Hattori Yoshio

STAFF INTERVIEW: Hattori Yoshio (President, The Hattori Foundation)

Euan: So, when is my New Year's bonus coming?
Hattori: Right for the jugular. Otoshidama to iu koto desu ne.... what would you ask for on the first new year of the 21st century???

E: How about an apartment in central Tokyo for two years?
H: Careful, don't ask for too little.

E: Is that a yes? Anyway, studying abroad is becoming more and more common. You're now running an Institute full of people studying abroad. Have you studied abroad yourself?
H: First of all, in 1967 I was an exchange student at Decatur High School in Illinois in the USA for one year. At that time, the Vietnam War was still going on, so I was constantly asked if I was Vietnamese - hardly any of my friends even knew where Japan was. Then in 1975, after I graduated from university in Japan I majored in Accounting at Northwestern University Graduate School of Management in Illinois (now the Kellogg School of Management) for two years. Right after graduating I also took the USCPA qualification in Hawaii, but got a position in the International Marketing Department of Abbott Laboratories, a pharmaceutical manufacturer instead of using the CPA.

E: Do you think studying abroad is a good experience?
H: My experience abroad when a high-school student and at Business School has had a very big effect on my life. While I was studying at the school for a year in Illinois, I had a homestay with one of the music teachers from the school, called Mr. Cruzan. It was a pretty harsh housetraining - they were a very strict family. From bed-making every morning to going to Sunday School at the church, for a fifteen-year-old student abroad for the first time it was pretty frightening experience! The most important thing I learned in this year, if you aren't self-reliant and cannot express yourself you won't be noticed* in American society!
After graduating from the Department of Science and Engineering at university in Japan, I went to Business School. There, learning about competition in Business, I also learnt the absolute importance of thinking "never give up" and the essential need to want to succeed. I'm thankful for what I gained from America and American society, and from my friends I have met all over the world, and so I founded the Yamasa Institute in the hope that I could give something back to the next generation.
(*noticed: mitomete kurenai: not accepted, cannot survive, not noticed).

E: So obviously you can speak English after being in the USA for so long do you speak any other foreign languages?
H: Some Chinese. During the eighties I took private lessons in Okazaki. I studied for about a year, but I can just speak to the level where I could probably manage to travel around Taiwan independantly.

E: Since when have you been running the Hattori Foundation?
H: I joined the board of Directors of the Foundation in 1983, and then became the President in 1998.

E: What are the most important events in the history of the Foundation?
H: I understand that my great-grandfather, Hattori Tarokichi I, set up the Hattori Foundation in 1919 to return some of the profits from the Hattori Engineering Company to the local area. He did this, I hear, after hearing a lecture given by a Christian Missionary visiting the area. This phrase gives an idea of the attitude of the Foundation towards donation those days:

"This juristic person aims for the protection of the unemployed, the loan of funds for setting up businesses without interest, the public good, educational facilities and assistance, and relief work for other charities. Moreover this tradition must be handed down to posterity forever and executed."

That is, the descendants of Hattori Tarokichi are to follow his ambition to help those who lose their jobs or fail in business and to assist educational activities forever. For example, we established Megumi Yochien or Megumi Kindergarten in 1933 to take care of farmers' children during the busy harvest season. Until 1938, we also ran what is now the Aichi Public Technical High school. I am the fourth in line from Hattori Taroukichi I.

E: What are the main interests of the Foundation? What is the focus of the Foundation's efforts?
H: At the moment the Megumi Kindergarten is independant from the Hattori Foundation, but the Foundation also:

1) Administers the Yamasa Institute Aichi Center for Japanese Studies
2) Administers the Yamasa Institute Scholarship program (at the moment, there are three students on full scholarships)
3) Provides support for children's education: principally the kindergarten and the local elementary school, but also music education (organ), Physical education facilities, Football club, English Language Education, and creche are all run by the Foundation.
4) Provides financial support to ensure quality of life in the area: this year, through donations to suport Yoneyama House, an Institute for Juvenile Protection and for Blind Children.
5) Provides overseas financial support to ensure quality of life: this year, supporting a project to build a new Junior School in Cambodia.

and so on.

E: What are your plans for the Yamasa Institute for the future?
H: Regarding Japanese Language Education, initially expansion and improvement of educational facilities. Particularly, by developing Distance Learning facilities as much as possible, I am hoping to be able to offer the chance to study Japanese to students who cannot come to Okazaki. The Online Center for Japanese Studies will be launched on the Internet in April 2001.

E: Finally, something that has bothered me since I first arrived. Does anyone really live on the fifth floor of the Yamasa II building? Or can we put some deckchairs up there for the summer?
H: My parents live there, although unfortunately my father passed away two years ago. This summer come up for a beer!

E: Thank you very much for your time. Natsu wo tanoshimi ni shite imasu! Yoi Otoshi wo.
H: Kochira koso! Yoi Otoshi wo.

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