Cruise ‘tremendous’ learning experience, but little time for frivolities

Press, 22 February 1982, Page 1

Cruise ‘tremendous’ learning experience, but little time for frivolities

When the Japanese cruise ship Nippon Mani berthed at Lyttelton last evening, the 10 young New Zealanders aboard were able to start showing appreciation to their 323 Japanese shipmates bv introducing them to New Zealand. .

The New Zealanders were the lucky ones chosen from 90 applicants to go on the Japanese Youth Goodwill Cruise. They spent the first 12 days in Japan, seeing Japanese culture, industry, commerce, customs, and lifestyle first-hand, and then joined 10- Australians, 10 Fijians, and more than 300 Japanese on the 30-day Pacific cruise.

Now that the ship has arrived in New Zealand waters — so far she has been to Papua New Guinea and Australia — the New Zealanders aboard are expected to show, their shipmates something of New Zealand lifestyle, culture, industry, and customs.

The ship will be in port until Wednesday, during which time 150 young Japanese will have the chance to stay in Christchurch homes. All those on board will be

able to visit cultural, educational. commercial, and sporting highlights of the citv.

it is the first time that the Japanese Youth Goodwill Cruise has visited Christchurch. Past cruises have called only at Auckland and Wellington. Christchurch people will be able to go aboard on Wednesday from 9 a.m. .to 11 a.m., when cultural items, including the Japanese tea ceremony, and martial arts, will be on display. On Wednesday, the Nippon Maru will sail’for Wellington. and from there she will visit Fiji and Guam before arriving back at Tokyo on March 21. The entire trip is financed by the Japanese Government and its aim is to “foster a sense of personal discipline among young people through orderly group life on board and studies abroad, and to promote friendship and mutual understanding between the participating youth and the youth of the countries to be visited."

For the only Christchurch cruise member. Mr Brent Tamatea, the “discipline" aspect of the trip has been difficult to take.

Mr Tamatea, aged 21, a student of parks and recreation and holiday programmes at Lincoln College, is sponsored on the cruise by the Youth Initiatives Fund. He has worked with young people through the Maori Affairs Department and the Bishopdale Community Centre, and is involved in various youth programmes in the city. The cruise has had its ups and downs, he said yesterday. “But over . all, it has been tremendous." He said that communication had proved difficult at times, because many of the Japanese spoke no English, and none of the New Zealanders were fluent in Japanese. But part of the daily activities on the cruise included learning some of each other’s language.

There had also been some friction between the different cultures, he said. “Problems have occurred when there has been a con-

flict between what the Japanese are used to and what we expect." he said.

“For example, the administration is very strict, and we have to be certain places at certain times, or else we are told off."

Life on board is subjected to a strict regime, with little time during the dav for anything frivolous.

According to the ship's timetable, everyone must rise at 7 a.m., attend morning assembly from 7.30 a.m. to 7.50 a.m.. and then have breakfast and clean their cabins before 9.30 a.m. After breakfast, there are three. 50-minute "sessions" at which various aspects of Japanese life are studied. From 12.30 p.m. to 2 p.m. everyone has lunch, and then there are two more 50-min-ute "sessions," before voluntary group meetings, club activities, or seminars between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Evening assembly is at 5.10 p.m., when the national flags are lowered and a song is sung. Everyone then has two hours to "clean cabins," have a bath, and eat their dinner. Free time is from 7.30 p.m. until lights out at 11 p.m. Miss Sue Lytollis, aged 23, of Auckland, and a former reporter on "The Press," is also finding some aspects of the strict regime difficult. But she agrees with Mr Tamatea that the cruise, on the whole, has been excellent. The two have made many friends and have learned a lot. A teacher of self-defence to women in Auckland for the last 18 months, Miss Lytollis has studied judo for 13 years and has more recently taken up kendo, the Japanese art of fencing with bamboo swords. She has been able to further her study of this on the cruise during the daily sports sessions. Miss Lytollis is sponsored by the Young Women’s Christian Association in Auckland, where she teaches women “from eight to 80" how to defend themselves if they are attacked.

Miss Lytollis wrote the following report for "The Press”:

Japan is a land of contrasts. Its strict moral codes frown on the abuse of alcohol by the young, yet it is a society that sells cans of beer and spirits from streetcomer vending machines. Tokyo is a city with a population so dense that in one shopping centre alone the equivalent of two thirds

of New Zealand’s population passes through one square kilometre of shops, offices, and roads every day. Japan is the place where the members of the Japanese Youth Goodwill Cruise 1982 experienced the richness of Japanese culture, cuisine and kindness. ■

Started 15 years ago, the cruise celebrates the centen-

nial of the Meiji Restoration, a time when the social structure of Japan changed dramatically. For two weeks, overseas participants were treated to a mosaic of Japanese life, some traditional, some not so traditional. Visits were made to car factories and to ornate Shinto shrines still displaying dances performed hundreds of years ago. New Zealanders had a “home-stay" with Japanese families. Here was a chance to sleep on traditional bedding, visit a public bath house, and share a crosssection of Japanese life. The final highlight in Tokyo for the New Zealand group was performing a haka and traditional long poi for the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan. Ten of the cruise members were chosen specially in acknowledgement of the Inter-

national Year of Disabled People. One member, Mr Yo Kano,' is an accomplished singer and musician yet has been blind for most of his life. Other Japanese participants in the cruise have a variety of occupations, ranging from police officers and customs agents to professors, Buddhist priests, and some unemployed youth. However, rising costs and lack of finance may mean that the fifteenth Japanese Youth Goodwill Cruise is the last to visit New Zealand shores. According to Mr M. Masayoshi, the director of the cruise, the cost of the 1982 trip from Japan to Sydney, Christchurch, Wellington, and Fiji is SNZ2.IM. “We have enough money saved for -the 1983 cruise, planned for Asia, but after that the future is uncertain,” he said. irt