Just after the JET Alumni Author Showcase, I was fortunate to be contacted by another JET alum author–Karl Taro Greenfeld (Kanagawa-ken, 1988-89)–of whom I was previously unaware. It turns out that in addition to writing a number of books, including Speed Tribes: Days and Nights With Japan’s Next Generation, Karl previously served as the editor for Tokyo Journal and TIME Asia.
On one hand I was regretful and a bit embarrassed that I somehow missed Karl in compiling the list of all JET Alum Authors posted on JetWit that served as the basis for organizing the JET Alumni Author Showcase. But on the other hand, I recognized that JetWit and the JET alum community is a work in progress, and I’m very happy to now know about yet another established author out there in the JETAA-sphere and be able to let the rest of the JET alum community know about him as well.
Here’s a more complete listing of Karl’s work:
Greenfeld, Karl Taro (Kanagawa-ken, 1988-89)
- Speed Tribes: Days and Nights With Japan’s Next Generation
- China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century’s First Great Epidemic
- Boy Alone: A Brother’s Memoir
- Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia
- Blind To Failure : TIME Magazine Cover Story
- Life On The Edge : TIME Magazine Cover Story
- Meet the Napster : TIME Magazine Cover Story
- A New Way Of Giving : TIME Magazine Cover Story
- New York Tyrant, Vol. 2, No. 3
Click here for a list of all of the JET alum authors of which JetWit is aware. (Feel free to get in touch if there are any others that are not listed.)
JETAA DC Grad School Night – update
Career, Events, Graduate School 
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Via JETAA DC:
Were you interested in the 2009 Grad School and Fellowship night, but waiting to RSVP until you see who’s going to be presenting? Well, get ready because JETAADC’s got an all star line up for you this year!
JETAADC will host 5 panelists to discuss their graduate school and fellowship/scholars hip experiences, to answer your most burning questions about the process in a question & answer session, and to network with you over free food and drinks after the event. The panelists are:
- Michael Acton – The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, Masters of Arts in International Development
- Brooke Howell – University of Maryland Graduate School’s Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, Master of Journalism, with a concentration in Public Affairs Reporting, Merrill Fellowship recipient
- Thomas Kodiak – College of William & Mary’s Mason School of Business, Masters of Business Administration AND Thunderbird School of Global Management, Masters of International Management
- Lisa Mayorga – The American University’s School of International Service, Masters of International Communications
- Bina Sheladia – The University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School, Masters of Higher Education Administration. Bina’s unique job experience related to fellowship administration will be discussed as well.
See you on the 31st!
Margaret Burton
JETAADC Outreach Chair Read More
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Another post from my brother Greg on TheDigitalists.com about innovations amongst the unemployed that may offer helpful perspective to JET alums seeking work.
In this post he compares two efforts to deal with unemployment: Runway Project and Laid-Off Camp.
The positive spin on this development is that the advent of social media has made it easier for like-minded individuals to organize effectively. The more pessimistic view is that, unlike at the beginning of this decade, when a lot of young people experienced temporary career setbacks after spending the previous few years outpacing their qualifications, this downturn is likely to be far more lasting and transformative, and if people are going to reinvent themselves professionally, they better get started immediately; they don’t have time to “just hang out.”
Click here to read the full post.
JETAA NY Meishi Exchange tonight
Career, Events, JETAA Chapters, Networking Comments Off on JETAA NY Meishi Exchange tonight
MEISHI EXCHANGE Thursday, March 19 at 7pm Come join JETAANY for the biggest networking/social event of the year. Meet fellow JET alums, their friends, and co-workers. We have rented out the 2nd floor of Aja; the very chic Asian fusion restaurant in the West Village . Don’t forget to bring your business cards. We are giving away many great prizes this year.
Aja http://www.aja-asianbistro.com/ 432 Sixth Avenue (between 9th and 10th) Subway: West 4th A, B, C, D, E, F, V or Christopher Street1, 2, 3
Admission: JET alums: free admission including 2 free drink tickets & hors d’oeuvres. Friends of JET and guests: $10. Includes 2 drink tickets & passed hors d’oeuvres.
Photo/art contest: All are welcome to join. Fabulous prize for the winner! Theme: “Story Through a Picture” Work should reflect a Japanese theme through photography, drawing, or painting. Size: 5×7 to 8×10; One entry per person.
Questions: contact Monica at social at jetaany dot org
JetWit is looking for someone to be in charge of posting job listings to JetWit. If interested, contact Steven at jetwit at jetwit dot com.
Reasons to do it:
- Potentially a good opportunity to get a big picture view of what’s going on in the jobs marketplace and perhaps position yourself well for HR type positions.
