Final Round Video of East-West Tournament, Tokyo


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Here is the final round from the East-West tournament in early June. We were invited to judge, but had some difficulty with the format. Here are some things to keep in mind as you watch the clip.

1. The clip begins with the entry of the 11 judge final round panel. Everyone stands up and applauds them, and as they come in they distribute copies of their judging philosophies to the debaters. This gives the debaters only a few minutes to make adaptations in strategy. There is a short moment of polling of the judges by the Negative team in Japanese, and the judges raised their hands to indicate their agreement with the statements.

2. Yes, the debate is in English! In Academic debate (what the Japanese call policy debate) the pronunciation of words has its own very difficult accent. The judges and the participants have developed their own pronunciation for English words over the years. They told me that we might have trouble understanding because the competition often favors “Japanese-English” – which is what they call this way of speaking. I have great difficulty understanding most of these speeches. I don’t think Academic Debate is very interested in teaching English speaking so much at this level, similar to how policy debate has little interest in teaching good public speaking skills in the U.S.

3. Topicality is a challenge to a debate over definitions. It has little to do with the plan. Academic debate is pretty lacking in theory debate. Everyone is a hypo tester, and the T argument challenges the Aff to a battle over interpretation of words. That’s why the second T violation sounds so strange – she basically reads definitions for half the resolution, so it’s multiple challenges in one. The Aff handles it pretty well in the 2AC by lumping it as a debate about the meaning of “Japanese Government.”

4. Counterplans claim mutual exclusivity, but what they really mean is resolutional competition. That is, you can’t endorse the resolution and the counterplan at the same time. More like a counterwarrant that has just crawled up on the beach from the primordial sea than a modern counterplan.

5. At the end is every policy debater’s dream – the chairperson asks “Is there any appeal from the Negative?” – After the 2AR the Negative is given one last opportunity to appeal to the judges, especially indicating new arguments in the 2AR. Amazing. Rarely do Negative teams invoke this opportunity, I was told.

6. I love the fact that they have people coloring in boxes of chalk on the board to indicate prep time use! Gives it a very game-show feel don’t you think?

2009 U.S. Japan Debate Exchange versus Sophia University


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The processing of videos is slower than I thought it would be, sorry for the slowness. This is a good debate to start with though. The last debate on the final day of the tour versus Sophia University was a huge suprise. First, it was in an intimate, private setting with only 5 observers, all of whom participate in the Japanese policy format they call “Academic Debate.” Secondly, it was the most American styled policy debate that happened on the tour. This was very surprising to me as the debate seemed very familiar. Finally, this debate really highlights some of the differences in Japanese “academic debate” and U.S. “policy debate.” The major difference is that academic debate accepts hypothesis testing as the only way to make a decision in a round. This becomes a nice moment of cultural communication between the teams over the counterplan in this round.

The topic was That the Japanese Government should encourage companies to introduce equal pay for equal work.

Returning to my Normal life

I think I am fully recovered from what little jet lag I had. I only became very sleepy at 4:30PM yesterday so I went to the grocery store to shop and to hopefully avoid the inevitable nap. Today I am feeling good, up since 6:30 piddling around the house. Right now the requisite transfer of MiniDV tapes to the computer is in full swing. I expect I should have, at best 2 videos of the Debate Tour up tonight, at worst, one.

Meanwhile I have put all of my photos up on webshots. Most of them are of food, but I think there are some pretty good shots in there. When I have a few minutes I try to tag and sort them, but that’s going to take some time to completely finish.

I also have some smaller video clips I am putting up on YouTube and Facebook from my digital HD camera, which works well for small clips of experiences rather than longer films such as debates. The MiniDV is pretty unsurpassed for capturing full debates. My Flip Camera has completely died, even after sending to the manufacturer, it still fails to work. I have given up on it but might be inspired to mail it off to them again this week.

Well in other news, I have been thinking about WUDC and the crazy registration process. It was easy for me as I was in Tokyo, with high bandwidth and it was 3 in the afternoon.

WUDC registration ended in 90 seconds! This was totally not suprising, but does point out some of the problems with a first come first serve system. I don’t know why they don’t just give a rotating number of slots to people. So round one, everyone gets 1 team 1 judge. Round 2 opens, and you get the same if you want, but only if you are in the first round. Round 3, the same, and after that take an assessment of representation and give the remaining slots to those waitlisted. Voila! A fair tournament registration system.

