ESU-J Tournament Champ!


Mr. Isao Ayabe, half of team “Mind the Gap” who won the ESU-J tournament yesterday.
Yesterday was fantastic. We spent most of the day at Chuo University in the Tama area outside Tokyo giving a workshop for high school teachers who are thinking of using debate in their English classes. The session was 3 hours, and consisted of a question and answer by Professor Yano (yes, pronounced exactly like my name, we have decided we are distant cousins), a discussion of the cultural and social barriers facing academic debate in Japan (we found there were more similarities to the US than differences), and a final lecture by me where I discussed how to train novice debaters in policy. That was fun and a nice blast from the past. Sometimes I miss my policy debate life.

After we finished Sesson 3, we reconviened with some graduate students and undergraduates at “Session 4” – a local bar! Great food including super rare beef, horse and chicken were served. The squid appetizer was especially tasty. I really enjoyed a lot of the food, as usual, and started to realize we are coming to the end of our fantastic time here in Japan. This made me a bit sad, but the sadness was short lived as we quickly finished our drinks and headed for karaoke! During the song fest, where many hits new and old were belted out by the JDA directors and visiting US dignitaries, Isao arrived – he had spent the day at the English Speaking Union – Japan parliamentary debate tournament all day – and emerged the champion! We cheered him as he performed the theme song from Evangelion as well as a couple of hits from Rick Astley and Starship in celebration. Congratulations to Isao on his tournament championship!

After the last of the beer disappeared we made it just in time to catch the last train back to Machida at 12:30AM. I am pretty tired today, but I am about to head out to one of our last 2 debate events – a demonstration debate for high school debaters on the topic of banning worker dispatching companies (or temp agencies, as we call them in the U.S.). Tomorrow is a day off which is good as I have to do world’s registration at some point. I better get cracking on that time difference thing. . .

Sapporo High School Debate


This is a fantastic city. Perfect size, very livable, and the temperature is just cool enough that you might want a sweatshirt in the evening. But if that doesn’t convince you that Sapporo is an amazing town, check out the picture. Isn’t that the most beautiful tuna you have ever seen? The seafood here is what they said it was in Tokyo – outstanding. We just had an amazing late lunch where I think we did a pretty good job trying to close down the sushi bar.


But we don’t just sit around and eat sushi. We debate and work as well. Today’s debate was again the national high school topic on worker dispatching, and in the 4 person Japanese high school format. It takes some getting used to, but the whole debate is about comparing impacts versus advantages. In fact, the ballot indicates that this is the only way to make a decision in the debate. You have to fill out a formula of sorts that explains how you weighed the advantages and disadvantages in equation form. More on this in a seprate post to come after I reflect on the format a bit more. Suffice it to say for now that the format is a mix between standard debate in the U.S. and a dash of World School’s format. I think it works for Japanese high school students who might not have the will to jump into something like parliamentary or CX debating where there doesn’t appear to be a bottom to the form. Here the boundaries are set and wherever you go in the pool you feel like you can touch the bottom. Very good for beginners.

Here are today’s teams – the teacher Mr. Kimura (who is a very enthusiastic and dedicated high school coach) split up the Americans so they would face each other in today’s debate.

They were told by the photographer to make a stern debating pose. I think you can see their interpretations of what that might mean from these pictures.

The debate was observed by many people who were teachers and students. I think over 180 students came to the debate, and from my count there were perhaps about 10 or 15 teachers. The debate caused such a stir that many teachers from other schools in Hokkaido came to observe the match and to see if debate is something they would like to have at their school. There was a lot of interest in the room and some fascination with debate – and it seems to me this region of Japan is a sleeping giant in the JDA world. Once debate becomes more regular in Hokkaido, the rest of the Japanese high school scene should watch out. These students are sharp and eager to learn all the subtlety of good argumentation. And they have a very sharp, witty and well respected coach in Mr. Kimura.


Thanks to everyone who helped us out here in Sapporo. It seems we just arrived, but tomorrow morning it is back to the airport to fly to Tokyo for the last time on the tour.

Matsuyama and Ehime University

Another fantastic stop! The city was amazing and I took many pictures. We were met by a most enthusiastic group of University students from the English Speaking Society. They took us to the hotel, then it was off to lunch!


Looks delicious no? I forget what it is called but it translates to “fried favorite.” This dish is prepared on a grill, and consists of noodles and some egg I think, with your favorite items inside of it. It’s like a Japanese noodle-fried pizza. I chose garlic and squid for mine, but there were many options. You can get whatever you wish.

After this, it was time for sightseeing where I nearly died, but I did get some great photos of an ancient Japanese castle.

Here’s my video showing the danger we were in:

And here is my nice video of the great city view you get from the chair lift. It does seem to be a postmodern art project though with the weird people floating by in the chairs going the other way. I wasn’t able to record the other direction since we left so late the chair lift had shut down. We took the gondola back, which you can see near the end of this video:

The debate was fantastic, and the most American style debate so far. There was a Topicality debate and some off-case theory debate that was pretty good. I have a tape of it that will be processed after I return to the U.S. I wish I had that macbook up and running at full capacity. I could process videos while I sleep!

After the debate, the students were kind enough to take us out for more sightseeing. This time it was to a hot-spring bath house, one of the oldest (if not the oldest) in Japan. This bathhouse was the inspiration for the one in the film “Spirited Away,” a famous animated film in both America and Japan.


After trying some salt-flavored ice cream, it was time to head all too soon to the airport and back to Tokyo. It was a very fast, but very fun time here!

Thanks to the students of Ehime University for a fantastic time!

Kitakyushu University is Organized


Our stop at Kitakyushu University was amazing for a couple of reasons. Of course we had amazing hosts, food, drink and an interesting debate, but additionally this was one of the most organized, punctual and well planned student run debate clubs that I have encountered. In this photo, the American debaters Chris and Tony are given a tour of the club room at Kitakyushu by one of our hosts, and our opponent for the debate, who goes by the name “Pan.” We were treated to a nice suprise when we were shown the debate room, which brought nice continuity to the tour:

No it’s not the sexy man picture. Look again. It’s an American flag, signed by members of the 2007 Debate Exchange Tour. It was cool to see it displayed so proudly by the debate club.

After this tour, we were treated to some snacks and preparation time, then the debate started. Some of Pan’s family came to watch the debate, which I thought was really nice. They drove nearly 5 hours to come see the debate, which shows how much they care about his endeavors. Here is a photo we took just before the debate of Pan, his partner who went by the name “Jimmy,” (a nickname he picked up in Australia while studying there) and the Americans:

We look so happy to be about to debate!

After the debate, we went to a fantastic party (nomehotai? I hope I spelled that right, but I have some trouble learning this great language). Here is the collected team having a great time, and enjoying what was definitely a successful debate well planned and excecuted by these great students.

Thanks to everyone who made this fantastic day possible! Such a blast.