Service
The Greensboro Airport Rotary Club is devoted to Service to our Community and the World. Rotary International’s Motto is “Service Above Self.” This spirit guides our club in all our programs and activities. Another standard of Rotary is the Rotary Four Way Test.
Greensboro’s Colleen Jackson goes to Japan as a Rotary Cultural Ambassador from Greensboro Airport Club
Colleen Jackson and Airport’s Tanya Feagins
Message from Colleen Jackson before leaving Us for Japan….
“It is unbelievable. In less than a month, school will be out and thanks to Rotary I will be living with a Japanese family and attending a small school in Osaka. I can’t hold this idea in my mind for long, it is so exciting. The anticipation has been growing since I was awarded a cultural scholarship through Airport Rotary 7690 last spring.
Rotary has helped every step of the way, from the two day outbound scholar conference in Burlington several months ago, to the support of my Chicago contact, Haruka Wada. My principal, Tanya Feagins, who first suggested I try for the scholarship, and Mike Conrad and John Womack, the selection committee, my Japanese host district 2660, and the many others who have made this possible.
For months now I have been working with Japanese speakers three times a week to improve my basic Japanese conversation skills. Because it was so helpful when I studied Italian, I pay now to receive NHK Japanese language broadcasts on my satellite at home and improve my listening skills and learn about the culture through Japanese soaps and quiz shows each week.
My favorite broadcasts are of sumo wrestling bouts. Having familiarized myself now with the intricate rituals of sumo, I follow my favorite rikishi (sumo wrestlers) through each successive bi-monthly tournament. I have over 45 sumo dvds now and a deep appreciation for this very Japanese sport. If you are interested, a new face on the ozumo scene is Baruto, a 20 year old Estonian, who is a real monster - really big and incredibly strong! But I am still loyal in my support of the yokozuna (champion) Asashoryu from Mongolia.
Mahjong is a game played with tiles and with elements of gin rummy. Popular in the American Jewish community during the twenties, it is played all over Asia. I have played it in China, and I am curious to see how it is played in Japan. Hanafuda is a matching card game reputed by some to be particularly popular among yakuza (mafia). A Korean friend taught me how to play it many years ago, so I am hoping the older generation doesn’t put much stock in the yakuza theory. Many middle-aged Japanese say they played this game with their grandmothers - with no reference to the mafia. (I’ll be on the look-out for the elderly).
As much as I like all these other games, Osaka is wild for baseball. So I am prepared to give my heart to the Hanshin Tigers, perennial cellar dwellers in the Central Japanese Baseball League. I have been told that Osaka has the most loyal and rabid of all baseball fans, and I plan to transfer my ACC fanaticism to the Osaka home team and see if they can overcome the curse of the Colonel (something involving an incident many years ago with a local Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise statue).
We can’t forget soccer during World Cup. The U.S.A. is in Group E, while Japan is in Group F. I’ll be watching Hidetoshi Nakata play (he regularly plays for a team in England now, but for many years he played in Italy - Roma, Bologna, Parma, etc). As an Italian-American I will be pulling for Italy. Sorry, America, but for the U.S.A., World Cup is a made-for-TV-movie opportunity, whereas for Italy…….it is very, very important. FORZA ITALIA!!
I have been reviewing Japanese history, as well as, North Carolina history in order to try to be the best ambassador that I can be. There are many wonderful Osakan writers, and I have tried to reread as many books of Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Murakami in translation that I could.
My tutors have done their best to prepare me socially and culturally. I have studied gift-giving customs, bowing, shoe etiquette, an entire litany of obligatory polite phrases, and I will remember to be punctual, anticipate the needs of others, not to tip, and be vague - vague is good in Japan. I have heard long explanations of bathing etiquette both in the home and at the hot springs involving naked companionship - vocabulary I never knew I would know some day.
So, jikan desu, as they say - it is time! I plan to bring Seagrove pottery for gifts and watercolor cards by Vorhees, an artist from Asheville. I have lived in North Carolina my entire adult life and look forward to sharing her beauty with new friends in the Land of the Rising Sun.
To each member of Airport Rotary 7690 — from what I have learned about Rotary this past year, you are used to making a difference in people’s lives both locally and internationally. I will be honored to represent you, our beautiful state, and the country I love. I am very grateful that you have made this important difference in my life and, by extension, in the lives of my students and my colleagues. Domo arigato gozaimasu.”
~ Colleen Jackson, Rotary Cultural Ambassador to Japan