Bushie, bye bye

Bye bye Bushie

At the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka, Japan, I got a new private student. He skillfully negotiated a 33% reduction from the rate for professionals, such as director of cadet affairs and a campus librarian. The cadet suggested for his first lesson we walk around the campus, and he would answer my questions. He wanted to improve his English.

I had seen other native English teachers take entire classes on campus excursions. The English-challenged youths would pass my classroom, happily exiting the ponderous new four-floor language arts building. The cadets would walk in clusters of five and six. A retired U.S. Air Force pilot reported excellent results speaking English with his class outside: They talked about the pointy-nosed U.S. jet fighter parked on the well-manicured lawn near the original 50 year-old buildings.

An American civilian, I was curious about a sculpture. I had the impression of a fish or dolphin in an upright posture but could not read the plaque because it was in Japanese.

The private student explained that the sculpture was a samurai helmet. The detail halfway up was a feather symbolizing peace. A person could stand underneath the vast helmet.

He asked very seriously, “Do you know ‘bushi?’” I decided not to joke about George W. Bush. The student told me he had prepared presentation about Bushido, which is the code of the samurai, for an international cadets conference. A bushi is a samurai.

The code of the samurai is also the first chapter of the freshmen English textbook produced at the Academy for its students. I asked each cadet in my 30-member classes to talk for a few minutes, answering two questions:

"When did you first hear of Bushido? Who told you?"

Some of the 18 year-olds had heard of Bushido when they were so young they didn't remember. Some learned the term from the Hollywood movie "The Last Samurai." Most students learned the word from a teacher of kendo, a kind of Japanese fencing associated with warriors.

Samurai do not exist anymore except on movie sets in Japan. Bushi, bye bye.