Let’s Talk Japan, Episode 26 – DISCO International Bilingual Recruiting
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Let’s Talk Japan is a monthly, interview format podcast covering a wide range of Japan-related topics. Host Nick Harling (Mie-ken, 2001-03) lived in Japan from 2001 until 2005, including two great years as a JET Program participant in Mie-Ken. He practices law in Washington, D.C., and lives with his wife who patiently listens to him talk about Japan . . . a lot.
In this episode, Nick speaks with JET Program alumni Catherine Rackley (Chiba-ken 2005-06) of DISCO International, a human resources firm specializing in Japanese-English bilingual recruitment. Whether you’re currently job searching or just curious about bilingual employment possibilities, this episode is full of useful information.
If you have not already done so, be sure to follow the podcast on Twitter @letstalkjapan and leave a positive rating/review in iTunes.
Job: Bi-Lingual English/Japanese Advisor – The Creative Group(NJ)
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Via Indeed. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Bi-Lingual English/Japanese Advisor
Posted by: The Creative Group
Location: Essex County, NJ
Type: Full-time
Job: Full-time Driver, Administrative Section – Japan Consulate (Chicago)
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Via JETAA Chicago webletter. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Full-time Driver, Administrative Section
Posted by: Japanese Consulate at Chicago
Location: Chicago, IL
Type: Full-time
Responsibilities
Drive official car safely.
Other duties as assigned. Read More
Job: Assistant, Economic Affairs Section – Japan Consulate (Chicago)
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Via JETAA Chicago webletter. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Assistant, Economic Affairs Section
Posted by: Consulate General of Japan at Chicago
Location: Chicago, IL
Type: Full-time
Key Responsibilities
・ Monitor economic developments in 10 Midwest states
・ Assist in an annual survey of Japanese companies in the Midwest
・ General office matters, including Japan-related inquiries and correspondence Read More
JQ Magazine: The 18th Japanese Film Festival — More Films, More Countries
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The 18th Japanese Film Festival. Better than any other Japanese Film Festival in the Northern Hemisphere except Japan. (Courtesy of JFF)
By Eden Law (Fukushima-ken, 2010-11) for JQ magazine. Taking full and outrageous advantage of being a JETAA member, Eden returns again this year to watch and review the 18th Japanese Film Festival, now covering both Australia and New Zealand, with more films than ever. It’s so big that both himself and Rafael Villadiego (Nagasaki-ken, 2010-13) will shoulder the burden of covering this, the biggest and best method of (legally) watching Japanese films outside of Nippon.
The 18th Japanese Film Festival continues in Auckland (6-12 Nov), Sydney (13-23rd Nov) and Melbourne (27 Nov-7 Dec).
The 18th Japanese Film Festival became a pan-Oceanic film festival this year with the inclusion of New Zealand, making it the largest Japanese film festival in the world. The program includes over 60 films, some of which have barely just made it to the movie theatres in Japan, such as Samurai of the Dead, Japan’s action-packed foray into zombie lore, mixed with the historical legend of the Shinsengumi. And speaking of a connection to that famed group, the guaranteed draw card would be the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, shown in their complete collection for the first time. The live-action adaptation of the manga and anime series about the itinerant samurai hero with a bloody past screened to sold-out venues in some cities.
However, there are other notables this year as well, such as the award-winning Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days, called the best film of 2013 by domestic Japanese film magazines. Watching a parent deal with dementia is not exactly feel-good movie material, but audiences have responded positively to its poignant and lighthearted treatment of the subject, which is based on the best-selling autobiographical manga of the same name. In a less lighthearted tone, Kiyoshi Sasabe returns with two films, one of which is Tokyo Refugees, based on the novel Tokyo Nanmin by Tetsuzo Fukuzawa, and explores the world of the homeless in Tokyo through the life of one character whose life spirals out of control.
