But we had been doing something, something that someday contribute in making "Shijo-Tsushin" a bigger enterprise.
As you know, we have a little BBS in our website. Since last autumn, we had seen a number of requests in its Japanese section asking the readers of "Shijo-Tsushin" to help them in their writing of graduation theses. The students were looking into this website, and asking the readers to answer their research questions. Their focus were naturally on the "kikokushijo phenomena" and/or multicultural development.

I, Furuiye, who is a member of the editorial team for "Shijo-Tsushin", have also been working for a professional monthly magazine focusing on the same issues, so I called on the students if they would like to come to my office and share their opinions inbetween eachother, while browsing through the material that I had compiled over the years. The meetings were held once in October, 1998, and then another in the next month. The meetings were quite enlightening for all the participants.

Now that they've finished writing their theses, I began to think about the future of this small sub-group. Couldn't they help those who should be coming a year later? Couldn't this group grow into the core of "Shijo-Tsushin"?
Already, there are people asking for help. There have always been people asking for help, if we expand our view to other academic endeavors other than under-graduate theses. Perhaps Shijo-Tsushin could contribute more in such academic fields, too!

We are not sure as to how we are going to do it. But yes, we are here to help you, if you need any such help. Please feel free to write us.

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