Amherst

I’m in a good mood as I head toward Amherst College of Massachusetts.

Amherst College started as the best humanities college in the U.S., teaching many fields, such as science and the arts. If you walk through the tall trees in the campus, you will find the statue of a poet.

Robert Frost, the poet who wrote “The Road Not Taken”

I was deeply impressed that a poet’s statue was standing there and not a statue of someone with power or a war hero, among countless its alumni in its 200-year history. Frost, the poet laureate of America, who touched the hearts of people from all over the world and made them think deeply about life with his famous poem “The Road Not Taken”, had taught English there.

A lot of time has passed and not until I went to Doshisha University in Kyoto did I learn of Niijima Jo. I found out that he was the first person to earn a bachelor’s degree in both Japan and the US and that the place that he got a degree from was this Amherst College.  Had I not met Niijima Jo, who founded Doshisha University 150 years ago, Amherst College might have been just the university of Robert Frost to me.

My destination after staying in New York for a United Nations event was Washington, which was 4 hours South of New York, but before I did this I boarded a train with a trunk heavy with books to go 4 hours North of New York to Massachusetts in the meantime. I did this because of an intense desire to know more about Niijima Jo and his study in the US, and how he founded Doshisha University with the help from an American man who was so moved by Niijima Jo’s speech at graduation that he wanted to found a Christian college in Japan.

Furthermore, they said that hung in this college was a portrait of Niijima Jo. For Japanese people following Niijima Jo’s pilgrimage, crossing the Pacific to Amherst College is probably their farthest destination.

On the way to Amherst, the autumn colors fill the train window.

Greeting me at the station is Pastor Kim Sung-hyuk and his wife, with whom I went to see cosmos at Nanji in Seoul one Autumn. He is a pastoral counselor at Smith College, another prestigious school near Amherst College. He knew about Niijima Jo well, and he sent me a picture of Niijima Jo’s portrait and the single-line poem under it that I needed for my new book Why Kyoto.

Amherst is a small college town which holds five prestigious colleges with long histories.

I enter the campus and a familiar scene spreads out before me as I see the statute of Robert Frost far ahead. I approach the stone statute to touch it and spot the engraved tablet in front of the statute:

“Reach the eye the ear and what we may call the heart and mind”

I enter the Chapel which holds the famous portrait of Niijima Jo. About 20 portraits of alumni of Amherst are hung there. They must be some of the most distinguished figures. I approach them and as I have heard, on the most pronounced and dazzling spot is Niijima Jo, pictured in a portrait as a proud alumnus of Amherst College from Kyoto.

It’s a touching moment to meet him in spirit. I solemnly pray.

I once met the president of Kyoto Doshisha University in Seoul and he told me that those portraits rotate places regularly except for the portrait of Niijima Jo, which has stayed in the front. He also told me that the criteria regarding the choice of portraits is how much of an impact an alumnus has had on fellow alumni and the world. I have witnessed how Doshisha University has produced a number of talented individuals and contributed to making the Japan of today. And now, nearly 30,000 students are paving the way for the future of Japan. It could be said that the seed for that was planted here in Amherst.

I go to a library and spot a poster for a poetry club in the entrance. I go further and a portrait of Uchimura Kanzo(1861-1930), a Christian pioneer in Japan, is hung next to that of Webster’s, a man famous for his dictionary. He graduated from Amherst in 1887 and was the leading Christian missionary in Japan. He is known for his excellent books in Korea.

As many respected figures in Japan went to Amherst, and as Niijima Jo was the first Japanese man to go to a U.S. University, the foreign ministry of Japan and many Japanese companies have sent many Japanese people here for studying and training. Also, there are also many Japanese professors who have come to Amherst College. All of these modest looking Japanese have had a positive influence on Americans and the American society. Therefore, even though Amherst is very far from the center of the U.S., Amherst people know Japan well and like it.

That kind of exchange of sympathy cannot be done with money alone. It was made possible by the thoughts and attitudes that were consistently passed down over a long history. I hope that with a similar mindset we can continue to have steady diplomatic exchange, and I hope that Koreans will be able to get ahead that way.

Looking at the statute of Robert Frost who wrote “There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind” and portraits of Uchimura Kanzo and Niijima Jo who thought to raise ‘talents with conscience and faith’ early on, I ponder on the West and the East, the USA, Japan and my home country.