Here’s the latest SOFT POWER/HARD TRUTHS column in the Daily Yomiuri by Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, this one whether Japan, like Fonzie in the epic sitcom Happy Days, has “jumped the shark.”
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20100122TDY11003.htm
Also, fyi, Roland is now down in Miami for the Super Bowl (his sister works for the NFL!) hanging out with his pal Pete Townsend of The Who which will be providing the halftime entertainment. Here’s the post from Roland’s blog: http://japanamerica.blogspot.com/2010/02/super-bowl-in-south-beach.html
Benjamin Davis (ALT Chiba-ken, 2006-07, CIR/PA Chiba Kencho, 2007-09) is a freelance writer/researcher, translator, renaissance man and jack-of-all-trades based in rural Chiba-ken. He can be contacted at davis.benjamin.j@gmail.com and is always on the lookout for new and interesting projects.
“Setsubun, Bean-tossing, and the Old Japanese Calendar”
This February 3rd, when he gets home from work, my friend Mr. Watanabe will be chased out of his own house, by his own children, who will shout at him and throw dried beans in his face.
No, this is not some clever new trick on the children’s part to get back at him for enforcing their bedtimes. On the contrary, it will be something he planned in concert with them days earlier. He himself will be wearing a demon mask, his wife will be encouraging the children on in the background, and the shouts in question will be repeated cries of “Demons out, fortune in!”
You see, this bean-throwing and shouting is actually an ancient Japanese tradition called “Setsubun” (節分). It is a ritual whose objective is to chase out the malevolent spirits that may have built up like dust bunnies in the dark corners of the house over the year and invite in good fortune for the coming year.
To make the experience more symbolically tangible, a male member of the house may dress up as Read More
Violinist Diana Yukawa
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Here’s the latest SOFT POWER/HARD TRUTHS column in the Daily Yomiuri by Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, this one about hybrid people, hybrid music and hybridization as a trend.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20091218TDY11001.htm
Diana Yukawa age 8
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By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08) who is currently a teacher in the NYC Teaching Fellows Program.
I have an ESL kid! WHEEE!
I am way too happy about that!
I became fast friends with the ESL teacher at my school, Amercy. And she is. I love her first name. It’s eloquent! Once upon a time she worked as a push-in for my class but no longer. I was sad to see her go. However now she is coming back because someone gave me Jesus!
Though a majority of my native-speaking students need major assistance with English reading, writing and most importantly, EXPRESSION, this kid is mandated. His former classroom was taught by a Spanish-speaking teacher and his classmates were all bilingual.
But mami wants her baby to start speaking English.
He’s a good boy. Let’s call him Jesus. Jesus is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican. For the most part he sticks with my native-tongued Paras in the kitchen. Sitting him down for instruction in English is understandably a slow process. It’s scary being the kid who doesn’t quite catch everything. He’s a smart boy, though, and damn have I missed teaching ESL.
I don’t get much one-on-one time with my new kid and I always try to corner away just a little for everyone when they first come in. Plus, there’s no way I’m letting Graciela mommy him. He’s in my class because his parents want him in an all-inclusive English environment. It’s been a while since I’ve forced English on innocent kids who need it. Read More
Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, has another SOFT POWER/HARD TRUTHS column in The Daily Yomiuri (and also re-printed in 3:AM Magazine) about J-Pop music in America, featuring interviews with Miho Hatori, formerly of Cibo Mato, and Reni-chan, a recent NYC transplant from Tokyo, plus reflections on AKB48.
- Daily Yomiuri SOFT POWER/HARD TRUTHS: Japan’s Music Makers in America
- Link to 3:AM Magazine post of the column: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/3am-asia-soft-power-hard-truths-japans-music-makers-in-america/
Check out the latest article by Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, in AdBusters magazine, titled “Japanese Simplicity: The only way to leave a smaller footprint would be to die.”
Also stay tuned for Roland’s forthcoming novel titled “Access.”
Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, has an article in the August issue of Adbusters magazine addressing the long lineage of Japanese artists’ resistance to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and subsequent interdependence. With the elections looming on August 30th, perhaps this additional context will be of interest JET alum.
The Soul of Japan: Japan’s crisis is not political, but psychological
© hideaki kawashima | soak, 2004 | courtesy tomio koyama gallery, tokyo
https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/84/soul-japan.html
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Echigo Koutsuu spoiled the ever-living fuck out of me.
If I was ever for any reason required to place myself in Tokyo, I had four options:
1) The Shinkansen. Though I will forever be devoted to the miracle and blessing of the bullet train, one way on that horse cost 9,000 yen and required a trip to Nagaoka. Fast, clean, and idiot-proof, riding the Shink is kind of like God giving you a shoulder rub as you magically transport to any major Japanese city in .14 nanoseconds-mit snacks.
2) My Taxi: This was one of a few van shuttle services that picked you up from your front door and dropped you off exactly where you needed to be. Using this option required a keitai and a fairly efficient amount of Japanese as you had to be able to make the reservation and let the driver know where to find you in the terminal. Yes, once upon a time my Japanese was serviceable.
I often used this option when I was coming home from Narita. I could just as easily have taken the Shink but Read More
Geneva Marie (Niigata-ken, 2008-09) grew up all over the U.S. but if asked will tell you she’s from Minneapolis, MN . JET Lag will recount Geneva’s experiences and thoughts as she prepares to leave the comfortable womb of her JET life and figure out her next move.
It’s been an entire month since my last JETLag post! I had an entire week of birthday activities, I did some much-needed traveling, and soon after I was…sickety, sick, SICK! Needless to say -I’m playing catch-up.
It’s no surprise. I was getting off too easy. Nearly two months with nary a cough, sniffle, or sneeze. I knew it wouldn’t last, especially given my bill of health in Japan.
I had spent nearly all winter ill. Like, totally illin’, but not in that Beastie Boys kind of way. I was told that it was probably due to the fact that I was teaching little kids for the first time. Either that, or because the whole “no heat situation” in indoor places OR the worst case scenario: there was killer mold hiding in the apartment somewhere. Whatever the case, I was sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. I got the flu which is pretty normal for the winter season just about anywhere, but I had gone out of my way to get a flu shot every winter in America for about the last five years or so. I had forgotten how freaky the flu really is: the sweating, the puking, the hallucinations. All experienced alone, in a cold apartment without a kind hand to wipe the sweat from my brow.
In any case, at least it wasn’t Read More
This is a call out to JET alumni in chapters everywhere about where you get your “Japan fix,” i.e., where you go in your town or region to feel connected with Japan, whether through food, karaoke, cultural activities or interacting with Japanese people.
The goal is to end up with a collection of “Japan fix” articles from different JET alumni chapters and from JET alumni in different cities and towns throughout the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and anywhere else. (Well, except in Japan, where you get your Japan fix pretty much every day.)
The purpose is to aid JET alums who live or are planning to move to a certain area. A great way to know where to go for things Japanese in your new home town. And a great way to use our collective JET alum brains to help each other out.
JETAA Montreal is already working on the first one. If you want to write one for your chapter, subchapter, town, state, province, etc., feel free to get in touch. Or just write it and email it to Steven at jetwit [at] jetwit [dot] com and put “Japan Fix” in the subject heading.
Yoroshiku and gambarimashou!
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Don’t be such an Aso.
I should really fucking stop reading the articles on Japan Today. Simply because the comments crack me up. A majority of them are incredibly hateful, but the vapid self-righteous immaturity just makes me lose my shit.
