It All Started With a Telephone Call

先日(2021年12月15日)岩国スピーチクラブで発表したスピーチ原稿です。タイトルは「きっかけは一本の電話だった」です。

録音もしてみました。

It all started with a telephone call. I took the call during lunch break at Karyo High School. It was seven years ago, on October 8, 2014. The caller on the other end of the line identified himself as Akira Kawaguchi with Tokuyama Eigakai. I thought, eigakai? Why eiga, or movies? It turned out Mr. Kawaguchi was saying eigakkai, or eigaku-kai, meaning English studies society.

Mr. Kawaguchi called me because I had written about his hero, Dr. Eiji Asada.

Dr. Eiji Asada was born in Tokuyama in 1865, at the end of the Edo Period. In fact, I need to be more accurate and say that Dr. Asada was born in Kudamatsu, as his mother was from Hanaoka in Kudamatsu and gave birth to her child there.

Dr. Asada was a prodigy. After spending his early years in Tokuyama, he went on to schools in Yamaguchi City, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo. He eventually studied Christian theology in America and became the first person to receive a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago. He came back to Japan and became a key figure at the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages 東京外国語学校 (now known as the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies 東京外国語大学).

Mr. Kawaguchi was an English teacher at Sakuragaoka High School, a private high school in Tokuyama, and learned about Dr. Asada one day while reading at the library. Mr. Kawaguchi was tremendously inspired by the fact that Dr. Asada was from Tokuyama, his hometown.

I learned about Dr. Asada in one of my university classes, and Dr. Asada was just another name to remember. But I somehow mentioned his name, Eiji Asada, in an article I wrote, which was eventually published on the Internet, and Mr. Kawaguchi saw the article one day and called me that October day seven years ago.

Since then, I have attended Tokuyama Eigakkai’s annual meetings and met Mr. Kawaguchi several times in person.

Mr. Kawaguchi was a man of passion. He was so inspired by Dr. Asada, who was just a footnote in the history of English education in Japan, that he contacted Dr. Asada’s relatives, dug up important documents, wrote research papers on Dr. Asada, helped shed light on Dr. Asada’s contribution to English education in Japan and erected a monument in front of Tokuyama Elementary School for Dr. Asada in 2015. In other words, Mr. Kawaguchi rescued Dr. Asada from the shadows of history and put him in the limelight.

It is with great sadness I tell you that Mr. Kawaguchi passed away last December, but he called me for the last time on November 5, last year (2020). He talked about books he was reading in the hospital. He talked about how important it would be for young children to learn about Dr. Asada. His last words to me were: “頼たのむよ。ありがとね.” He said, “I’m counting on you. Thank you.”

Kawaguchi-sensei and Dr. Eiji Asada still live on in my heart.

参考ウェブサイト：
1. Asada Eiji BA Thesis Prize | The Center for East Asian Studies | The University of Chicago
2. President Tateishi Interviewed on Doctor Eiji Asada | Trend | TOPICS | Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
3. 浅田 栄次 | 山口県の先人たち
4. 浅田栄次生誕150年記念祭 – 山口信愛教会山口信愛教会