No festival like this would be complete without anime entries, and this year sees strong entries from two different generations: from the master Osamu Tezuka (he of Astro Boy fame) comes the second Buddha film in the ongoing adaptation of his epic, 10-year work on the story of Siddharta; and from the brash new generation (with an assist from Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo), an anthology of four shorts called Short Peace, billed as “reclaiming anime for grown-ups.” Studio Ghibli’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (read JQ’s review here) is also showing, although in smaller cities, probably to avoid conflict with the Studio Ghibli mini-festival that overlaps with this event in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
“Visually, the film is a treat, as the animators have combined elements of Japanese anime with Hollywood CGI-style animation.” (Walt Disney Pictures)
By Lyle Sylvander (Yokohama-shi, 2001-02) for JQ magazine. Lyle has completed a master’s program at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and has been writing for the JET Alumni Association of New York since 2004. He is also the goalkeeper for FC Japan, a New York City-based soccer team.
When the Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment in 2009, it became inevitable that the superheroes in the comic book canon would find themselves headlining their own Disney movies. That notion came to fruition in 2012 when Disney released Marvel’s The Avengers, followed by the Thor, Iron Man and Captain America sequels. The lesser-known comic book superheroes collectively known as the Guardians of the Galaxy made their debut in 2014 and grossed an astounding $765 million worldwide.
Coming on the heels of that release is the latest Disney-Marvel collaboration, Big Hero 6—the first to be produced by its animation division. Unlike the other films, Big Hero 6 is aimed at the family audience so that it can entertain young children as well as teenagers and adults. It shares more in common with another Disney subsidiary named Pixar than its Marvel brethren. While it does not attain the high standards set by Pixar in such films as Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles (let’s face it—nothing does), it is an entertaining and fun movie.
Presumably the characters in Big Hero 6 are not well known outside the realm of comic book fandom—they don’t have the name recognition of Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, etc. But the absence of brand recognition comes with a pair of trump cards: low preconceived expectations and the element of surprise. Many in the audience will be introduced to the characters and world of Big Hero 6 for the first time—and it is a remarkably innovative world.
Job: Programme and Administrative Services Officer – UNU-IAS (Tokyo)
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Via Idealist. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Programme and Administrative Services Officer
Posted by: United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS)
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Grad: Graduate Assitanceship for Colorado State U’s Global & Sustainable Enterprise MBA (Colorado)
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Rocky Mountain JETAA member Shelby Sacks (Nagano-ken, 1996-99) is specifically seeking a JET alum to participate in this very unique opportunity. This was originally posted a few weeks ago and is being posted again to make sure JET alums are aware of it. Please feel free to contact Shelby with any questions.
Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Posted by: Colorado State University – Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA
Location: Colorado
Overview:
A JET Alumni is now a Program Manager for a very unique MBA and is reserving a graduate assistantship for the right JET alumni.
As a JET alumni, I know you are starting to think “What’s next?” I also know a few things about JET’s…We have a passion for making the world a better place, we’ve seen a lot in our travels and aren’t happy with the status quo, we welcome opportunities to reach beyond our comfort zone and we enjoy working on tough challenges with a close-knit group of like-minded people. Read More
Job: Operation Staff and Sales Rep positions with Japanese conference room rental company (NYC)
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Two positions via Actus Consulting. If you apply, please make sure to indicate that you learned of the listing via JETwit. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Operation Staff
Posted by: Japanese conference room rental company
Location: New York, NY
Type: Full-time
Company Information: a pioneer in the meeting and event venue industry in Japan. We provide a wide range of venues to fulfill diversified customers’ needs from social gatherings to corporate events. Founded in 2005, and headquartered in Tokyo and today comprises of over 120 conveniently located conference centers nationwide. Has international conference centers in Shanghai and Hong Kong. We now introduce our first location in New York. Read More
Job: Digital Communications Specialist/Manager – U.S.-Japan Council (DC)
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Via Idealist. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Digital Communications Specialist/Manager
Posted by: U.S.-Japan Council
Location: Washington, DC
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Job: Executive and Program Assistant – Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (DC)
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Via Idealist. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Executive and Program Assistant
Posted by: Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA
Location: Washington, DC
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Life After JET: Of Legal Discourse and Family Ties
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Re-published after its first appearance from the JETAA NSW site: Our next Life After JET alumni is Shino Hamada (CIR Fukuoka-shi 2006-2011), a legal practitioner for a Sydney-based subsidiary for a major Japanese trading firm, whose life experiences show that you should always grab opportunities as they come by.