- Good way to find a new job or freelance opportunities for yourself if you’re looking.
- A chance to help out the JET alum community in a tough economic climate.
There’s an organized and methodical way to do all of this that’s not as hard as it seems. I’m happy to explain my process, and you can innovate and improvise from there. This job can also be broken up among more than one person with different areas of focus.
Requirements: You must be a JET alum, and you must be willing to stay with this on a relatively consistent basis.
Bonus: Can be an platform to write posts about job searching and the job market that would be helpful to the JET alum community.
Tokyo As Seen Through the Eyes of Foreigners (film review)
Article/Journalism, Blogs, Career, Cartoon/Illustration, Reviews, Uncategorized, Writers Comments Off on Tokyo As Seen Through the Eyes of Foreigners (film review)
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By Rick Ambrosio (Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08) and Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03)
Sunshine Cinema is now showing the movie Tokyo!, a compilation of three short films from the French directors Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge) and the Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host). Gondry himself made an appearance at two showings of the film when it debuted last weekend, for a Q&A session after the 7:30 show and introducing the movie at the 10:30 show. He spoke in his typically quirky way about his time shooting in Tokyo, and how things like the spaces between buildings and how Japanese people falling asleep on each other on the train fascinated him. Before starting the show, he expressed relief that his Japanese producers weren’t there so he wouldn’t feel bad about forgetting to thank them.
Tokyo! kicks off with his contribution of “Interior Design,” a Kafkaesque story about trying to find your place in the world. The story revolves around a young couple that Read More
James Kennedy “Librarian” essay sets blogosphere atwitter
Blogs, Books, Career, Celebrity, Humor, Interview/Profile, Roland Kelts, Uncategorized, Writers Comments Off on James Kennedy “Librarian” essay sets blogosphere atwitter
Following James Kennedy’s (Nara-ken, 2004-06) recent post of his essay describing the heretofore unpublicized lifestyles and rituals of librarians (a “cult” of which Kennedy’s own wife is admittedly a member) in connection with the American Library Association’s awarding of the “Best Book for Young Adults” to Neil Gaman, author of Coraline, rather than Kennedy’s The Order of Odd-Fish, the blogosphere was atwitter with commentary about Kennedy, who will be appearing in NYC March 22 for the JET Alumni Author Showcase along with Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99) and Robert P. Weston (Nara-ken, 2002-04)).
The Handless Poet’s Maria Alexander said:
I’m buying James Kennedy’s book, The Order of Odd-Fish. I’m buying it entirely because of this blog post. James Kennedy could quite possibly be the funniest man in America. http://www.thehandlesspoet.com/blogger/2009/03/james-kennedy-is-all-growed-up.html
School Library Journal’s Elizabeth Bird wrote:
Bad news for my husband. I have just fallen head-over-heels in love with James Kennedy, author of the YA novel The Order of Odd-Fish. Ladies and gentlemen of the liking men variety, I advise you to be very careful in reading this blog post of his which tells (in a fashion) of his experience with the last ALA Media Awards. He had me at “conniving sidelong lope” and now I feel compelled to read every damn word the fellow has ever written, starting from the early scribbles he scrawled out as a toothless mewling babe. Ba-bump goes my little heart. I also feel inclined to give him a bad review with the sole intention of hoping that he will write about me and do complicated things with my name. As I read through it I almost want to dedicate this entire post solely in the purpose of getting you to read this blog. Go. Now. Read. This. Man. I, for my part, am off to read his book. Even if it is YA. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1130041713.html?nid=3713
SWET Workshop: Problems with Presentations? The Doctor is In! (Tokyo)
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Via the e-mail list for the Tokyo-based Society of Writers, Editors and Translators:
Problems with Presentations? The Doctor is In!
If you usually work with words, but are wondering how to make the most of your presentation software, this hands-on seminar is for you.
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2009 10:15 – 16:00 (lunch break 12:00-13:00)
Place: Sophia University, Library room 524
Price: 10,000 (SWET members), 15,000 (non-members)
Presenters: Hugh Ashton & Shuji Yoshida
Language: English
Participants: Up to 12 Read More
JET alum and Interesse employee Helen Godfrey just shared a new feature that her company offers that makes it easy to look for job listings by city and by language.
Take it for a test ride and see if you find it helpful: http://www.iiicareer.com/applicant/en/jobsearch_america.php
Help JET alum Suzette Simon get into the Caroline’s Comedy Competition
Career, Contest, Humor, Interview/Profile, Uncategorized, Writers Comments Off on Help JET alum Suzette Simon get into the Caroline’s Comedy Competition
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Click here to vote for Suzette Simon (Tochigi-ken) (aka “The Subway Comic“) to be one of the entrants in Caroline’s “March Madness.” (Here’s the full voting URL address: http://www.like2laugh.com/comics/comedian.php?ent=-%20Suzette%20Simon%20-)
“March Madness” hosted by Caroline’s Comedy Club is one of NYC’s most challenging and fun comedy competitions. It’s 64 comics going head to head for comedy glory! However, to win it, she’s got to get in it. So help Suzette out by voting her in. (You can vote OFTEN but only once a day.)
