However, I recently visited a Japanese museum
that took me back to the places that, in my
youth, taught me what a joy it is to be
fascinated with something. The place was the
Museum of maritime Science, run by The
Japanese Foundation for the Promotion of
Maritime Science. Fittingly, the museum has
been built in the shape and size of a luxury
liner, and since 1974 has been captivating the
imagination of children from around Japan and
East Asia in general. It receives an average
of 800,000 visitors per year.

Inside, children can become captains at any of a number of
exhibits, be it the full-size periscope room of a submarine, at the
wheel of a remote-control battle-ship or, most realistically, a
panoramic computer simulation of a boat in Tokyo Bay, normally used
to train mariners. There are also moving models showing things like
the high-speed Techno-liner, a freighter that can carry 1,000 tons
at speeds of over ninety kilometers per hour, or the Yamato-1, a
ship that uses electromagnetic pulses instead of propellers to move
through the water. Models abound, showing the history of ships in
Japan from the earliest times to the future.

Outside, the museum has purchased two ships, which float at
permanent rest in the bay. The first is a ferry that was retired
when a tunnel was built between the two largest islands of the
country. The second is an icebreaker whose voyages to Antarctica
have become legend in Japan. In addition, visitors can tour a World
War Two Flying Boat, used by the Japanese navy, a bathysphere used
to explore the depths of the Japan Trench, and a house that was
designed to be used on the ocean floor. Finally, the site hosts two
large pools for swimming and for boating lessons.

Since Japan is an island nation, an understanding of the sea and
maritime affairs is important both to the future of the nation and
for people to grasp the depth of their cultural heritage. To this
end, The Museum of Maritime science is playing its role in the way
that all museums should. Not only can other Japanese institutions
learn from it, museums around the world would be hard-put to best
it in quality of education and the desire to learn that it is
creating in the minds of the country's children.


Writer: James Huffman