There is a tiny coastal town in the Southern part of Nagasaki Prefecture called Kazusa-machi. Besides a few holiday makers who visit its somewhat white sandy beaches in the summer, Kazusa-machi is usually a town which people merely drive through on their way from Nagasaki City to Shimabara City or vice versa. I was born there and spent the first eight years of my life running around on the beach behind our house with my three older siblings and speaking in the thickest Nagasaki dialect, until my hippie parents decided to uproot the whole family to live in New Zealand.
We continued to speak Japanese at home in West Auckland for four years, until my parents divorced and mum left us and returned to Japan. In order for us to overcome this incident, my dad forbade us to speak Japanese to each other and ordered us to discard everything that was Japanese, including our beloved Doraemon comic books and anything that reminded us of mum. My dad often spoke of his negative feelings towards Japan which rubbed off on me to the extent that I refused to speak Japanese at all for the next six years.
Still, Japan was always in the back of my mind and I was always a tiny bit curious about it. I also had not seen mum since she left us, so when I finished high school, I decided that I might as well go live with her in Nagasaki for a year. I arrived in Japan with a very low expectation and an extremely rusty tongue for the language, but what I found there was something beautiful, what I can only describe as ‘comfortable’ and I quickly fell in love with the culture and the people. I worked at a local supermarket fulltime and also taught English to primary school children in the evenings and weekends and loved every minute of it. At the supermarket, there would be regular customers who would always come and happily chat with me about their grandchildren or their pet dog and give me pumpkins from their garden. At the English school, the kids were always happy to see me and eager to learn.
Once the year was over, I returned to New Zealand to start university and decided to study Linguistics and Language Teaching. In my second year, a friend suggested that a Bachelor Arts would merely make me employable at McDonalds, which I gullibly believed and decided that I would study law to complement my Bachelor of Arts. In my last year, I decided to apply for the JET Programme as a CIR so that I could spend a couple of years living near mum and gain some experience working in a Japanese office. I did not really intend on becoming a lawyer after I graduated, but since I had eight months between the end of university and my departure for Japan on the JET Programme, I thought I might as well complete my professional legal studies course and I became admitted as a lawyer in New Zealand a couple of month before I left for Fukuoka.
In Fukuoka, I worked for the International Affairs Department in the city hall along with two CIR’s from non-English speaking countries. At first, people were curious about my background but they soon accepted that I was just a New Zealander who happens to look Japanese and speaks Japanese with an odd mix of a Nagasaki – New Zealand accent. My duties included translating and proofreading documents, interpreting for visitors from abroad, acting as a liaison between Fukuoka and a few of our sister cities, conducting monthly lectures for volunteer interpreters, judging speech contests, and conducting job interviews in English. I loved my job and I loved Fukuoka even more, to the extent that my initial intention to stay a maximum of two years was quickly disregarded and I ended up staying the JET maximum of five years.
At the returners’ conference in Tokyo in my fifth year, I still had not yet decided what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be after Fukuoka. I had vaguely toyed with the idea of combining my Japanese language skills with law in Japan previously, but when I spoke with a recruiter in my fourth year on JET, he advised that there are no opportunities for an inexperienced lawyer in Tokyo and that I should return to New Zealand and practice law for at least a couple of years before exploring the legal market in Tokyo. Nevertheless, by chance, I met a legal recruiter at the returners’ conference career fair, who heard of my law qualifications and my experience in a Japanese office and arranged an interview for the next day with the Tokyo office of a British law firm who was looking for a bilingual paralegal. I thought it would be a good practice job interview and thought I might as well try it. I went to an internet café that night and abruptly typed up my CV both in English and Japanese and I was lucky enough to be hired as a paralegal with a possibility of being promoted to a lawyer down the line.
