THE JAPANESE TEACHER: INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR NAKANISHI

Lina María Conde

linamaconde@hotmail.com

Publicado en Capital Letter No. 6

Noviembre de 2004

From 1994, Japanese volunteers from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have been coming to the Universidad Nacional de Colombia to teach the Japanese language. They usually stay for two years, but Professor Junko Nagaoka, who returned to Japan last December, stayed for three. We talked to Professor Fujio Nakanishi about his life in Colombia and the experience of teaching Japanese at our university.

Based on his students, Professor Nakanishi's opinion about the Universidad Nacional is that it is an outstanding University, but he said that he regrets the fact that he has not had the opportunity to talk to other teachers very often. Anyway, through his experience at this University, he said that one of the things he likes the most is its free character and the respect to freedom that students and professors show.

 Before coming to Colombia, Professor Nakanishi was vice-president of a Korean company that makes car parts. Before that, he was working for NISSAN in Mexico. In order to communicate with his Mexican partners, he began to study Spanish. Professor Nakanishi, who loved the study of Japanese since he was in high-school, started considering the idea of becoming a Japanese teacher due to his experience in Mexico. Furthermore, when he was in Korea, he taught Japanese to his partners at the company he was working at. He also studied to become a Japanese teacher and now he has the certification to do it. Later, he came to teach Japanese at the Universidad Nacional, as a volunteer from JICA.

He said that teaching Japanese is a very interesting job taking into account that the presence of Japanese culture is very reduced in Colombia; "it is incredible to see how students become interested in this language and study so hard to master it" he said.

Professor Nakanishi is living peacefully in Bogota; he does not miss many things from Japan, solely for the soy bean curd, which is very difficult to get in Bogota. He said that he did not have any problems to get used to the life in Colombia; except for the traffic of the city of Bogota, he enjoys living here. He expressed that he finds the weather of Bogota really convenient. "It is true that Japanese seasons are beautiful, but when the summer comes, it gets too hot and you lose the will to work. On the other hand, winter is so cold that you simply do not want to go out. But Bogota's weather is different, because you can go out whenever you want, it is very nice" he said.

Professor Nakanishi has still one year in Bogota and he said that during this time he wants to talk more to Colombian people and get to know more about Colombia. We hope he enjoys this year he has with us.