So Aso, with superhuman speed, rescinded his statement about having kids as an “obligation” he has fulfilled. Smooth, Aso. Could you imagine Obama stumbling over that pitfall? There’d be rioting in the streets and then the Dixie Chicks would get involved…
Admittedly, using such terms to describe reproduction is a bit harsh, especially for a politician. No woman wants to hear about her uterus placed under any guideline, especially by their supreme leader. This is not the Third Reich, after all. Politicians are icons and the populace look to icons as shining paragons who watch their mouths– or at least have their mouths watched for them. Bless Koizumi for being a politician divorced with scattered spawn– a hipster, long-haired, Elvis-loving fuck. I miss him and have a crush on him in the same way any normal person might yearn for Jean-Luc (Picard, that is.)
Sorry, I digress… Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
As I have mentioned before, I am not well traveled in Japan. Hence, I have very little basis for comparison as far as varieties go. Whether or not a specific food was particular to my region or even just my town remains a mystery to me. A prime example of this is 新潟お米。 Known by the fancy name of Koshi Hikari. Is it the most delicious rice in all of Japan? I could not tell you with any certainty. I do not know what rice tastes like in other parts of Japan. The rice was certainly of a noticeable quality and texture and I was always happy to eat it but filled with rapture? Not so much.
I’ll tell you what did fill me with rapture, though. マーポーめん
Has no one else heard of this? Really? No one thought to do this?
Just across the bridge and right next to National Highway Route 8 was a tiny pink ramen-ya called Kuishinbo. Read More
Geneva Marie (Niigata-ken, 2008-09) grew up all over the U.S. but if asked will tell you she’s from Minneapolis, MN . JET Lag will recount Geneva’s experiences and thoughts as she prepares to leave the comfortable womb of her JET life and figure out her next move.
So you’re going to die.
I mean, HOME…So you’re going home!
I decided. I did it. I made that final, definitive decision to resign from the JET program as of this coming July. Yikes!
After a winter of deliberating whether or not another year in my isolated country town would be a good move for me, I chose carefully between a sure and steady means of employment with little hassle as far as re-contracting goes and the “mystery box” of future uncertainty: returning to the shaky job market in the US.
I can’t help but wish that after I had signed my final re-contracting papers with a “nay” back in February that I would have been given a pamphlet that said “So you’re going home…” -something like that scene in The Simpsons episode, One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish, in which Homer is handed a pamphlet stating “So you’re going to to die…”after eating some poisonous fugu. I mean, at least he had some instructions…
(What the heck am I going to do NOW?) Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
I would pay a ton of money to be a Japanese-comprehending fly on the wall of a Glico marketing conference. Summer approaches and Japan requires a new gum.
Eureka! I’ve got it! Monkey gum!
No one’s gonna buy monkey gum, idiot.
I tell you some folk can’t resist the idea of monkey gum! It’ll be a sensation! The people will embrace it by storm!
3 people will embrace it by storm–the guy in the strait jacket and the two men in white chasing him with a net.
You just don’t see my vision, man!
Ok. What exactly does monkey gum taste like?
I believe we may have found an appropriate vehicle for our as yet unlaunched gobo-yuzu series.
In what blanking universe does gobo OR yuzu have anything whatsoever to do with primates?
Who fucking cares??? It’s monkey blast! Simmianrific! Sarutastic! My mojo’s on the yen, baby! Tart it up, get Kamenashi in a chimp suit to whore it out and it’ll sell like スルメ in a Nursing Home!
The ironic thing is, ladies and gents? It likely will. In fact, it might even launch an American remake.
Such a fickle lot the Japanese are. Just when I’d start developing a bitching jones for キャラメル 味 Kit-Kats, I’d find them cruelly yanked come Winter and Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
When you’re a Jet,
You’re the top cat in town,
You’re the gold medal kid
With the heavyweight crown!When you’re a Jet,
You’re the swingin’est thing:
Little boy, you’re a man;
Little man, you’re a king!-Stephen Sondheim
Hmmmmmmm….
The issue of employment prospects on my return to the Mothership left me with more than a little concern and doubt. People with families losing jobs or flocking to my hometown in droves to find work. The market in chaos. MBAs rejected by Dominos. It’s a mess and dearie me, what have I got that Sir J. Friends-a-Lot hasn’t? Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Every Situation is Different.
