We interviewed a former exchange student from Japan, Yoshimi Horiuchi. She exchanged to MSAB for a year from 2001 to 2002. One of our members happened to see a thousand origami cranes and a picture and description of her on the wall in the MSAB office and finally, we reached out to her. Currently, she is running a non-profit organization for children in Thailand. We asked her about life at MSAB and its impact on her life after the exchange at MSAB. We hope this interview would help people reveal and understand life at MSAB approximately two decades ago from another perspective.
Questions: please click a question to jump.
- Could you briefly share with me what you are currently doing?
- What brought you to MSAB? Or what was the motivation to go to MSAB.
- What was a day at MSAB like?/What did you usually do at MSAB?
- How did you interact with students at MSAB? I can imagine that the school in Japan and in the U.S. is quite different.
- What was the most memorable thing/moment at MSAB?
- Did you have any favorite class or activities at MSAB?
- Did you have any annual events at MSAB? Did you do any activities outside of the classes?
- When I visited MSAB, I happened to see a thousand origami cranes hanging on the wall and that was how I got to know about you. What was your motivation behind the thousand origami cranes?
- Did you revisit MSAB after the exchange program? Did you think MSAB has changed from your time?
- How has the experience at MSAB impacted your life after the exchange program?
- Is there anything you learned at MSAB that you are bringing to your work?
- Could you briefly share with me what you are currently doing?
I’m running a small non-profit organization in a rural Thailand, called Book foundation. Our aim is to promote the joy of reading and learning through library and literacy projects. So we have three main pillars at the moment. That is one is Library project. We have a community library and mobile library services to people in the North of Thailand. We have a literacy project that is like an early childhood literacy center for children from a few tribe communities. The last one is called Universal design picture books Project. We are currently are producing a picture book about the adventure of a penguin. It’s going to be filled with illustrations and also tactile images that you can touch and feel made of different materials, and braille as well as large print. that ‘s going to be the third pillar of the organization. So currently, I’m mostly based in Thailand although I’m traveling quite a lot. So that’s it.
2. What brought you to MSAB? Or what was the motivation to go to MSAB.
It was a part of exchange student programs. I applied to this program because I always wanted to improve my English skills because I was very much interested in languages what language can bring me to do. Things like that. So, I wanted to go abroad and at that time, from my school, which was an only national school for the blind in Tokyo, Japan, and there were a few others who used this program previously. That’s why when I said that I wanted to go abroad, I refer to this program. When I apply to this program, I chose America, and then the students don’t have much choice, so the host family has to choose students. So I sent my portfolio and then Paty, who is my host mother, chose me as an exchange student. So that’s why I ended up in MSAB.
3. What was a day at MSAB like?/What did you usually do at MSAB?
So, since my host mother lived like maybe one and a half an hour away from MSAB by car, I stayed in the dormitory. So I woke up and had breakfast at the cafeteria. And In the second term, I usually go to the public school, so in America, there’s something called, mainstreaming law, maybe they have different law now, but most of the schools for the blind had the partnership with the nearby public school. And then those who choose to go to the public school, as well as the blind school, can go to the public school as well. So I took some classes from the public school and I went to both school. So what happened after breakfast is that I would take the school bus and went to the public school and I took some classes and then I came back to the MSAB. I have never had lunch or something like that. Then I stay until the after school and I participated in extracurricular activities like mostly sports: track, cheerleading, and swimming. There were a whole bunch of activities. Then the wrestling was also the activities. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner I would eat always there. And I sleep there as well. I sometimes went out to the library nearby. But I didn’t really get to go out that much because… I don’t really know why…. but maybe there were not so many public transportations where the blind school was located, not in the city. So it was kind of difficult. I spent a lot of time in school and ht dormitory stuff like that.
4. How did you interact with students at MSAB? I can imagine that the school in Japan and in the U.S. is quite different.
