Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/779/

Hopes for his students (Japanese)

(Japanese) Comparing the number of students between now and when I first started teaching 15 years ago, there really isn’t too much of a difference. Well, of course, there has been an increase over the years. But back then, we really didn’t do anything major to promote our school, like placing advertisements and such. In one way or another, depending on their ethnicity or nationality, people tend to have different types of personalities, right? But at the very core of our being, I think that we all are actually the same. Every person has an inherent sense of curiosity, ambition, or the desire to learn, and I think that’s true regardless of your country or culture. I try to pull forth those feelings from [the students], and my hope is for them to bring out more and more of that curiosity from within.


Date: 2006

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Interviewer: Takeshi Nishimura, Ricardo Hokama

Contributed by: Centro Nikkei Argentino

Interviewee Bio

Masaki Tamashio was born in Okinawa. In the summer of his 3rd year in college, he took his first vacation abroad in Argentina, where a relative lived. He returned for a visit upon graduation, and stumbled upon a job as a Japanese teacher by chance. Currently he works as the Vice-principal of the Japanese class at Centro Nikkei Argentino. (2006)