Americans Host Japanese Students

Panel discussion between Japanese and English students in Estes Park, Colorado. Topics were: “Crisis in Christianity,” “The Threat of Communism,” and “The Unity of the World.”

In a spirit of international brotherhood, the Japanese Unification Church and the International Re- Education Foundation of San Francisco sponsored an International Leadership Seminar for 87 graduate students of Japan’s Tokyo University. The 40-day seminar ending September 1st introduced the Japanese students to their first experience of American life, lectures on universal problems by prominent Bay Area educators, and presentations of the Unification Principle.

Ranging in age from 21 to 32, the Tokyo University students are pursuing a variety of fields — from English literature or law to chemistry or engineering. They admittedly came to observe Americans at firsthand and learn what makes them tick, what has made American democracy a strong force in the world today, what motivates Americans to their many accomplishments, and what they can bring back to Japan from their experience to help their own country. This is one of the aims of the seminar — to develop future international leaders who recognized that world peace can only be brought about through unity and cooperation.

Twelve members of the University of Tokyo chapter of the Collegiate Association for Research of Principle (J-CARP) accompanied the students as team leaders, and five key staff members of the Japanese Unification Church gave lectures on the Unification Principle, Victory Over Communism, and Unification Thought.

Introduction to the American way of life came through living in San Francisco’s International Re- Education Foundation center and similar communities in the Bay Area and visits to local universities — Stanford, University of California at Berkeley, City College, and San Francisco State University.

The students also toured Muir Woods National Monument, Yosemite National Park, and the Colorado Rocky Mountains. A joint meeting in Denver, Colorado August 24 — 26 with students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England focused on an exchange of views on prospects for world unification

and the future of Christianity. Rev. Moon’s long-awaited speech concluded the joint conference. The English students participated in a similar 40-day program at the Belvedere International Leadership Training Center, Tarrytown, New York.

Prominent educators in the Bay Area who addressed the students included: Dr. Stefan Possony, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, who talked on “The American Role in World Strategy”; Dr. Ronald B. Herring, associate director of international research at Stanford University, on “Acquiring Cultural Self Awareness”; Dr. Edgar D. Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut and head of Edgar D. Mitchell and Associates, which is studying human psychic potential and its implications for science, who spoke on “A New Perspective on Mankind”; Dr. Steven M. Gelber, professor of history at the University of Santa Clara, on “The Ethical Problem of Black Employment”; Dr. Kenneth Eberhard, professor of religious studies at the University of Santa Clara, on “The Ethical Problem of Drugs in the United States”; Dr. Jules Dundes, director of the Broadcasting and Film Institute at Stanford, on “Broadcasting in America Today”; Dr. Abraham Jah, professor in the College of Ethnic studies at Unification Church — Berkeley, on “The Corporate Mentality — A Concept of the American Mind”; Dr. Milorad M. Drackhovitch, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Acting director of the Japanese Unification Church, Mr. Hideo Oyamada, explained that this seminar is the first of three yearly seminars. “These students of Tokyo University are the elite of elites in Japanese society; they are representatives of each prefecture in Japan. Next year half will be from Tokyo and the other half from all over Japan. For each of them, this was their first visit to America, and they will never forget the kindness they received from the American family members. Even if they come again, they will always remember their first visit.” One of the many positive Japanese students is staying for several months with the Berkeley family.