someone ��gay�� among students up to high school age according to Dutch students. It is apparently meant to be sometimes an insult and sometimes the opposite. I think this is exactly the same as Japanese students. A Japanese researcher at Leiden University who organizes the Conversation Club Tuesday asked why there is a gap between Japan and the Netherlands regarding the rights of homosexuals in society, even though up until high school students seem to be in environments that share similar values. But of course it is not an easy question to answer. Anyway, it was an interesting meeting with lots of new discoveries.

October Activity Report

31 October 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

October has just flown by. Classes at the University of Leiden started last month, and now we are in the midterm exam week, and are entering the second half of the semester. There were no Japanese classes during the week of the midterm exam, but I was busy grading the students�� projects and lesson tests. At the Hague campus of the University of Leiden��s International Studies course, there are no language classes for first-year students in the first semester, and from the second semester, students choose which language and region to study. For this reason, the university holds an event called Area Fair every year. There are mock classes and booths for each language, where sophomores and teachers answer questions from freshmen. This year, the fair was held online as all other classes.

Last year, it took half a day for us to answer questions individually to the people who came to each booth. But at this year��s online Area Fair, Q&A sessions for the language courses were limited to two sessions (30 minutes each), which turned out to be more efficient. I was a little flustered because about 60 students came to the first session, but the second session had much fewer students �C about a dozen. Not everyone who came to the Japanese sessions will take the course, but with so many students having come to the session, we have high expectations. The sophomores were very helpful, enthusiastically answering the questions asked by prospective students. No matter how much the teacher explains, the students�� voices are what makes the biggest impact.

I took part in two sessions of conversation club of graduate students this month. The theme remained the same as last month, about the Dutch educational system. We talked about a number of topics, including how much parents are involved in school, school events, trips, excursions, things to bring to school, school rules, and citizenship education. It was interesting to learn about so many differences from Japan: such as that some parents come to school to check for lice in elementary schools; the tradition that elementary school graduates perform musicals; that it was allowed to bring snacks to school; that it was common to leave textbooks at elementary school because they basically belong to the school; and that junior high school students would take them home because the classes would be tougher, but students would put a cover on them to prevent them from getting dirty. Currently, alcohol and smoking are permitted from the age of 18, but until a while ago, it was from the age of 16; so some people smoked at school, sometimes with teachers at the smoking area (now students over 18 year old are allowed to do the same). This reminded me that the Netherlands is a country that respects individual freedom. In Japan, overly restrictive school rules commonly dubbed ��black k��soku�� have lately stirred debate. So, a student asked if there were such school rules in the Netherlands. The answer was, as expected, no. They say that there would be hardly any situation in which students need to be conscious of the school rules.

This is my second year in the Netherlands and I have gotten used to the life here, but when I talk to students like this, I feel that there are still many things I don��t know. This kind of comparison between Japan and the Netherlands is very informative, so I am looking forward to next month��s sessions.

September Activity Report

30 September 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

The weather was unstable in September. There were hot days as though it were summer and stormy days like autumn. Towards the end of September, it becomes more rainy, and before we know it the Dutch winter will arrive. Some people take vitamin supplements in the coming season when there is little sunshine. A Dutch acquaintance of mine, who is about 50 years old, complained that he feels depressed every autumn, even on a sunny day because he can tell the leaves are turning red. Despite the dozens of years spent in the country, he can��t seem to get used to Dutch fall and winter.

September is the beginning of the new school year. There was a prediction that the number of new students would decrease due to COVID-19, but it turns out that there are about 130 new freshmen enrolled in the Japanese Language Department of Leiden University, which is about the same number as usual. I��m not in charge of first-year classes, but I can��t imagine what it feels like to enter a university with many hopes and to have all the classes online from the very beginning.

That��s right. Classes continue to be delivered online this semester, as they have been since the second half of the previous semester. Once you get used to it, it��s nice not to have to commute to work even though there are constant internet connection problems. Students�� names are always on the screen, so I don��t have to ask for their names, which makes it easy to appoint students and remember their names. And I feel more relaxed when I teach the class from home. Some students appreciate the increased interaction with teachers as we move back and forth between small breakout rooms while the students do pair work. Anyway, everyone seems to have gotten used to this style of education.

I joined the graduate students�� conversation club twice this month. The theme was the Dutch educational system for both times. Student O, a Japanese doctoral student in Dutch historical and political science at Leiden University, is the usual organizer and moderator of this meeting. He had a separate meeting with Japanese students to discuss the Dutch educational system, and so we discussed in the conversation club topics that were not covered during his previous meeting.

