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MICHIKO TSUCHIYA he focus of this paper is on the problems of self-identity facing the deaf Japanese who live their daily lives in a country that does not readily accept any disabled person as a member of the society. Oralism has been the main instructional method used with deaf students for almost sixty years, and as a result, deaf Japanese usually feel uneasy about presenting themselves to society as deaf persons. The deaf culture fostered by older deaf adults who were educated using sign language is not being shared with the younger deaf people, whose language preferences and values more closely resemble those of the hearing majority. Japan's isolation throughout its history has contributed greatly to its becoming a homogeneous country. Surrounded by the sea, Japan saw few successful foreign invasions in its early history and was in seclusion for almost 250 years (until 1858) under the Shogunate rule. To assure national unification, the Shogunate strengthened the feudal system by classifying those it ruled into four categories: warriors, peasants, manufacturers , and traders. On the local level, the daily activities of the villagers were under the constant surveillance of a community leader. If any member of the group disobeyed a rule or did not cooperate with the others, he or she could be expelled from the group. It was difficult for a person so expelled to continue living in the community, so people tried to conform to the rules. Although this system no longer exists, its influence can be seen in the lifestyle of the group-oriented Japanese who continue to value conformity. Today, for example, if one is different in appearance or behavior (such as evidenced by those Japanese who were brought up or educated abroad), he or she is likely to be unwelcome in Japanese society. In other words, the Japanese are anxious to belong to the groupconscious majority, and the self-identity of the deaf Japanese has been strongly influenced by this socio-cultural background. In ancient Japan, deaf people were feared and pitied, and their lives were made miserable by hearing people. When a deaf child was born, the birth was considered a sign of misfortune for the family, and the child was treated harshly or abandoned. The ancient Japanese believed so strongly in reincarnation that deafness was sometimes considered to be a person's punishment for past sins; however, by the 1850s, a few deaf children of affluent or noble families were permitted to attend temple schools to be taught along with their hearing peers. Monks or other cultivated men provided instruction in reading, brush-writing, and counting on an abacus, but, because they believed that deaf children were really uneducable, the teachers ignored their deaf charges most of the time, and the children learned only to read and write their own name. 66 THE DEAF WAY ~ Deaf Cultures Around the World In 1858, Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan with his armed warships. His arrival resulted in the overthrow of the Shogunate-ruled system and the opening of Japan to the outside world. To modernize Japan, the new government dispatched delegations to both Europe and the United States to study current international relations and to investigate various institutions and cultures. The government also used education as a tool for modernization, issuing a school law in 1872 that required every child to attend official primary schools. Although the delegations reported on the education of deaf students abroad, Japanese deaf children did not become full participants in the educational system until the early 1950s, almost eighty years after the law went into effect. Yozo Yamao, a government official who had traveled to England in 1863 to study ship manufacturing, saw deaf workers at a shipyard in Glasgow. Thus he learned that deaf people could become productive members of society if they were educated. In 1871, after his return to Japan, Yamao proposed that the government establish a school for deaf and blind children, stressing the necessity of education for disabled people. Unfortunately, his efforts to start a school were in vain. It was not until 1875, when a primary school teacher in Kyoto named Taishiro Furukawa began teaching two deaf children in his classroom, that education for deaf people began to become a reality in Japan. As the number of deaf and blind pupils who wished to be enrolled increased, parents began to support the idea of a special school. Thus, the first official school for deaf and blind students was founded in 1878...

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