This is a continuing story about a trip that I made in 2015, of which I joined forces with the Technical Institute of Kuala Lumpur (TIKL) to visit South Korea and Japan. Specifically, this article is about our visit to Goko Senior High School (Goko SHS), located in Hiroshima, Japan.
We arrived at Goko SHS after lunch hour and were greeted warmly by students and their teachers. They were exceptionally ready with the Malaysian flag flying up high in each of their hands while waiting for us to get off from our bus. I was feeling honoured by the extent of their efforts when they wish us ‘Selamat Datang’ (welcome in the Malay language) which they did personally and one by one to each and every one of us.
Right after arriving, I made a pit stop to use their toilet. I bumped into a couple of girl students that were also using this toilet. They looked so shy and cheekily ran away while softly giggling after bumping into me. It was a pleasure to see that the girls still have eastern politeness in them.
To my surprise, the condition of their toilet was up to a hotel standard, as shown in the below picture. Their toilet was installed with bidets that have seat heater and also flushing sound cancelling feature. I was more surprised when being told that all the trivial works including toilet cleaning were done by the students themselves. In fact, there were no cleaners hired to do the cleaning works in this school. I have heard of this before but seeing it with my own eyes made this fact beyond belief.
We were ushered to the school gymnasium to meet the students that have already waited for our arrival. We were required to wear the provided green slippers prior to entering this gym. The green slippers were smartly arranged by the students to make it easy to wear once we take off our shoes. While entering the gym, I noticed a racing car labelled with GK1 being placed near to the gym door.
Once we were settled in the gym, two Goko SHS students who were very fluent in the English language started the event, and soon after they welcomed their Principal to give us a welcoming speech. Worth to mention that these students from both TIKL and Goko SHS were in the age group of 16-17 years and were studying in the field of mechanical, electrical and general courses at these schools.
The Principal later invited us to introduce ourselves and to showcase to them the Malaysian culture. TIKL students and teachers have already prepared a list of performances to be presented at Goko SHS. They performed the Malaysian traditional fashion show, traditional dance of ‘zapin’, Malay martial arts (pencak silat) performance, and song performances (including a love song in the Japanese language). During this event, TIKL also managed to present their award-winning innovations related to parking and page-turner for the disabled persons.
In return, Goko SHS students performed their school songs while standing up, and they also shared with us their innovation that related to solar racing cars, of which explained the reason why GK1 was placed near the gym door. GK1 was the first solar car that this school built and have won many awards in solar car competitions including in Malaysia, Dubai etc. One of their teachers showed a picture of him participating in the solar car competition held at UKM in 2003. The teacher also shared his dreams for his students in one of his slides. His aspiration inspired me to have a dream also for my students.
NHK representatives came to cover the news of us visiting the Goko SHS and a video clip of the students performing was aired during prime time by this Japanese news broadcaster. The news is as attached below.
After more than two hours, the welcoming event ended. We were then ushered to a hall where Goko SHS practised their martial arts. In between these two venues, a lorry was parked that contained two more solar racing cars, labelled as GK2 and GK3. As it was rainy during our visit, we couldn’t watch their solar racing cars in action.
In this hall, Goko SHS students and their coach awaited us in their taekwondo uniforms. Once we made ourselves comfortable in this hall, they showed us a couple of judo and taekwondo kicks and moves through sparring. A TIKL student managed to try their uniform and was invited by the coach into the ring to learn taekwondo and judo moves.
Soon after the martial arts performances by Goko SHS ended, we were ready to bid our goodbyes. All students at Goko SHS made sure that they bid their goodbyes too from all opened windows that we could see. We managed to snap one last picture with them in front of the Goko SHS front building.
The things that I learnt from this visit include that the good nature of Japanese especially their high accountability, discipline, respect to teachers and eastern politeness was instilled since such a young age. Their good nature was the outcome of the training that they get from schools including through the act of students cleaning the toilet and through the act of welcoming visitors as kind and welcoming as possible. I also get to see that the school started innovating and competing in global platforms since a very young age and this has exposed their students to many kinds of research and innovations. I noticed that the support and encouragement given by their teachers to the students were solid and awe-inspiring. This trip is worthwhile to be made because as I said in my previous post, I can still feel the excitement even after almost six years since the trip was made.
I wish Goko SHS students and their teachers the very best of luck and may our path crossed in the future. God bless.
Ts Dr Norpadzlihatun Manap
7th Feb 2021
