JET alum’s column on Ebola in USAToday
Article/Journalism, Notable JET Alums, Writers 
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JET alum Emily Metzgar (Shimane-ken, 1995-93), a professor of journalism at Indiana University, has a column in USAToday this week titled, “Is U.S. ‘stuck on stupid’ on Ebola outbreak?”
If Emily’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she’s also the author of Promoting Japan: One JET at a time, a paper based on surveys of and research on the JET alumni community that attempts to measure return on JET-vestment.
Job: Two International Education Positions at BUNAC (AZ)
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Posted by Sean Pavlik (Fukui-ken, 2010-12), International Programs Officer for the DC-based Congressional Study Group on Japan. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
BUNAC is currently recruiting for two positions that will be based in Chandler, Arizona. We are looking for a Sales and Marketing Coordinator as well as a Program Coordinator. The successful applicants will be individuals with international experience, who are creative, outgoing and interested in entering the international education / work abroad field.
Full descriptions for these positions may be found on our website http://goo.gl/GKT2Ty
Application deadline is the 31st of October.
Event: Boston Career Forum – English/Japanese job fair – Nov. 7, 8, 9
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Thanks to JET alum Catherine Rackley (Chiba-ken, 2005-06) who works for DISCO International for sharing this JET-relevant announcement. 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: Boston Career Forum
Posted by: DISCO International
Location: Boston, MA
Date: Nov. 7-9, 2014
Overview:
Boston Career Forum, JET Alumni Welcome!
The Boston Career Forum, the biggest annual English/Japanese job fair, is coming up next month, and we’re extending an open invitation to any returning and former JETs interested in using their experience in Japan and Japanese language ability in their careers. Companies from all different industries are hiring for positions in Japan and elsewhere, including 80 companies requiring just business level Japanese and 12 companies looking for only conversational Japanese speakers. Read More
Job: Embassy of Japan – Administrative Assistant Political Section (D.C.)
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Thanks to JETAA DC Vice-President Joy Young, who also works at the Embassy, for sharing this JET-relevant job listing. 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: Administrative Assistant Political Section
Posted by: Embassy of Japan
Location: Washington D.C.
Type: Full-time
Overview:
The Embassy of Japan is seeking an individual for the position of administrative assistant at the Political Desk. The Embassy offers group health insurance coverage, paid vacation and sick leave. Salary is commensurate with experience.
http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/political-section-assistant.html Read More
Job: Multiple Positions – Sasakawa Peace Foundation (D.C.)
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Thanks to CLAIR-NY’s Matt Gillam for passing this on. 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: Multiple Positions (see below)
Posted by: Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA
Location: Washington D.C.
Overview:
Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA is undergoing a dramatic organizational revamp and we need to add enthusiastic and thoughtful staff members to our team to continue our mission of dedication to research, analysis and better public understanding of the U.S.-Japan relationship. Openings range from entry-level to experienced and include opportunities to work at all levels of our ever-diversifying programs. Read More
Job: Travel Agent – InsideJapan Tours (Nagoya)
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Posted by Eden Law (Fukushima-ken 2010-2011), member of JETAA NSW and just a totally awesome rad guy. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
[Excerpt from InsideTours Job page – click here to read for more details! The company is made up of ex-JETs, so it’s perfect!]
Passionate about Japan? Want to help people from around the world experience quite how amazing Japan is? A job with Inside Japan Tours could be just what you are looking for.
InsideJapan Tours is part of InsideAsia Tours Ltd a small team of dedicated people all with a passion for travel that ‘gets beneath the surface’. Our offices are located in the UK, Japan and the US with a team of 34 full time staff ensuring we provide the very best experience for every one of our thousands of clients annually.
Current Vacancies
We are currently recruiting for Japan Specialist Travel Consultants in our UK, Japan and US branches. Our sister brand, InsideVietnam Tours, is recruiting for Southeast Asia Specialist Travel Consultants.
JQ Magazine: Film Review — ‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’
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“For his finale, Isao Takahata has made a film that encompasses all of human experience.” (GKIDS)
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 one hears the name “Studio Ghibli,” the director Hayao Miyazaki immediately comes to mind. Starting with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in 1984, Miyazaki has continually delivered hit after hit for the past 30 years, making him the most successful contemporary Japanese filmmaker (animated or otherwise). Moviegoers can be forgiven for not recognizing the name of Miyazaki’s partner and Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, who tends to operate behind the spotlight. But Takahata is an accomplished animator and filmmaker in his own right.