That is the last time I’m gonna quote that fucking phrase. It holds, it certainly does, because despite any nation’s best attempts at uniformity in any manner of regulation, formality or creed, humans are made of wet clay and can be very unpredictable/slimy.
Cartoon by Earth Bennett (Aomori-ken, 2000-03). To see more ESID cartoons go to http://www.angelfire.com/comics/esid/archive.htm
Myth#1: An ALT is an ASSISTANT language teacher.
Come on dudes. The fact of the matter is we are a grassroots cultural exchange thingummy. In order to successfully carry out their expected duties (such as they are), most ALTs must first learn to reconcile their own cultural differences and run with the pack. In Japan, this tends to mean Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered…
A newly arrived ingénue sits on the 2nd floor of a local coffee dive in her adopted 田舎 dwelling. Birds are chirping. Squid is drying. All seems right with the universe.
Without warning, the earth trembles.
Delicately ejecting the coffee just inhaled a mere moment ago, our ingénue dives Bruce Willis style under the nearest table, taking out an entire shelf of neatly-stacked, carefully-categorized dog-earedまんが.
Her Japanese companion raises an eyebrow. She hasn’t even put down her cup.
“Uh…大丈夫?”
“No!” Ingenue blurts, biting down on a freshly polished nail to stay the hysteria. “This is it! Doomsday! The roof’s gonna cave, we’re all gonna perish-”
“ええじゃん? A little one like this?…” The owner, a puckish man named Kurochan, laughs as his establishment sways to and fro.
That was my first earthquake ever. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Japan is known to the world at large for its countless and enduring cultural contributions from the over-appreciated 茶の湯 to the oft overlooked (but sorely missed) heated toilet seat. However, there is one thing I’d like to scrawl into every guide book; one nuance of Japan that I’d like forever engraved in the minds of curious tourists: Excess noise.
What exactly is meant by excess noise?
It’s not something one cannot become desensitized to in time. But it is yet another reminder you are no longer in Kansas.
いっらしゃいませ！For the timid/under-informed, this customary holler of welcome and professional integrity is as intimidating as a car honk. Haplessly wander into any establishment in Japan and you will have to grow accustomed to multiple people welcoming you with bellowing. At least you know you’ve got their attention? But I’ve heard some dudes get creative with their shouting. Almost made me want to inch away from all that tempting スルメ they were peddling。
Let’s not even get into election time, shall we? Oh man, oh man.
Jingles. It seems like everything in Japan from coal to second hand stores has a mind-numbing jingle to it. I bet they even have a jingle for jingles! Augh! I pitied the dudes who had to work at Off House the recycling center. I have witnessed the slack jaws and desperate gazes of Disney employees trapped in their kiosks and made to listen to the Pocahontas soundtrack on an endless loop. So, too, was the fate of the Off House worker. But the fun did not stop there. Oh no.
“Why is the food singing at me?” I wondered aloud as I stared at the onigiri. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Many things in Japan were my crack cocaine. Tarako, choco an-pan, hijiki, and heated toilet seats all soon became things I could not smile without. I would do lines of kinako dust in the morning just to ease my peanut butter withdrawal. Hon maguro became my sushi requirement. In my rusty little hamlet by the sea there was no shortage of shiokara (salted squid guts) to go with the copious amounts of booze that somehow found me. The stuff was pretty tasty as long as you ate it with a heaping dose of denial.
But of all things Japanese that would make me their bitch, I owe my sanity to one ambrosial substance: 玄米茶。
That’s brown rice tea for those not in the know.
Friends, a steaming cup of genmai-cha on a colorless cold morning feels like a mini three day weekend. It tastes like autumn in a cup, like being hugged by your ample armed mother. Please have some. Read More
By translator and writer Jamie Graves (Saitama-Ken 2002-2003)
The Japanese language is notorious for having a relatively small number of phonemes compared to other major world languages, which can be a hindrance when having to learn new sounds outside that structure (the infamous “L” and “R” distinction), but results in a tremendous number of homonyms. While there are slight changes in emphasis between the words for “hair”, “god” and “paper”, they are all kami. I think we can safely assume that the Japanese have been making linguistic tricks like this into bad puns for centuries, if not millennia.