The topics were many and varied, such as: how to decide on which junior high school to go to, transferring between educational institutions such as VWO, HAVO, and VMBO (the Dutch education is similar to that of Germany, and from the age of 12, there are different types of schools such as academic schools preparing students for higher education and vocational training schools), liberal arts/science, graduation examinations, whether there are PTAs in the Netherland, interpersonal relationships (bullying problems), how teachers deal with students whose grades fluctuate, what students should do if they don��t get along well with their homeroom teachers, and education for children with disabilities.

It was very interesting to learn things that would be hard to come by if I hadn��t had the opportunity to talk directly with Dutch students. For example, even if you fail the graduation exam, you still have a second chance to get a diploma, and there are people like Japan��s so-called Monster Parents in the Netherlands too. I also learned that there exists an organization similar to the PTO in Japan.

The topic that surprised the participants the most was about the nurse��s office. Since there were people working at Leiden University Hospital and many Japanese people among the participants, they asked whether there was a nurse��s office in Dutch schools. It turns out they don��t have them. There is a caretaker��s office; the role there seems to overlap a bit with the role of the health center in Japan. It was interesting to listen to the inside stories of the Dutch educational system.

August Activity Report

31 August 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

As the end of August draws near, the weather made a sudden turn towards fall. It��s easy to forget how hot it has been until just a few days ago. In the second week of August, the temperature in the Netherlands rose as high as over 30 degrees Celsius for 8 days in a row, a new record in written history. It was so hot that I couldn��t sleep at night, and the humidity was especially unbearable, reminding me of summer in Japan. I was in Cologne when the heatwave first hit Europe. The weather there was also blazing hot and ice cream was selling like hot cakes, but the humidity was low and the nights were still comfortable. Normally it is not so humid in the Netherlands either, but sometimes we get strong humidity like the rainy season in Japan, perhaps because the country faces the sea.

I participated in the graduate students�� conversation club twice in August. They were still held online.

The first one was about the education system in Japan and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, there are different types of junior high schools such as VWO, HAVO, and VMBO, and the curriculum is different for the elite who go to universities and those who go to vocational schools; whereas in Japan, the schools vary in terms of deviation scores, but they all follow the same basic curriculum. The discussion was centered around the comparison of the systems in the two countries. One of the main differences compared to Japan is that if you have a VWO diploma, you can basically go on to any university in the Netherlands. Each city in the Netherlands has its own unique charm that makes me want to live there, so this difference is very intriguing to me.

The second conversation club was about the death penalty in Japan and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, capital punishment was abolished in 1861 by the Penal Code but not under the Military Code. And a relatively large number were executed during World War II, with the last (firing squad) taken place in 1952. The Constitution was amended in 1883 to abolish the death penalty altogether. The abolition of the death penalty is an EU initiative, so it wouldn��t be easy to bring it back even if the Netherlands wanted to do so.

All four Dutch students who participated in the conversation were basically against capital punishment due to the irreversibility. In order to further deepen the discussion, we also talked about the purpose of the system. Although the Netherlands does not have the death penalty, 40% of its citizens are in favor of reinstating it according to a 2008 survey. One of the students also said that although he is opposed to the death penalty, he found it unsettling to see a criminal as vicious as the Norwegian serial terrorist Anders Behring Breivik alive and well. The students seem to feel that if the cases of terrorism increase, the public opinion for the revival of the death penalty could grow.

The summer holidays have now come to an end. Time flew by, and I can feel the remnants of summer fading as the sun sets more than an hour earlier.

July Activity Report

31 July 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

Summer has already come to the Netherlands in full swing. We have many sunny days, long and warm until around ten o��clock in the evening, which is a nice change from the winter when it was still dark at eight in the morning. The weather is pleasant, with highs of 30 degrees Celsius and the occasional hot and humid day, but it��s often still cold enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt.

As the travel ban has been lifted in Europe, hearing foreign languages on the streets is once again of daily occurrence. The other day, I cycled to a coastal resort called Noordwijk, about 12 km northwest of Leiden. The place was bustling with tourists and I could hear people speaking in German. There are large hotels with flags of various countries, and Dutch tourism seems to be getting back to near-normal activity.

I also visited Maastricht, a popular town in the southeast of the Netherlands and famous for the Maastricht Treaty, often recommended by long-term residents in the Netherlands. The town was crowded with tourists and, frankly, social distancing rules were not being followed.