In the West, he is best known for the extraordinary Grave of the Fireflies (1988), a powerful anti-war epic about the firebombing of Kobe during the Second World War. Roger Ebert considered Fireflies one of the best war films ever made, and it certainly ranks among Studio Ghibli’s greatest efforts, elevating the standards of anime depicting serious subject matter. Takahata’s other films were successful in Japan but received limited distribution in the West—notably the ecologically minded Pom Poko (1994) and the comic strip-inspired comedy My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999). From this selection of titles, it is clear that Takahata can work in a variety of genres with different animation styles. Unlike Miyazaki, he delegates much of the animation work and does not have an immediately recognizable aesthetic.
Last year, both Miyazaki and Takahata announced their retirements. For his swan song, Miyazaki released the controversial The Wind Rises (read JQ’s review here), which managed to receive criticism from both the political left and the right in its treatment of the war. Takahata decided to end his career with a project that he conceived and abandoned 55 years ago: A feature film version of the tenth century folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Both films were to be released simultaneously in a show of solidarity, but production delays resulted in a later distribution for Takahata’s film. The film became a big hit domestically, and is now receiving its U.S. release under the title The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in both subtitled and dubbed versions.
Tennessee JET alum wins non-profit award for “ESL to Go” program
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Thanks to JET alum Jennifer Butler, who works for the Consulate in Nashville and also is a former JETAA USA Country Rep, for passing on the link to this news about JET alum Leah Hashinger who created a mobile ESL program – http://www.lipscomb.edu/news/archive/detail/101/28681:
JET alum Leah Hashinger, a student in the Master of Arts in Civic Leadership program at the Nelson & Sue Andrews Institute for Civic Leadership at Lipscomb University, was recently awarded a Salute to Excellence Award from the Center for Nonprofit Management for her coordination of the ESL to Go program at the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute.
TFLI won first place, receiving a $25,000 prize in the Frist Foundation’s Innovation in Action category at the Center for Nonprofit Management’s awards ceremony. Hashinger, ESL to Go program manager, and Angela Harris, director of ESL/TESL at the institute, accepted the award.
Responding to the repeated identification of transportation as the number one barrier for refugees and immigrants in accessing English classes, ESL to Go offers a unique model of service delivery and access. The classroom-on-wheels (a truck outfitted as a classroom) brings English as a second language classes to refugees and immigrants in Davidson County.
“In 2011, I had the unique opportunity to transform an innovative idea into a reality,” said Hashinger. As a volunteer at TFLI, I began working with my supervisor on developing a mobile classroom that would bring English classes to the apartments where refugees live. The challenge allowed me to step into a leadership role where I learned to gather support from the community, build partnerships, gain trust and continue to respond to the dynamic needs of our students.”
Each year, CNM hosts Salute to Excellence, the “Academy Awards” of the Middle Tennessee nonprofit community, with a dinner and awards presentation that honors area nonprofits for their commitment to management excellence. The ceremony featured 12 awards and $210,000 in prize money for this year’s finalists. More than 1,000 guests and 35 of Nashville’s nonprofit organizations attended.
Hashinger is also the 2014 recipient of the Center for Nonprofit Management Award for Andrews Institute students. The award provides students a discounted tuition rate to earn their master’s degree in civic leadership.
“Watching Nashville become a leader in embracing cultural and ethnic diversity has inspired me to pursue a path of leadership as well,” said Hashinger. “As a civic leader, I will continually work to highlight the positive impact that immigration has on Nashville’s culture and economy, while developing innovative ways to fund nonprofit programs and rethink service delivery.”
I’ll Make It Myself!: Marketing Halloween in Japan: Pocky
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L.M. (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. Ze works in international student exchange; writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan and the US; curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan; and admins The JET Alumni Culinary Group on LinkedIn.
Pocky’s been doing Halloween-themed packaging for a few years but I hadn’t written about it because the product was the same. This year, Pocky has Halloween packaging for the normal chocolate and strawberry flavors but also a Kumamon (the mascot of Kumamoto prefecture)-themed “sweet pumpkin” flavor!
Via Glico
【RocketNews24】Clever font sneaks pronunciation guide for English speakers into Japanese katakana characters
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Written Japanese uses three kinds of script. At the top of the difficulty curve, you’ve got kanji, the complex characters originally imported from China that can require over a dozen brush strokes to write, with each kanji representing a word or concept.
A little less challenging are hiragana, a set of 50 curving phonetic characters, but if English is your native language, odds are you’ll have the least trouble with angular katakana. Like hiragana, katakana is a phonetic system, so each character corresponds to a syllable. Even better, while often one kanji can have three or four possible readings, each katakana has just one possible pronunciation.
Of course, you still have to memorize how to pronounce all 50 katakana (85 if you’re being really technical) in the first place. One group of graphic designers are aiming to make that task a little easier, though, with a font that combines katakana with phonetics written in English.