When the Chinese writing system first crash landed onto the Japanese language around fifteen-hundred years ago no one could have predicted the historical fallout: an explosion of bad puns. As Chinese characters were gradually adapted to Japanese, all of the tones that had previously distinguished words like“mǎ” (“horse”, 馬) from “má” (“hemp” 麻) were flattened out. In a language already rife with nearly identical words, this produced a new explosion of homonyms, the building blocks of puns. (The Chinese also use these for puns. In an effort to mess with government censors the phrase 草泥马, “grass-mud-horse” has gone viral on the Chinese blogosphere because the same sounds with different tones mean… something not really printable here. ( This page explains the whole phenomenon.)
Case in point, the furious Japanese tongue twister “Uraniwa niwa niwa, niwa niwa niwa, niwatori ari”. (裏庭には二羽、庭には二羽、鶏あり). Niwa in Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
The trip home was poetic. Trying to spare myself the tremendous charge for checking more than 2 bags on a flight, I condensed the entirety of my JET existence into three bags. One of them (a duffel bag to be precise) broke 30 minutes before the takyuubin people were due so we Macguyver-ed the fucker up with twine and a paperclip and hoped for the best.
How I thought that bag could not be the source of hilarious drama is beyond me.
You should have witnessed me getting it onto the plane. Narita is like some parallel universe where things have to go right even when they are noticeably falling apart. The lack of stress at Narita is downright fucking scary for an airport. Bless its hallowed grounds.
So let me present you with reason #718 of just how stupid I can be. Read More
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James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, has a new blog post in which he “attacks” the American Library Association in a uniquely entertaining way. Below is an intro which doesn’t even begin to do justice to the full post.
In January the American Library Association held its Midwinter Meeting in Denver. Teenagers were invited to talk about their favorite books that were nominated for YALSA’s “Best Books for Young Adults” list.
It was reported that one fan of The Order of Odd-Fish wore a three-foot-long red-and-white fish hat in its honor, declaring that the book was “incredibly, ridiculously funny. You just don’t see books like this very often.”
I was able to track down a photo of the gentleman. His name: Kevin Buckelew. I have written a factual account the incident below.
You can meet James on March 22 at the JET Alumni Author Showcase in New York, along with Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, and Robert Weston (Nara-ken, 2002-04), author of Zorgamazoo. Space is limited to RSVP to reserve your spot. Details at http://jetaany.org/authors.
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
I had an inaka bank. 弟四銀行. Anyone outside Niigata even heard of it? Is it just a Niigata thing? Do they have those in Nagano/Toyama/Nagoya?
I was always nervous going to Tokyo because the only ATM that would recognize my ATM card was the 7-11. Not the Save-On, not the AM/PM, not the Circle K, not even some of the LAWSON’S in the big city would take my card but I could always rely on 7-11. Oh, how sad I was when I parted with my cute little pink ATM card with the cartoon duckies on it. Nah, I’m not shitting you.
Learning the Japanese ATM ropes was quick enough. Once I recognized the kanji for “balance” and “withdrawal”, my financial worries were over. Furikomi? Yeah, I love those! They’re sooo yummy, especially when they’re r-….wait, that’s not a food?
Ohhh, friends. Nothing could be more tragi込み than watching American citizen Numero Uno trying to pull off a delicate kanji procedure such as a furikomi on her own. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
My first year in Japan schooled me.
Learn how to suck it up, you soft American pansy. This is Nippon and we don’t care if your carcass is rotting and your soul is spiraling rapidly towards damnation. We will smile and hand you the five letter dirty word: G-A-M-A-N. Now get your sorry ass into that tanmoku of 40 revved up first years or we will not be amused.
