Japanese ambassador visits Japanese school in Pittsburgh.

One of the United States' two Japanese ambassadors visited the Pittsburgh Japanese School (ピッツバーグ日本語補習授業校) as part of his tour of the city before the upcoming G-20 summit. I was more interested to read about the school, though, than this particular visit; an excerpt from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The school is designed to teach Japanese language, mathematics, social studies and culture to children from ages 4 to 18. It has 91 students and 12 teachers. The school's principal is appointed in Japan but the teachers, who are all Japanese, are hired locally.

The school was founded informally in 1977 by Japanese families who had moved to the United States but wanted to preserve their language and culture for their children, said Toshio Miki, the school's chairman of the board.

Most of the children who attend the school are Japanese and have parents who are working for Japanese companies in the area or at the universities and medical centers, said Dr. Miki, a research assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

The school was officially established and registered as a nonprofit organization in 1993, when it moved to the campus of Fox Chapel Area High School. It moved to Shady Side Academy in July 2006.

It is one of three Japanese schools in the state and 88 in the United States.

The school gets 25 percent of its funding from the Japanese government and 15 percent from Japanese-owned corporations. The remaining 60 percent comes from tuition.

The children who attend the school do so in addition to attending their regular schools Monday through Friday during the school year. Rina is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program of the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Yesterday, Mr. Nishimiya said he was impressed with the program and noted that though it was not large in numbers, it was efficient and "blessed with good teachers."

The ambassador said he wanted to wanted to express "deep appreciation" to Shady Side Middle School for providing a home for the Japanese school.

The ambassador went on to say Pittsburgh is a clean and beautiful city. He said he was struck by the view driving into the city via the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I've seen the quotation "the only city that makes an entrance" attributed to a number of sources, but it refers to the first glimpse you get of the city after driving a dull thirty minutes from the airport. Google will show you some pictures of the skyline, and you can see a few pics of people coming out of the tunnel.