SJA Gets Into Horticulture and Urban Agriculture through Sister School and Sister City Efforts in 2022
By John McLaughlin, SJA Board Member
SJA’s Setagaya Committee grew in new directions in 2022 including a collaboration with Friends of Urban Agriculture Arlington (FOUA), which was founded in the same year as SJA, 2018. Also, in that year, Arlington Career Center (ACC) and Technical High School started a sister school relationship with Tokyo Metropolitan Horticultural (Engei) High School. There was a ceremony then and a small group of students and teachers came for Study Japanese in Arlington’s (SJA) Japan Day at ACC in 2019. Then, the pandemic happened and our exchanges between youth in Arlington and Tokyo’s Setagaya ward went online from 2020. Engei HS was recently designated an “international exchange school” by the Tokyo Metropolitan board of education and Principal Namikawa was eager to visit the sister school here, which he did from August 26-30, 2022.
I had met Namikawa-sensei a few times in Fall 2019 while visiting Engei HS with Setagaya City Council Member Risa Kamio, who used to work for the Japan America Society of Washington for many years. SETCOM is pursuing a sister city relationship with Setagaya City or ward in Tokyo and various members have visited city associations and government workers in 2021 and 2022. Matt McKinstry an Air Force officer posted at the US Embassy in Tokyo and former FOUA board member, facilitated some virtual introductions between SJA and FOUA in early 2022 and before long, we were starting to plan a video interview for them with an urban farmer in Setagaya City. With Principal Namikawa here in person to speak about agricultural education in Japan, we hurried to finish editing the video to show at a joint FOUA-SJA event. It was held in the evening on Monday, August 29 at the Fairlington Community Center where the Virginia Cooperative Extension is located: it was 7:30 pm here and 8:30 am the next day in Tokyo. We put in the English subtitles and showed the video interview with Mr. Utsumi followed by a live Q&A interpreted by SJA SETCOM Co-Chair Yoshimi Muto. Being new to all of this, it was truly a whirlwind weekend for us, but we learned a lot from FOUA members, who also have much more experience with video and managing a website and other technology.
SJA had a full weekend of tours and meetings of urban gardens set up or managed by FOUA volunteers. SJA volunteers especially enjoyed seeing the Highland Urban Garden (HUG) in Virginia Highland Park not far from Pentagon City Station, where Japanese and Asian vegetables such as bok choy and daikon or kabu radishes are grown. We met with Kirsten Conrad and heard about all of the urban agriculture and educational activities the Virginia Cooperative Extension is engaged in. Mr. Namikawa also met the coordinator for urban agriculture in the Arlington County Government, Kimberly Haun. These were interesting learning experiences for us too. I’ve gone back most months since then to learn from the HUG volunteers on Saturdays since I’m often passing by Pentagon City on Saturday mornings after my zazenkai. We are planning a second online exchange in 2023 to feature urban agriculture in Arlington to an audience in Setagaya.
For Principal Namikawa, however, the peak experience was certainly getting to see ACC and meet its Principal, Margaret Chung. Since the school year was starting on August 29, we were grateful that she was willing to meet us on the Saturday morning before and give us a tour of the school and explain its many programs. ACC is a comprehensive career and technical education center with special programs for students with disabilities and who are English learners. However, some parallels with Engei HS were the food science and animal science programs, which are also two of the three tracks at Engei HS (the other one being horticulture). While SJA’s Japan Day was held at ACC in 2019, I had never fully toured the school. I was so impressed by all the hands-on experience and certifications that students could pursue at ACC. I wonder if more high school students wouldn’t benefit from the practical career exposure one can get at ACC. Many students also go on to excellent 4-year universities. I have come to believe that all of us should learn some agriculture as a life skill, like literacy and numeracy. It has benefits for physical and mental health, too.
ACC Principal Margaret Chung and Engei HS Principal Naoto “Nick” Namikawa, plus John McLaughlin and Yoshimi Muto
Group tour with Highland Urban Garden volunteers of Friends of Urban Agriculture Arlington on August 28, 2022
Organizers of FOUA-SJA in-person and online exchange event on urban agriculture in Setagaya City, Tokyo, August 29, 2022