Going in to work sick is a part of life. You popped your meds, filled your water bottle and dragged your dead weight to class. Some days you just don’t have the juice to perform. When you haven’t seen the sun for 3 straight months and Kocho thinks its a swell idea to keep the heaters turned off in January to save money, you sometimes have to look under the couch of your soul and hope to scrape up some change in order to get through the day.
Nonetheless, sick is sick.
I only ever got heinously ill once in Japan. Heinous enough to see a Japanese doctor, that is. The guy was curt, handed me a vast array of Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
This rant is in reaction to yet another Gaijin in a Strangeland vehicle starring Brittany Murphy. Ramen Girl. The mythicization of Japanese culture or should I say, Tokyo. “Put tears in the broth.” Augh!
I suppose there is some part of us that wants it to be true. After all, we don’t want the Japanese to be “just like us”. Noooo. That’s buzzkill for the exotic hard on. Barred behind a wall of cultural differences, a needy bitch of a language barrier and a society oft coined as “repressed”, it’s downright fucking magical to buy into the wax on/wax off charms of the Floating Kingdom. Where there are question marks, there are bound to be intrigue and lies and after all, what is Hollywood for?
Ohhh, Mr. Keisuke (yes, you have a first name) Miyagi:
You have forever damned your race with your awesomeness! Your humble janitorial exterior and invincible hidden dragon have created fantastical expectations for Japanese everywhere in cinema. Japanese people must all have two identities now. Every ramenya san must be a tough yet secretly kindhearted sage, every high school girl a porn star, every businessman a casual ninja, every sushi artist a contraband swordsmith for the likes of vengeful blondes. Come now. Let us stop making a fetish out of the entire nation. I propose some indie film maker focus on the truly lethal demographic of Japanese society:
Obaasans.
These dames are not. fucking. around. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Dudes, I have a confession.
I am scared shitless of the yaki-imoyasan.
Granted, I am a petit pussois and many things creep me out. But I will chalk this up to sheer cultural ignorance and unexplainable skeevies. The potato man is out to get me.
For those not in the know, a yaki-imo is a roasted sweet potato and a yaki-imo ya san is the elderly chap designated by some hellish force to peddle it. Oh, the sweet potato man ain’t lookin’ for your money or to warm your cramped fingers, friend. Nah-uh. He wants your soul. You’ve been warned. Read More
Peter Weber (Saitama-ken, Gyoda-shi, 2004-07) is the JET Coordinator at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco.
This is how I remember it… As previously mentioned, even though I had overcome many of my dietary obstacles, I still hungered for “American Cuisine”. Although McDonald’s was always easily accessible, it was only a temporary “fix”.
I wanted a more hearty burger. So I went to the place where all answers are found… the internet. After searching words like “Applebees”, “Chili’s”, and “Fuddruckers” I finally hit the jackpot. My salvation was when I entered three wonderful letters followed by one word that makes everyone happy. Located less than 50 miles away in Ueno we found our salvation, and it came with a Happy Hour!
(Click here to read the rest of the post.)
Here’s the latest update on JET alum Roland Kelts (Osaka, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica and professor at Tokyo University:
ADBUSTERS: A feature story, co-written with Leo Lewis of the Times of London, about signs of socialism and unrest among Japanese youth and the Kanikosen phenomenon is now online:
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/81/big_in_japan.html (On a related topic, Stacy Smith comments on recent political unrest following the closing of an auto manufacturing plant in Japan in WITLife #7-Totyota Shock (Part 2).)
DAILY YOMIURI: In his latest Soft Power/Hard Truths column in the Daily Yomiuri, Roland revisits Michael Arias, the only American to have directed a feature anime film in Japan–Tekkonkinkreet–(which, incidentally, premiered in the US at MOMA in 2007). Arias’s forthcoming film is the live action Heaven’s Door (opens 2/7/09 in Japan), which Roland attended at a private screening last week. Link to the column: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20081212TDY13004.htm
Seikai University Talk: Roland’s blog (japanamerica.blogspot.com) has a post about his recent talk at Seikei University in western Tokyo about Japanamerica where he introduced both the ideas examined in the book and the latest happenings in the trans-cultural exchange between Japan and the U.S.