The deadline is Sunday, March 1.
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
Learn more about Suzette at her website: http://www.subwaycomic.com/ and by watching this NY1 feature on her.
WIT Life #29: International Recognition to Wipe Away Domestic Woes
Article/Journalism, Blogs, Career, Cartoon/Illustration, Celebrity, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, Uncategorized, WIT Life, Writers Comments Off on WIT Life #29: International Recognition to Wipe Away Domestic Woes
WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
For those of you who didn’t tune in to the Academy Awards last night, Japan cleaned up in all the categories in which it received nominations. Going against heavily favored Waltzing with Bashir from Israel, Director Yojiro Takita’s Okuribito (Departures) took the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since the establishment of this award in 
1957, Japan Read More
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Julie Matysik (Yamanashi-ken, 2006-07) is a freelance copy editor and aspiring in-house editor who recently moved to NYC with her husband (also a JET alum). She is the midst of an internship in editing/publishing/writing. Editorial Pursuits chronicles her job hunting efforts, experiences and lessons learned.Well, it’s official: I am in internship junkie!
My inability to land a full-time job in publishing has left me with little options but to continue to pile on the internships. And my newest addition: Skyhorse Publishing.
In mid-January I realized that I wanted to gain experience in an actual publishing company (in addition to my literary agency internship) and so I turned to Craigslist.com for help. Finding an add for Skyhorse Publishing, a company I’d never even heard of before, I wrote my letter of interest and forwarded my resume and heard back a few days later. After a brief phone interview, I was awarded Read More
Request: Seeking self-employed, freelancers, telecommuters, and start-up entrepreneurs who work at home or at coffeeshops for a graduate research project
Career, Graduate School, Writers Comments Off on Request: Seeking self-employed, freelancers, telecommuters, and start-up entrepreneurs who work at home or at coffeeshops for a graduate research project
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This request is from Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06), webmaster for both JETAA NY and JetWit. He is currently a masters candidate at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.
Hi JetWit’ers,
I am working on a research and design project targeting the self-employed, freelancers, entrepreneurs and others who work at home, in coffeeshops, or in a co-working space (basically anywhere that is not a traditional office environment). If any of the above describes the way you do your work, I would love to ask you a few questions about your physical work space and professional networking needs.
Please email me at leesean /atto/ nyu /dotto/ edu if you are interested in helping out. I could meet in person over coffee, schedule a quick interview over the phone or we could just have a conversation over email, whatever works for you. Thanks!
There’s a good discussion on the Honyaku Google Group about why J->E translators seem to be very busy despite the bad economy. I’ve attempted to summarize some of them below, but you can find the full discussion by signing up for the group at http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku/. Definitely worth signing up if you work in (or want to work in) the Japanese-English translation field.
Suggested theories for why Japanese-English translation work has increased:
- Companies are cutting costs by outsourcing work to the market that used to be done in house
- A variant on the outsourcing theory: Many jobs were already budgeted and need to get done, but with layoffs there are fewer in-house workers so more is going to the translators. i.e., It’s a short-terms windfall.
- A variant on the short-term windfall: With more layoffs and fewer in-house employees, using a cheaper translator actually becomes more expensive because it requires more work by in-house employees to fix it up. Therefore, it makes more sense to give the work to higher quality translators who will be more accurate the first time around. (Note: I’m paraphrasing but probably could have worded this better.)
- Patent translation tends to be longer term work and is unaffected
- If you’re a good translator, you’ll continue to get work regardless
- As March approaches, departments in Japanese companies need to use up their budgets so that they don’t get shrunk the next time around
- Spring is just usually the busiest season for translation
- More translation work from U.S. (and less from Japan) because yen is stronger than the dollar and this makes U.S.-based translators relatively cheap labor
- Downturn has forced part-time and less-experienced translators out of the business leaving more work for more established translators
- For finance/investor relations work, there’s a short-term increase because the economic crisis has forced companies to disseminate press releases and other communications to all of their investors/consumers.
Feel free to post more theories and other comments for the benefit of the JET/JET Alum/Friend of JET/JetWit community in the comments section of this post.
The question has been raised by a JET alum translator/interpreter:
“Does anybody have an idea what the going rate for telephone interpretation (E<>J) is?”
Please post any responses in the comment section.