The students at MSAB, the majority of them had multiple disabilities besides the blindness lately. Because most of the blind only students go to public school only. They don’t come to the MSAB. And there were not many students who don’t have extra disabilities this was quite different because when I was in my all blind school in Japan, this was pretty much only blind school. So very very few students with multiple disabilities. And we had a number of students in each class like 15 to 20 and which is quite a lot for blind school standard. But in America, let’s see… un how do I interact… I mean we spend time together all the time. Because I had a roomie as well. I had a roommate. we went to go eat together, we went to the extracurricular activities together, we did quite a lit of things together. Yeah, so it was quite a great environment.
5. What was the most memorable thing/moment at MSAB?
I think there are a few. For examples, as we did Halloween as well. at that time I was pretty much into Harry Potter. So I dressed up as Hermione, and which is one of the characters. And then we did harry potter. And I think I won a prize at that time. But anyway, it was quite funny to do the costume competition and stuff like that. And also another thing is that, in the first part of my stay in MSAB, we did a track and field for the extracurricular activities. So the different schools for the blind and in different states had the same extracurricular activities and they have the meet, they had the kind of like a competition to get together or to compete against each other across different states. So we went to different states using the bus and then different transportation. So we went to different states, like Indiana, Kansas, and I think I also went to Iowa. That was quite interesting to go to different states using a car as transportation. Like one time I don’t remember where it was but we went to 12 hours on the bus to another state. And I felt that long. And it’s still in the midwest you know. So like yeah this country s really big. Oh yes and another thing is that we didn’t have that a lot of snowfall that year but we still had a little bit and we played together with the snow with other students. It was cool because I’m coming from the southern part of Japan and we hardly get any snow, so it was always my wish to play with lots of lots of snow. So it was quite cool.
6. Did you have any favorite class or activities at MSAB?
There are very… I mean as I speak with you for this hour, there are more and more memories coming back to my mind so it’s really nice. So for example, one class which I really loved was English class. The teacher was a very understanding and very empathetic lady. Of course, I had a very difficult time in English, in the beginning, I had to spend my time like four hours with my dictionaries, reading and doing my homework, not only for the English class. But thanks to her, she really helped me with my English skills and she tried to teach me and tried to help with vocabulary and we were exchanging letters in English. So I had a very fun memory in that class and we had a lot of fun discussing literature, and talking about different reading materials. Not only that but different things life as well. Another thing…. I really loved the track and field activities, because they had you know like when you swim, you have the ropes dividing lanes, right. They had something similar to that in the track and field area so that we can run alone along a tight rope. Usually in Japan or elsewhere, you have to run with somebody or you have to follow a very loud sound, you have to run towards it if it’s the short run. But if it’s the long run, in most of the case, you have to run with somebody. But I could do lapse, I could do the run on my own, at my space. I really loved it. I miss this so much even now.
7. Did you have any annual events at MSAB? Did you do any activities outside of the classes?
Yeah yeah sure. I think the Halloween was one. Another thing is… Annual thing. I have no idea if it’s the annual thing but they had a dinner themed in Japan. I’m quite sure that they did it for me as well. So the kitchen ladies were asking about Japanese dish. They made like sushi and sour meatballs and stuff like that and they served with chopsticks. And some people wore “what they called kimono.” “What they called kimono,” yeah this is the point. Yeah I mean it was quite nice and I’m thinking about it and I’m quite sure that it was done partly for me. so I felt so welcome by the gesture of the school and the school community. What else did we have… I don’t know the name of the program. it’s not a prom a such, but we had something kind of like an event at the end of the school. That we got to stay overnight and I had a party and we could stay the whole night together and we were dancing and stuff like that and this happened at the end of the year and yeah we had a quite a lot of fun at that time.
8. When I visited MSAB, I happened to see a thousand origami cranes hanging on the wall and that was how I got to know about you. What was your motivation behind the thousand origami cranes?
Well, I just wanted to show the appreciation to the school as they hosted me for one year and I don’t have many things that I can do but I could, I can make cranes and I just talked to my host mother and then I asked her if she could help. Because I needed her help to thread it all of them up. So, I asked her if she could help me. Actually, I think threaded it but she put it together somehow. So, I wanted to say thanks and then as a good memory or something like that. I never thought that it would be kept for a long time. Because in Japan, as you know, its a sign of good wish, a long life, and wish comes true. All the good things. A good intention for the school, appreciation to the school and yeah, just something like that.