Different countries have different approaches to controlling COVID-19. After visiting Maastricht, I also visited Aachen, Germany, which is an hour��s train ride from Maastricht. Here, people were required to wear a face mask in the shops (in the Netherlands, they are not except on public transportation). I was impressed by the sight of customers entering the shop and quickly pulling face masks out of their pockets to cover their mouths. However, I didn��t get the impression that the policy for COVID-19 control in Germany was much stricter than in the Netherlands. For example, in a restaurant, it was required to wear masks when talking with the staff, but nobody was warned even if they had forgotten to put them on. Also, the famous Aachen Cathedral has a limit on the number of people that can enter at a time, so there were long lines. However, once inside, there was no one checking if social distancing was ensured.

The above was a report on the current situation in the Netherlands (and Germany).

On July 9th, we had another online Japanese conversation club with Dutch graduate students majoring in Japanese, the theme of which was drug usage. We talked about the recent increase in the use of party drugs such as MDMA among young people in the Netherlands, and then we moved to the Dutch drug policy in general. It seemed that even the Dutch don��t know for sure if cannabis is legal in the Netherlands or not, or how it is treated from a legal point of view. Attitudes towards drug use also came up, so I asked the members what they would do if their friends were using illegal drugs. The answer was that it was up to the friend to decide whether to use drugs or not, but they didn��t want the friend to use them while in their company. Rather than stopping friends from using illegal drugs, the answer was to respect the freedom of others, which I felt was a very typical response of the Dutch.

June Activity Report

30 June 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

I heard that the weather is bad in Japan due to the rainy season. In June, the weather here is also less sunny and more unstable: typical weather in the Netherlands. Whenever there is a sunny day, the streets are filled with people sitting at caf�� terraces.

The COVID-19 situation in the Netherlands has calmed down quite a bit. It is true that masks are still a must on public transportation, non-essential travel is not encouraged, and people are still required to work from home. However, most stores are open, and the city view is not much different than before the virus. On weekends, we often see apparent tourists on the streets.

As for myself, when I got on a train in early June, it was almost empty, but about two weeks later, when I got on again, the number of passengers seemed to have increased.

This semester ended in June without any major problems. The final exams finished in May, but make-up exams were scheduled for this month. We had make-up examinations in my Japanese classes for freshmen and sophomores at the Hague Campus. One freshman took the oral exam, and five took the written exam. None of the sophomores took the oral make-up exam, but three took the written exam. Two first-year students were supposed to take the oral make-up exam, but one of them couldn��t connect to the Internet: a problem typical to online exams. It was a relief that this student had already passed the exam and had decided to take a make-up exam in order to aim for a better score, so it did not affect whether he passed or failed.

The most active online Japanese language conversation club activity is the one for graduate students. In this conversation club, graduate students of Japanese studies take turns giving short presentations on current topics or their fields of study and then move on to discussions. In the meeting I participated in, the theme was school education in the era of COVID-19. What was interesting was that at Netherlands�� elementary schools that reopened in June, children were not required to maintain 1.5 meters of interpersonal distance and were allowed to play freely. I heard that it has become a problem in Japan that children can��t play freely even during break time and first-year students are finding it difficult to make friends. Even before schools reopened, children in the Netherlands were allowed to play freely outside, which I believe comes from the country��s respect for freedom. During the discussion, a participant pointed out that some research suggests that children play a small role in the spread of the virus, but before this was known, it was difficult for reopening schools to determine the appropriate measures. Therefore, they concluded that the Netherlands�� elementary school policy that prioritizes children being able to have fun without imposing thorough infection prevention is currently supported, but the decision at the time was a gamble.

During the discussion, students also discussed the situation of schools in the Netherlands, such as the issue of racial segregation in schools (there are even expressions like witte school, which means ��white school�� and zwarte school, which means ��black school��), and whether there are Muslim students in Christian schools as well. It was very interesting to hear the opinions of those who have actually received education under the Netherland education system.

May Activity Report

31 May 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

May began with the final exams. In the Japanese courses of international studies at Leiden University that I am in charge of, oral examinations for sophomores took place on May 1; and written examinations a week later on the 8th. First-year students had oral examinations on the 6th and written examinations on the 8th. Online classes at Leiden University are conducted using a software called Kaltura Live Room. The oral exams were also held via this application. There were no major issues for the sophomores�� exams, but the freshmen��s exams ran behind schedule. The ��waiting room��, which was intended for the student next in line for their test, was at one point crowed with several students waiting at the same time. However, this was no surprise considering online testing can be easily affected by Internet connection. That being said, the students might have felt unnecessarily nervous, and I re-evaluated the difficulty of conducting exams online.

