Stanford e-Japan is an online course that teaches Japanese high school students about U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations. The course introduces students to both U.S. and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues. It is offered biannually by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). Stanford e-Japan is supported by the Yanai Tadashi Foundation.

In August 2023, three of the top students of the Spring 2022 Stanford e-Japan distance-learning course will be honored at a Japan Day ceremony through Stanford University. The three Stanford e-Japan honorees—Hana Kameyama (Seikei High School, Tokyo), Miyu Kato (Hiroshima Prefectural Senior High School, Hiroshima), and Yuta Muraki (Matsumoto Shuho Secondary School, Nagano)—will be recognized for their coursework and exceptional research essays that focused respectively on “A Comparative Analysis between the United States of America and Japan: Women in STEM,” “U.S. Public Health Policy in Hospitals for People with Disabilities,” and “Legitimacy of the United States and Japan as Permanent Members of the Security Council from the Viewpoint of Regional Representation.”

Mona Abe (Urawa Akenohoshi Girls’ Senior High School, Saitama) received an Honorable Mention for her research paper on “Protecting Undocumented Children in the U.S. and Japan: Extending DACA.” Oki Sugiyama (Musashi High School, Tokyo) also received an Honorable Mention for his paper on “A Study on Machine Translation Application to Strengthen the U.S.–Japan Relationship.”

All 28 students successfully completed the Spring 2022 session of Stanford e-Japan. They represented the following schools: Ashiya International Secondary School (Hyogo); Columbia International School (Saitama); Hachinohe High School (Aomori); Hiroshima Prefectural Senior High School (Hiroshima); Hyogo Prefectural Ono High School (Hyogo); Kagoshima Prefectural Oshima High School (Kagoshima); Kaishi Kokusai High School (Niigata); Katoh Gakuen Gyoshu Senior High School (Shizuoka); Keio Girls Senior High School (Tokyo); Kumamoto High School (Kumamoto); Kyoto Prefectural Rakuhoku Senior High School (Kyoto); Lycée Français International de Kyoto (Kyoto); Matsumoto Shuho Secondary School (Nagano); Matsuyama Higashi High School (Ehime); Musashi High School (Tokyo); Okinawa Prefectural Yokatsu High School (Okinawa); Omiya High School (Saitama); Sapporo Minami High School (Hokkaido); Seikei High School (Tokyo); Seisen Junior and Senior High School (Kanagawa); Takada High School (Mie); Taki High School (Aichi); Tamagawa Academy (Tokyo); Tennoji High School attached to Osaka Kyoiku University (Osaka); Tokyo Gakugei University International Secondary School (Tokyo); Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School (Tokyo); Touoh Gakkan High School (Yamagata); and Urawa Akenohoshi Girls’ Senior High School (Saitama).

For more information about the Stanford e-Japan Program, please visit stanfordejapan.org. The application period for the spring 2023 session will begin November 15, 2022.

To stay informed of news about Stanford e-Japan and SPICE’s other programs, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Stanford e-Fukuoka is an online course for high school students throughout Fukuoka Prefecture in the southwestern island of Kyushu, Japan, that is sponsored by the Fukuoka Prefectural Government. Launched in spring 2022, it is offered by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) in collaboration with the Fukuoka Prefectural Board of Education. SPICE is grateful to Fukuoka Governor Seitaro Hattori whose vision made this course possible. Stanford e-Fukuoka is one of SPICE’s local student programs in Japan. 

Having spent three wonderful years in Fukuoka Prefecture on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program after college, I welcomed the opportunity to teach “e-Fukuoka,” Stanford’s online course on U.S.–Japan relations, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and entrepreneurship. In Spring 2022, I had the pleasure of teaching 30 high school students from 16 public and private schools throughout Fukuoka Prefecture.

For the inaugural course, I invited the following guest speakers to our virtual classroom:

Yuki Kondo-Shah (former Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka)
Kondo-Shah introduced students to the concept of “soft power,” coined by political scientist Joseph Nye. Unlike “hard power,” which refers to military or economic might, she described “soft power” as the people-to-people relationships and grassroots student exchanges that enhance communication, deepen cross-cultural understanding, and strengthen U.S.–Japan relations. “Soft power” at times calls for engagement based on empathy and empowerment.

Miwa Seki (General Partner of MPower Partners)
Seki’s venture capital fund, MPower, is Japan’s first Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)-focused global venture capital (VC) fund. Seki, a Co-founder of the women-led VC fund, explained that even young entrepreneurs of global start-ups need resources to launch their businesses and that VCs like MPower provide them with this funding. Born and raised in Fukuoka, Seki showed students how she countered adversity at various stages of her career by “becoming the solution.”

Fred Katayama (former anchor and producer at Reuters; Executive Vice-President of the U.S.-Japan Council in Washington, DC)
Katayama shared his family’s transnational migration from Fukuoka to Hawaii and Los Angeles, and later to Belem (Brazil). He also traced his family’s wartime incarceration at Tule Lake (CA) and Gila River (AZ). Katayama reflected on his early struggles with his Japanese American identity. He explained that despite the discrimination that he experienced, the role models from his youth encouraged his pursuit of an international career in journalism.

