CLAIR Magazine “JET Plaza” series: Marie-Claire Joyce (Nagasaki)
Article/Journalism, LifeAfterJET, Notable JET Alums, Return on JET-vestment 
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Each month, current and former JET participants are featured in the “JET Plaza” section of the CLAIR Forum magazine. The August 2013 edition includes an article by JET alumn Marie-Claire Joyce. Posted by Celine Castex (Chiba-ken, 2006-11), currently programme coordinator at CLAIR Tokyo.
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“I may never be the British Ambassador to Tokyo, but I am proud to have been the first British Ambassador to Hasami on the JET Programme”
Marie-Claire Joyce (Nagasaki-ken, Hasami-cho, 1991-93) is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (UK). She studied French & Italian at the University of Manchester before joining the JET Programme as an ALT in Nagasaki Prefecture. After two years, she left Japan to follow a postgraduate course in France specialising in International Trade with Asia before entering the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Marie-Claire has worked both in London and overseas (Tokyo, Tunis and Jakarta) on a number of areas including trade promotion, protection of British people overseas, crisis management, political and economic work. 22 years since joining the JET Programme and 15 years since her first posting to Tokyo as a diplomat, she has recently returned to the British Embassy in Tokyo where she heads up the Economic and Trade Policy Team.
Rural Diplomat
I stumbled across the JET Programme in the same way as I stumbled across what was to be my future career in the British Diplomatic Service. A friend passed me a brochure and told me I was the ideal kind of person to be on JET and then later the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) : experience travelling and living overseas, teaching experience, keen on learning foreign languages and so on. I applied for both and so the adventure began.
22 years ago this July, 29th to be exact, I boarded a JAL plane at London Heathrow bound for Tokyo, like many more JET participants will be doing this Summer. Little did I know then that it would be the first of many flights to Japan, and that Japan would become a real part of my life. I am quite sure that had I not joined JET, my life would be very different today. I was to be the very first AET at Hasami High School in the pottery town of Hasami in a beautiful rural part of Nagasaki prefecture. I had no future plans, having just graduated from Manchester University. The world was my oyster I had been an assistante d’anglais as part of my French degree and was thrilled at the idea of spending more time overseas discovering a new country through teaching.
I learned more than I bargained for. Not just a new language and culture but also about myself. Resilience, patience and determination became my best friends. I went through all the stages of culture shock : I loved Japan, I hated Japan, I couldn’t understand the Japanese, I wanted to be Japanese, I wanted to leave (and I packed several times in the first 6 months!), I wanted to spend the rest of my life in Japan. I felt excluded (I got upset being called a “gaijin”). I wrote a letter for the town newsletter to indroduce myself and tell everyone why I had come to Hasami. It was a real challenge to settle and integrate. In fact the same kind of challenge I go through in my career now as I change country every four years.
But I can’t help but talk passionately about my experience on the JET Programme – not because it was easy going but because it was such a challenge and because I felt that I was achieving something. Building links with people – that’s what diplomacy is all about. Even though I have studied various Japanese language courses since leaving JET, including an intensive programme through the FCO, my love of learning Japanese comes from my JET experience in Hasami. People are always surprised when they ask me where I first learnt Japanese (a path I am still following) when I respond that I decided to learn Japanese to “survive in a small town in Kyushu”. It was sink or swim. A kind lady approached me in the supermarket one day after only being in Hasami a few weeks. She invited me back to her house for ocha. And very soon became my first Japanese teacher and friend. Armed with some daily aisatsu and a few words, I started to talk to more and more people – I didn’t care if I made mistakes. I hoped I would show my students that they too could communicate in English without worrying about the mistakes. I tried everything I could to meet people in the community by taking up pottery making classes, nihonbuyo lessons, taiko (which I still play at the Embassy), joining in the local matsuri, being asked to make impromptu speeches at enkai, etc. I learnt a lot whilst on JET, about not waiting for people to come to me, being proactive and taking the initiative. That’s what I have to do every day in my job at the Embassy – approach Japanese people I don’t know at events; give speeches, seek out people to talk to about the political and economic situation; influence people about the UK’s policies or convince someone of the value of meeting a British minister during a VIP visit. Getting out and about meeting people is so important but to be able to do that you need to understand the culture and know how to communicate both verbally and non-verbally.
I had problems communicating. I often felt like a tape recorder in class. Students fell asleep or waited for the teacher to translate into Japanese. I felt frustrated but I was not going to give up. I my students had no interest in English lessons, how could I get through to them? Hasami High School students were all strong at sports. Their baseball team had got through to the Koshien. The boys practised relentlessly before and after school. Was it any wonder they fell asleep in my classes? So I started training with them at 6 am on weekdays, running alongside the banks of the river. I joined judo classes and ceramic classes and little by little the rapport with my students improved. I wanted to have more contact with my neighbours, who barely said two words to me, so I practised phrases to say each day. I set up an English notice board and, once a week at lunch time, I played British music and talked in English on my very own radio show. The students wanted to talk to me and, what was even better, they were starting to talk in English.
I have so many memories of my time on the JET Programme. It’s very hard to choose one. I have tried to keep in contact with friends from Hasami and have been back many times over the last 22 years. I enjoy showing my children, who are now 11, 8 and 5 years old, the way I cycled to school past the rice fields; the school where I spent so many happy times with the teachers and students, my local onsen, my favourite karaoke bar. Sometimes in a shop or a local summer matsuri, I will hear “Joyce sensei, ohisashiburi!” And the memories start flooding back.
I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do after JET to continue my link with Japan. Was I secretly hoping that I would meet a local potter and settle down in Hasami? If I was, I’m glad it never happened. I was immensely sad to leave Japan at the end of two years on JET but looking back, I’m glad I did in order to find a way to return to Japan in a different form.
There are so many opportunities for ex-JETs, both Japan-related or otherwise, and yet with the increased number of JETs it is also increasingly competitive. Selling yourself and showing what you have done with your JET experience is crucial. There are many ex-JETs working for the Foreign Office, both in London and in our embassies all over the world. If I’m honest I joined the Foreign Office hoping that I would return to Japan but I was told clearly that there was no guarantee. But just as I did on the JET Programme, I persevered and made it back to Tokyo two years later to study and then work at the British Embassy. But contact with Japan didn’t cease when I left Japan at the end of my posting. Whilst serving at the embassy in Tunis and then in Jakarta, I had more Japanese friends than I have ever had in Japan and continued to use my Japanese and built up work contacts with the Japanese community. Building links with people. In all the immensely diverse jobs I have done in my 18 years so far in the Foreign Office, the common factor in them all has been about building links between the UK and the relevant country. I strongly believe that JETs have an important role to play in building a bridge between their home country and Japan, and in maintaining that bridge long after they have left Japan on whatever path they choose to follow.
22 years since starting on JET, I am happy and proud to be back in Japan again, this time with my family, and to be working once again at the British Embassy. I may never be the British Ambassador to Tokyo, but I am proud to have been the first British Ambassador to Hasami on the JET Programme!
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