After chaperoning Pete Townsend and The Who around Japan for a couple weeks, having a press conference with Hayao Miyazaki and interviewing both Murakamis (Haruki and Ryu), Roland Kelts (Osaka, 1998-99) pauses to reflect on the interactions as well as some new perspectives on “pop culture” in his latest SOFT POWER, HARD TRUTHS column in the Daily Yomiuri.
Update: I just learned from Roland that the radio discussion listed below will actually not air this week.
You can also hear Roland on NPR’s “The World” this Thursday (i.e., tomorrow) for a program about the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in the US.
Roland Kelts (Osaka, 1998-99), the author of Japanamerica and a professor at Todai, is back in Japan and up to some interesting things.
NPR: He’s putting together a program about Japan’s generation gap and disaffected youth culture for WNYC’s Studio 360. It will likely air in January.
Anime Masterpieces: Creating and editing a Study Guide for the next film in the 
series, Tekkonkinkreet. Go to animemasterpieces.com for more info on the panel. The most recent event was on the 14th at the Waterloo Festival of Animated Cinema in Canada. The next event will be Dec. 6th at the Smithsonian featuring John Dower, Susan Napier and Fred Schodt. The next event in which Roland will appear will be Feb. 11 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The Who: Attending all four of their Kanto area shows and spending time with Pete Townsend and his assistant and crew (with whom he’s become friends!) According to Roland, the shows have been spectacular, with rabidly enthusiastic responses from Japanese fans–who stand and cheer through the entire concert (which he observes is fairly unusual for usually reserved Japanese concert-goers). The final two shows will be at Budokan.
He even received a compliment from Pete Townsend on his latest Daily Yomiuri column, which Pete read one morning when the paper was delivered to his hotel room.
Adbusters Magazine: Has become a contributing writer/editor at Adbusters magazine (http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/too_comfortable_to_take_risks.html), which means he provides a story from Japan for every issue, starting this past September. A scan of his story from the lates issue 
is, The MANGA MAN, is available on Roland’s blog. Meanwhile, the current issue of Adbusters has a lengthy feature by Roland on the recent success of Kanikosen (The Crab Ship), a socialist novel written by Takiji Kobayashi in 1929, among young Japanese, and the spike in enrollment in Japan’s Communist Party since the start of this year.
A reminder to contact me if you’re interested in writing an essay on the “Alone in the Kitchen with a Rice Cooker” theme about cooking for yourself (or eating by yourself) in Japan.
And an interesting (and unsolicited) take on the theme in a recent blog from, of all people, film critic Roger Ebert. (Includes a reference to Zojirushi, the current employer of Fukuoka-ken JET alum and previous “Translator’s Challenge” winner Sharon Tatro.)
I’m looking for people interested in writing essays on the theme: Alone in the Kitchen with a Rice Cooker
The idea is to write an essay (any length or “shortness” is ok) about cooking for yourself (or could be eating by yourself) when you lived in Japan. The focus, however, is intended to be on the theme of being alone in Japan viewed through the prism of cooking/eating. It’s just about whatever you liked to do (or found yourself doing) cooking-wise when you were alone and how that ties into the rest of your experience in Japan. Feel free to focus exclusively on the food, or feel free to use the food as a jumping-off point for other things. If you want to include a recipe for whatever food you describe, that would be a nice touch as well.
The idea is derived from book of published essays entitled Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (a good read in itself). I think the essays on this topic will offer some very interesting and readable perspectives on the JET Program, on Japan, on cooking and on the theme of being alone.
Deadline is open. Just send an email to express your intent to write an essay.
Contact: Steven Horowitz at stevenwaseda ,at, jetwit , com
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