9. Did you revisit MSAB after the exchange program? Did you think MSAB has changed from your time?
Yes, I did. Indeed, actually, when I was in college I think just the first year or the second year of college I visited the school again because I wanted to see my host mother and also I had my friend there in MSAB as an exchange student two years after me.
Unfortunately, this was a very little time gap between. So I don’t really know if it’s changed or not. Yeah, I don’t know, I would like to know now thinking some to think of it. I would like to visit MSAB again I would like to see my cranes again. How they are if they still stay there.
10. How has the experience at MSAB impacted your life after the exchange program?
Well, I think the biggest thing that I picked up from life in Minnesota is English skills. Because I didn’t have any Japanese friends at all there was no facebook and there was no skype, there was no even skype, can you imagine? I mean it was really not imaginable to call someone for free abroad. I think the skype was coming out towards at the end of my stay. And somebody showed me the app and was like “you must be kidding, I mean how can you call somebody and its free.” so at that time it was really really difficult to call somebody and even I was not really allowed to interact with my people back home. So I had to live in English and it was a cold country, too, so we didn’t get to go out a lot in winter as well so I spent a lot of time speaking and listening and doing everything in including my hobby reading books, so that’s why I went to the library for the blind and the physical handicap something like that right next to the school. And I went there quite often and then I borrowed both braille books and audiobooks that were on cassette tapes at that time. And then I read a lot of books and they paved my basic English skills a lot, and that’s why I went to a school… actually, I also went to a liberal arts college in Japan called International Christian University, which is in a suburb of Tokyo and that school is meant to be bilingual. So you have to take some classes in English as well as in Japanese of course. So since that time in MSAB, English was always a part of my time. I always spent some time in English. It’s like I have to do something in English all the time. I always had interaction with nonjapanese people, and I think this is the biggest strength I had from my stay in America. So I’m very grateful that.
Another thing is that… communication skills. Of course, in Japan, as you know, we are taught to listen more than to speaks to harmonize more than to. I was rather an expressive, extravert rather than introvert since childhood, but still, I was not really ready to say what I really want so I was saying a lot of things like it’s up to you, depend on you doesn’t matter, whatever. But often I faced this situation in America including in MSAB, of course, that was asked yes or no so what do you want so nothing called whatever so I had to make my decision and I had to say what I want. Nobody can’t make a decision for me. And that was something that I learned in America and this shaped my way of living in a way as well.
11. Is there anything you learned at MSAB that you are bringing to your work?
Oh yeah, so the language skill, decision making skill, that’s another one. What I learned in MSAB is diversity. Because look, in a blind school in Japan, its something similar to Japanese normal society most of us are coming from the middle-income group and nobody is from abroad and or we look more or less the same, mean, you know, the race wise or physical appearance wise, but in MSAB, actually there were not much racial diversity at that time at least most of them were white. But at least they had different backgrounds. For example, I learned for the first time about the adoption, about the host parents. Of course, I know about or example adoption, I knew about it, but I have never met somebody like this. So it’s nothing that you see in the normal circumstances at least in my life setting, in my upbringing. So you know like they were people who were abused and therefore adopted or under post care and there was somebody from the migrant background. So a whole bunch of people who I read about or watched TV programs about, but I have never had real-life interaction with, and they were my classmates or schoolmates or like friends in the extracurricular activities. So that’s how I really learned that “okay, in this society, there are really different kinds of people are living together.” It’s really kind of ironic because I’m from a minority group which is blind people but still, mean it’s like you come from the same group and you don’t see as a minority so I learned I thought that it really impacted on me and made me think about persuading my career in international development. Because I was thinking that if there are so many different diverse people from diverse background, the opportunity is not equally given or the opportunity is maybe available but the bridge to the opportunity is limited so there are so many many groups of people who can’t even reach that bridge. And there so many people who are for example who are under care but not really properly, or something like that. so I really got interested in this kind of missing links or missing gaps in society. So that’s why I came to be interested in working in this social development field.