WIT Life #278: High Speed Rail Plan (via the Onion)
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations.
Apropos of nothing, can’t resist sharing this gem from the Onion. I love how they use the actual train names/types. 良い３連休を！
X Japan take a triumphant bow at Madison Square Garden, New York City, Oct. 11, 2014. (Vlad Baranenko)
By Vlad Baranenko (Saitama-ken, 2000-02) for JQ magazine. Vlad is an avid photographer. For his photo gallery of X Japan’s concert at MSG, click here.
On Oct. 11, Madison Square Garden was ignited by the amazing energy of the sensational Japanese rock group X Japan. Realizing a lifelong dream of its founding members—vocalist Toshi and superstar drummer/pianist Yoshiki—X Japan overcame years of behind-the-scenes drama to finally play the World’s Most Famous Arena, as one of the most successful Japanese music groups of all time brought down the house in NYC.
For the first time ever outside of their native Japan, X Japan culminated their dream to perform an all-immersive concert, armed with a full array of fireworks, pyrotechnics, confetti, and incredible light effects. According to Yoshiki in one of many heartfelt messages delivered to the crowd that night, never before their performance at MSG has the group invested so much to awe an overseas audience, which he said was being broadcast live to Japan and other Asian countries.
Playing to a nearly packed arena, the group that started with a dream of two four-year-old boys almost 45 years ago kicked off the show with a pyrotechnic bang, letting the excited audience rock hard to “Jade.” By creating an all-immersive experience for their concert goers, X Japan’s mix of rock and the classical genres appealed to the emotions of young and old attendees alike. For their second appearance in NYC after their legendary show at the now-defunct Roseland Ballroom in 2010, the band’s deep appreciation for their fans’ support rang loud when Yoshiki shared the story of the group’s history and ups and downs. The death of former members Hide and Taiji hit everyone in the group hard, and as Yoshiki spoke about his late friend Hide as still being part of the group, many in the audience shed a tear.
WIT Life #277: Garden of Unearthly Delights
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations.
As a member of Japan Society, last night I had the chance to preview the new gallery exhibition Garden of Unearthly Delights. It featured works from two artists and the collaboration teamLab that were largely fantastical with a strong dose of social commentary. As a result, it felt like a very dense exhibit that seemed to occupy more space than the gallery’s actual square footage. 
Garden begins with works from Manabu Ikeda, an artist originally from Saga Prefecture who now resides in Madison, Wisconsin after previously living in Vancouver. The focus of his paintings in this show are on disaster art and 311, an event he witnessed from outside the country. You can see many manga and anime-like aspects in them as well. I particularly liked his work Foretoken, which is often compared to Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, displayed nearby in the gallery. Upon close inspection you can see the intricate detail of his infinite brushstrokes, but when you look at it from a distance you get a whole other perspective. Underneath the huge wave that is cresting you can find things like Read More
Jonathan Bissell (Chiba-ken, 1995-2000) is the author of Dream in Color, Think in Black & White: How to Get Unstuck and Fulfill Your Dreams and CEO of High Performance Impact, LLC, an executive coaching firm helping proven and emerging leaders to identify and consistently leverage patterns of high performance. He blogs at www.jonathanbissell.com.
There’s a word that you’ve been using, and it’s time to let it go. Time to erase it from your vocabulary.
You’re not the only one who uses it. I do, too. We all do. But it’s holding you (and me) back.
It comes up in conversation whenever we talk about our deepest dreams and aspirations. And it’s almost always said with a sigh – a wistful and defeating release of air from the lungs.
So what’s the word?
The word is “Someday,” as in, “Someday I’m going to…”
Just think about the last time you said it or heard it. For me, it happened just a few days ago. A friend of mine shared a magnificent dream that he wanted to pursue – a wonderful dream that’s entirely doable. But then he used that word, “Someday.” And he said it with that wistful sigh that always seems to tag along.
But someday is more than a wistful word loaded with longing. It’s a glass ceiling that’s meant to be shattered, and it’s preventing you from taking hold of your future.
Here are three reasons why “someday” is holding you back:
Continue reading here.
Job: Program Coordinator – Adz Group (Boston)
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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: Program Coordinator
Posted by: Adz Group
Location: Boston, MA
Type: Full-time
Overview:
Are you a take-charge professional who has a love for special event/program coordination and likes to have fun? Are you a multi-tasker extraordinaire? Are you interested in education and having an impact on students? Are you interested in learning about new cultures? Are you looking to work for a growing business with exciting potential? Are you looking for a flexible work environment where you can work from home? Then Adz Group wants you! Read More