I moved to Tokyo a couple of weeks after I bid farewell to my sweet home for five years and to my coworkers at the city hall who had become my beloved extended family. Once in Tokyo, I worked the hardest I had ever worked in my life, logged in long hours and hardly refused any work that came my way. The five year gap between my law degree and this job was somewhat filled by my experience working in a Japanese office and my understanding of the Japanese business culture which I shared with the foreign lawyers in the office. An Australian partner at my firm liked my work, took me under his wing and I had the privilege to be one of the core team members for a major acquisition of a multinational coal joint venture. It was a laborious few months and at times it felt as though I hardly slept, but the sense of satisfaction I felt once it was over was well worth it. I decided then that I quite liked law, continued to work hard and I was made an associate lawyer a year after I joined the firm.
However, after a year as an associate lawyer, I started to become restless in Tokyo. I had been in Japan for seven years at that point and was ready for something new. I also felt that I had been immersed in the Japanese culture for a bit too long and even starting to forget some English words. Luckily, the Australian partner who pushed me to become a lawyer had returned to Sydney and was keen for me to join him in Sydney and had an interesting secondment opportunity at the Australian subsidiary of a major Japanese trading house.
I joined the Sydney office a year ago, and have ever since been seconded to the infrastructure team of the Japanese trading house where I like to think I am maximising my Japanese language skills, understanding of Japanese business culture and my legal knowledge. I assist the company on its investments in infrastructure public-private partnerships in Australia from the pre-bid consortium discussion stage through to the actual bid or financial close, as well as identifying and analysing new opportunities for our counterparts in the Tokyo head office.
I do not think anyone is ever sure if the path they have taken is the right one, but if I had not had an open, ‘might as well’ attitude towards learning more about Japan after high school, studying law, obtaining my legal qualifications, staying five years in Fukuoka immersing myself in the Japanese office culture, taking the opportunity to interview at the Tokyo office of my law firm and taking the secondment opportunity in Sydney, I would never have experienced all the things I was able to experience, been able to come to terms with my bicultural upbringing or found a way to combine all my skills.
If you are a returning JET and you do not yet know what you want to do or where you want to be and an opportunity which slightly piques your interest pops up your way, why not shrug your shoulders and think ‘might as well’? It might take you down a route you had never dreamt of, but which may end up being one of the right paths for you.
Job: Sales Rep – Japanese Prestigious 商社’s subsidiary- NYC
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Via Actus Consulting. If you apply, please make sure to indicate that you learned of the listing via JETwit. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Sales Rep
Location: Midtown, NYC
Type: Full-time
Overview:
- A subsidiary of Japanese prestigious trading firm specializes in non-ferrous material trading.
- The company acts as a Sales Rep for oversea manufacturers.
- Products include: aluminum, copper, zinc, and rare metals.
- The company appreciates it’s employees — excellent benefit, paid vacations, tuition support etc.
This is an excellent and rare opportunity to start your career at one of the most prestigious Japanese firms. There will be an excellent chance to learn the business and network with big players in the industry. The company offers an excellent benefit including tuition support. Read More
Job: Senior Accountant – U.S.-Japan Council (DC)
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Via Idealist. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Senior Accountant
Posted by: U.S.-Japan Council
Location: Washington, DC
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Job: Teaching Japanese in High School (D.C.)
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Via JETAADC. Posted by Jayme Tsutsuse (Kyoto-fu, 2013-2014), organizer of Cross-Cultural Kansai. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Position: Japanese Language Teacher
Posted by: JETAADC
Location: Washington D.C.
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Are you interested in possibly teaching Japanese language classes at the high school level? There is currently a shortage of Japanese high school teachers in the DC area, so JETAADC has been approached to help find possible teachers. Someone with JET experience could teach as a substitute teacher without a teaching license, and become a full teacher as they work on receiving their license. Work is also being done on finding funding so that JET alumni could get assistance in paying for the costs of getting a license, as long as they commit to teaching in the DC metropolitan area. The beginning salary for a teacher in Montgomery country is attached; other local districts have comparable salaries.
