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Tom Mason, Jr. is a specialist in international education, Asian
language pedagogy, and social-entrepreneurship. He is a cum-laude
graduate of Cornell University's Department of Asian Studies where as an
undergraduate he concentrated on Japanese studies and anthropology
(particularly ethnographic studies and urban anthropology). His honors
thesis, entitled 「Japanese Society and Trains」, was a study of the train's
influence on Japanese culture from Meiji to the late twentieth century.
As an undergraduate he completed Cornell's prestigious FALCON (Full-year
Asian Language CONcentration) program in Japanese and later served as a
teaching assistant and Program Coordinator.
As a
graduate student his main interest was Chinese and Japanese pedagogy. His
affiliation with FALCON and Cornell's Japanese Teacher Training Workshop
has been an essential element in his study of Japanese pedagogy. Mr.
Mason also worked in the Cornell East Asia Program and as an administrator
in the Department of Asian Studies.
Mr.
Mason, who speaks Japanese and Chinese, taught high school in
Massachusetts for several months before becoming a high school teacher in
Japan where he was given his own homeroom — a rare position for a
foreigner to attain. He later went on to hold the rank of assistant
professor at Bunsei University of Art where he taught for four years
before taking a leave from academia to enrich his understanding of greater
Asia by immersing himself in Chinese culture and society. While at Bunsei
University Mr. Mason was a participant-observer in the intense campaign to
re-elect Michiko Ueno, the only sitting LDP female in Tochigi, to her
Senate seat. She won. It is thought that Mr. Mason is the only foreigner
in recent history to have been actively included in a key political
figure's center circle during an election.
In
2008 Mr. Mason was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Taiwanese
government to study at National Taiwan University. He now resides in
Shanghai.
From
2004 Mr. Mason has been Executive Director of the Alliance for Language
Learning and Educational Exchange (ALLEX), a non-profit organization that
establishes and enhances Chinese and Japanese language programs at
universities throughout the United States.
Mr.
Mason's hobbies are studying Chinese and Japanese, cycling, photography,
and learning the names of NHK announcers (Japan's national broadcasting
network). When he is not in the air above the Pacific, he spends his time
between Lunenburg, MA, and Utsunomiya, Japan. |