It’s just going to get worse as the popularity of Worlds continues to increase. Imagine what it will be like in 5 more years as the midwestern U.S. schools start to become involved. I know from my recent trip that Worlds style parliamentary debate is gaining steam in Japan as well. What happens when the U.S. and China are fully engaged in wanting to attend Worlds? I don’t think a venue could be found to host 500 teams, so there will just have to be concessions made in the registration process. It just might not be possible to allow traditionally strong Worlds universities to admit 5 teams anymore. But this is good if one supports diversity of participants. I think this debate will be interesting to track if it comes up at Council or on the internet.

Home in Queens

I made it back to the U.S. safely, and can’t imagine how the time went by so quickly. Thanks to everyone in the JDA and NCA for making the trip possible.

Amazing. Overwhelming and thought provoking are three terms that might sum up the whole experience.

Today over coffee I am returning to the Eastern Time Zone, and thinking about all the photos and videos I need to process over the next couple of days. I will probably run to campus on Friday to do a bit of work, but today is strictly recovery, laundry and organizing. I have a huge amount of video and photo material, but also paper, posters, gifts and souvenirs that all need a place to live.

I am home now, but I would go back tomorrow if they asked me to. Debate in Japan is so rich and so vibrant that it is a shame they don’t have a place for professional coaches in the school system there. They rely at the high school level on willing, eager English teachers, and at the University level it is student run almost entirely.

I hope to return one day for a longer period to study the details of academic debate and how it has developed on a parallel and very different track from NDT/CEDA debate. People who say that the Japanese do policy debate are only half right.

Last Days in Japan


The American Professor Llano and the Japanese Professor Yano, President of the Japan Debate Association. Some people can’t handle the “Double Llanos.”

Things have been happening so quickly over the past couple of days that I find myself typing this on the morning of my departure from Japan. Last night was the send-off party where there were many great speeches and great fun had as everyone wished us a safe trip home.

We had several good events over the final days. First was a workshop at Chuo University where we discussed U.S. debating for English teachers and graduate students. This was a great session, and I feel that I learned a lot about the situation Japanese debate faces – it is not unlike the situation in the U.S.

On our day off we visited the famous fish market here in Tokyo, and it was unreal. So huge and so many people driving in so many directions – I felt that we might be run over at any minute. The sushi there though was beyond amazing. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough money to fully enjoy it.

We also had an amazingly huge debate at Rikkyo University. The Professor there was a debate legend, and the debate with high school students was fantastic. I can’t believe they were so confident even in front of 100 or so English teachers, students and people from Benesse corporation, who sponsor a lot of debating in Japan. It was really humbling to see and made me wonder why we do not encourage debate in the U.S. as a way of learning a foreign language.

The Rikkyo University event was followed by two great things – first, a wonderful meal of what can only be described as Tex-Mex-aneese food, as it was a Japanese spin on Tex-Mex food. Taco Salad with steamed white rice? Oh yes, it was good although perhaps some purists out there might not like the idea.


This is a picture of the taco stuffing – avocado, onion, bacon, cheese (very light) and some chicken hiding underneath. Very good food! They even had hamburgers which were very tasty.

At this party I met an English teacher named Tony who teaches in Japan now but is Australian. He was very interesting to talk to and pointed something out to me about teaching debate in Japan – he believes, as do I, that the long history of Zen training in this country has influenced the idea of how education should take place – in the Zen tradition you listen to a speech, and then you silently reflect. Insight and understanding appear through silent reflection alone. Not through cooperative engagement. So this might explain the difficulty in spreading High school debate in Japan, although it is increasing at a regular pace.

So yesterday was our final debate, and it was a strange one. It was at Sophia University, very close to the Imperial palace. This debate saw the tour out very quietly and in a very American style.

We were shown into a small room where about 7 people sat, and had a full on policy debate in a very quiet private setting. I though it was very strange not to pulicize it or do it for many classes, or even advertise the event to the campus (it seemed the opposite of the publicity we had for other events). Nevertheless, it was the most American style policy debate we have had, and on top of that, highly educational for the handful of advanced debate students that attended. It was very on par with American debate in the policy style, although not as fast. There was a discussion I led at the end which I prefaced by saying that since the debate was so American in style, I would speak to them as if they were American debaters. They told me they got a lot out of the comments after the round.

Then we went to the farewell party and had a great time. But now it’s time for me to eat some breakfast, and try to pack up all my stuff. That will be an adventure. We head for the airport in a few hours, and back to my normal life. But I will not forget all the amazing people, food, and debates that I was given the opportunity to experience in my short time in Japan. When’s the next trip??