The first concern when holding exams online is most likely cheating. There was no way to prevent it completely. In the oral exam, all the second-year students were asked to keep their cameras on, but it��s impossible to tell via screen what students are looking at. One student even asked me if they could put notes on their screen. There are online proctoring applications, but we didn��t introduce any due to the potential complications and privacy issues, as students had to show their rooms on camera. I didn��t even make it mandatory for the first-year students to keep their videos on during the exam: some students had problems with their webcams or felt shy to show their faces on screen. However, in oral exams, students must speak out the answers themselves. The content of the exam this semester was self-introduction and role-play, and so at least during role-play, students had to continue a conversation on the spot by responding to their partners. Thus cheating didn��t seem to be a major problem. When I looked at the results, I got the impression that they were commensurate with the students�� abilities and efforts they put into studying for the test.

In the oral examination, the questions were presented on the morning of the day (9 a.m. for first-years and 8 a.m. for second-years), and the answers were submitted by the deadline in the evening (5 p.m. for first-years and 6 p.m. for second-years). While allowing students to refer to any material, I graded students�� performance more severely than usual so that the passing score would be 70 points. (I usually convert the results into a zero-to-ten scale when I submit the grades but this time I used a formula that converts 70 points to 5.5 points.) The resulting scores were not much different from previous years.

We have make-up exams in June and then summer vacation starts. The Japanese Conversation Club is ongoing, with Japanese exchange students who have returned to Japan participating online. Club activities will continue until June. Some of the students here are planning to study in Japan from September, but nobody can tell what will happen. It all depends on each country��s decisions on the extent of quarantine against COVID-19, and much uncertainty remains.

Regarding the COVID-19 situation in the Netherlands, lockdown is gradually easing. Beauty salons and barbers have already reopened from May 11; and cafes, restaurants, and museums will reopen in June. The train schedule will return to normal on June 2. However, people are required to wear masks on public transportation. In cafes, it is required to maintain personal distance of 1.5 meters (It is called anderhalve meter afstand in Dutch. Even though I am not good at Dutch, I have come to remember this word as if it were a proper noun).

However, looking at the city, people seem to be peacefully enjoying the early summer weather. The weather is clear day after day, and I see people sunbathing bare-chested in front of their houses or on boats on the canals. Irises have bloomed along the water, and Horse-chestnuts have already fallen. White water lily flowers are beginning to bloom on the canals.

April Activity Report

30 April 2020
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKEMORI Banri

It��s already the end of April. From March to April, people��s lives changed dramatically. At the University of Leiden, when we first started teaching online, we thought we��d be back to in-classroom teaching soon, and we��d be back to our normal lives before the exams. However, now we��re preparing for online exams, and I wouldn��t be surprised if we continue teaching online next semester.

I heard that the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies already started offering classes via Zoom. At the University of Leiden, we use a service called Kaltura instead of Zoom. I can��t say that I am happy with every aspect of the tool; (for example, you can��t use the animations in PPT,) but, generally speaking, it��s not bad. I don��t know much about all of Kaltura��s services, but at least the one I use at the university right now is specialized for educational use. Using a feature called Breakout room, it��s easy to have students pair up. However, the problem is that the connection can be unstable depending on the network environment and time zone. Some students say they cannot hear voices or connect no matter how many times they try. In some classes, they record the lectures so that students who were unable to attend classes due to connection problems or other reasons can study later. But in language classes, it is important to participate and practice on the spot, so I feel that it is difficult to replace traditional classes online.

Of course, exams are also a problem. By the beginning of April, the University decided to have exams online. Since this is unprecedented, there are no existing guidelines on how to proceed with it, and the university left the actual method up to each individual teacher. In my classes, the oral exam will be conducted online, but not too differently from the traditional way. The problem is that even if students look up words and phrases in a dictionary during an exam, there is no way for teachers to know this. But we decided that it is impossible to control them. We considered using a web service called ProctorU, an online proctoring service but decided against it due to privacy concerns and the fact that it is still impossible to prevent cheating completely. We took a similar approach with written exams; we decided not to use online exam supervising services, but to have what we call ��take-home exams.�� We already tried a take-home quiz in April. In take-home exams, students can refer to any materials, but the questions will be a little more difficult than usual exams with the time limit from morning to evening of the day, regardless if the students have other classes. We will also have the students sign a written pledge to state that they solved the problems on their own as instructed by the university. These pledges have proven psychologically effective.

The weather was beautiful from March to April, with clear skies every day. There were news reports on a forest fire, but the rain and clouds have come back for the past week. As Holland is well known for tulips, I��ve been looking forward to this season; however, the tulip appreciation event planned by my acquaintance in Keukenhof Park had to be canceled. I could see tulips in the flower beds in my neighborhood, but they are not as striking when they are scattered about here and there. But I will end this entry with a picture of the tulips I saw near my house.