Jan Johnson (owner of the Panama Hotel in Seattle; recipient of the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation)
Johnson grew more conscious of the need to preserve the history of buildings like the Panama Hotel (designed by a Japanese immigrant) after traveling to Italy in her youth. She challenged gender bias to purchase the building. She saw the importance of preserving a historic building and its sustainable practices before anyone else saw the value in doing so.

Each speaker shared their personal and professional journeys between and beyond the United States and Japan. They contextualized and localized the broad concepts of diplomacy, global finance, journalism, and immigration, respectively. Finally, they allowed students to see that these ideas are not foreign but rather are relevant to our everyday lives.

As a final project, each of the Stanford e-Fukuoka students identified a sustainability-related issue in their community that was meaningful to them. They conducted fieldwork and interviewed individuals engaged in the topic. They explored how their topics related to the global world around them and how they could make a difference through a change in perception, education, or innovation.

The two honorees from this year’s Stanford e-Fukuoka cohort are:

Kasane Horiuchi (Tochiku High School, Kita-Kyushu City)
Kasane explored recycling challenges at her high school and offered potential solutions that students can make to enhance conventional “reduce, reuse, and recycle” processes. She proposed the QR-coding of plastic bottles, suggested transparent collection bins, and looked into incentivizing sustainability through gamification.  

Mihiro Tomomatsu (Hakata Seisho High School, Munakata City)
Mihiro shared her mental health challenges and discussed the resulting discrimination and disruption of education that she endured. She suggested thoughtful ways to dismantle the stigma surrounding mental illness through empathetic, peer-based interventions. Mihiro encourages awareness and the creation of a culture of compassion that is sustained through mutual responsibility.

Students joined Stanford e-Fukuoka with varying degrees of English communication abilities. Yet each week, as they became more brave, they expressed their opinions through their writing, shared their thoughts in class discussions, and grew comfortable making mistakes. Students were especially inspired by the stories of personal struggle and resilience among our distinguished guest speakers. By openly discussing their vulnerabilities alongside their strengths, the speakers connected with the students. The presenters showed these high school students how we are more alike than different. No doubt, this was “soft power” at work.

I’d like to thank Chie Inuzuka (Director, Fukuoka American Center) for her positivity and support on the other side of my virtual classroom. I look forward to continue working together to create a meaningful learning experience for our Stanford e-Fukuoka students.

In 2022 SPICE launched the Stanford e-Fukuoka program, a new online course offered to high school students across Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan. Stanford e-Fukuoka’s main themes revolve around U.S.–Japan relations, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and entrepreneurship. In the course, students engage in discussions with speakers on topics such as Japanese immigration to the United States, the historical preservation of cultural sites, and media representations of ethnicity.

Stanford e-Fukuoka is the latest of SPICE’s growing number of local student programs in Japan, which include other regional programs such as Stanford e-Hiroshima, Stanford e-Kawasaki, Stanford e-Kobe, Stanford e-Oita, and Stanford e-Tottori. These online courses are a collaboration between SPICE and local government and school officials in Japan and challenge students to think critically about global themes related to U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations.

The inaugural session of Stanford e-Fukuoka recently came to a close, and two students have been selected to be recognized as honorees for their outstanding performance in the course. Congratulations to the 2022 Stanford e-Fukuoka honorees on their excellent academic achievement!

Student Honoree: Kasane Horiuchi
School:  Tochiku High School
Project Title: Research on Plastic Bottle Recycling

Student Honoree: Mihiro Tomomatsu
School:  Hakata Seisho High School
Project Title: Break Invisible Barriers. Create the World that Everyone Needs

These students will be honored at a virtual event hosted by SPICE, Stanford University, this week. During the ceremony they will also make a formal presentation to members of the Stanford community, the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, and the Japanese community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

SPICE also offers national online courses to Japanese high school students (Stanford e-Japan), to Chinese high school students (Stanford e-China), and to U.S. high school students on Japan (Reischauer Scholars Program), China (China Scholars Program), and Korea (Sejong Korea Scholars Program).

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Applications opened recently for the Fall 2022 session of the Stanford University Scholars Program for Japanese High School Students (also known as “Stanford e-Japan”), which will run from the end of September 2022 through the end of February 2023. The deadline to apply is August 12, 2022.

Stanford e-Japan
Fall 2022 session (September 2022 to February 2023)
Application period: July 1 to August 12, 2022

All applications must be submitted at https://spicestanford.smapply.io/prog/stanford_e-japan/ via the SurveyMonkey Apply platform. Applicants and recommenders will need to create a SurveyMonkey Apply account to proceed. Students who are interested in applying to the online course are encouraged to begin their applications early.

Accepted applicants will engage in an intensive study of U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations. Government officials, top scholars, and experts from Stanford University and throughout the United States provide web-based lectures and engage students in live discussion sessions.

Stanford e-Japan is offered by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), Stanford University. Stanford e-Japan is generously supported by the Yanai Tadashi Foundation, Tokyo, Japan.

For more information about Stanford e-Japan, please visit stanfordejapan.org.

To stay informed of news about Stanford e-Japan and SPICE’s other student programs, join our email list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SPICE offers separate courses for U.S. high school students. For more information, please visit the Reischauer Scholars Program (online course about Japan), the Sejong Korea Scholars Program (online course about Korea), and the China Scholars Program (online course about China).