News agency Kyodo News has recently been publishing monthly articles written by JET alumni who were appointed in rural areas of Japan, as part of promotion for the JET Programme. Below is the English version of the column from June 2013. Posted by Celine Castex (Chiba-ken, 2006-11), currently programme coordinator at CLAIR Tokyo.
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“The four years I spent in Japan were some of the most significant years of my life; years I would not trade for anything in this world.”
Nadya Dee (Kagoshima-ken, Hioki-shi, 2007-11) is a writer, editor and blogger born and raised in the city of Kingston, Jamaica. With a Bachelors degree in English Literature from The University of the West Indies, she joined the JET Programme in 2007 and spent four years living and teaching English in Kagoshima, Japan. She currently works as an independent copywriter and her professional website can be found at http://nadyadee.wordpress.com. As a writer, she intends to write books and collections of short stories which explore the evolution of human consciousness. Through her international experiences she hopes to create written works that speak to the heart and soul of all mankind.
Ichi go Ichi e 一期一会: A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
Before going to Japan in 2007, I knew nothing about Kyushu let alone Kagoshima. I searched the internet but could only find a little information about the place that I was going to live for a year. I learnt about the active volcano Sakurajima and the “Last True Samurai” Saigo Takamori but I never expected to have such an amazing experience and I never thought that, half way across the world, I would find my second home.
I joined the JET Programme to broaden my international experience with the intention of spending just one year. I left my homeland, Jamaica, and went to Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher to teach English as an alternate form of communication. I went as an ambassador, to increase global awareness and foster a positive relationship between Japan and Jamaica; two countries so far apart but with such similarities. While living in the town of Ijuin, in a city called Hioki on the Satsuma Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture, I taught Bob Marley songs, learnt Kagoshima-ben, played taiko, danced in a mud festival, wrote haiku and made great friends who I now consider a part of my extended family.
As a Prefectural ALT I taught at a technical high school, an agricultural high school, a special needs school and two different high schools in and around Hioki and Ichiki-Kushikino City. My responsibilities included lesson planning, team-teaching in Oral Communication classes, motivating students to practice English, editing essays and compositions, helping students to prepare for skit and speech competitions, providing pronunciation and interview preparation support as well as promoting international awareness within Japanese society. I always ensured that all my students learnt about Jamaican food, music and culture in my self-introduction classes.
After a year of adjusting to life in Japan I got the rare opportunity to perform taiko with the ‘Fukiage Seishou Daiko Group’ in four festivals throughout the rural area of Hioki City. In the following years I went on to teach reggae dances to my Japanese friends and we also performed in various shows and matsuri in and around Kagoshima City. Read More
Shizuoka sardine curry
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Tom Baker (Chiba, 1989-91) is writing a 47-part weekly series of posts on his Tokyo Tom Baker blog, in which he samples and comments on a curry from a different prefecture each week. Here’s an excerpt from his seventh installment, about Shizuoka Prefecture.
Shizuoka Prefecture, southeast of Tokyo, includes Japan’s highest point (the 3,776-meter summit of Mt. Fuji) and its deepest bay (the 2,500-meter deep Suruga Bay), for a total altitude difference of 6.2 kilometers (just shy of four miles). And the Shizuoka curry I sampled this week had a very Japanese flavor: umami.
In case the word umami is new to you, here’s the basic concept: Humans enjoy eating salty things because we need a certain amount of salt to live, and we enjoy sweet things because natural sweetness indicates that a food contains readily available energy. Similarly, the flavor known as umami is appealing because it indicates that a food is protein-rich. Meat, seafood and cheese all have their own special kinds of deliciousness that cannot be characterized as sweet, salty, sour or bitter. That category of flavor is called umami.
JQ Magazine: Annual Japanese Summer Festival Heats Up Tampa
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New JETs, JET alumni, and Consul Hayato Nakamura and family at Natsu Matsuri, Tampa, June 2013. (Amanda Bailey)
By Bahia Simons-Lane (Gunma-ken, 2005-07) for JQ magazine. Bahia is the president of the Florida JET Alumni Association.
Summer is a time when those of us who lived in Japan begin to feel nostalgic for the matsuri of our adopted home. In spite of the heat, the summer festivals of Japan were perfect little Japanese moments—just thinking about them brings the taste of yakisoba and takoyaki to your tongue. Sadly, these memories are fleeting.
It’s right around this time of year that the annual Tampa Natsu Matsuri is scheduled, which is why for the past three years I have packed up my car in Miami and embarked on the four hour drive north to help out. Tampa’s Natsu Matsuri provides a chance for newly recruited JETs, JET alumni, friends of JET, and members of the Japanese community in Florida to get together and enjoy the traditional Japanese summer festival experience, while also sharing Japanese culture with Florida residents who may not know much about Japan.
As the brainchild of Florida JETAA’s Tampa regional representative John McGee (Nagano-ken, 2004-05), the festival launched in 2006. Now attracting hundreds of people, Tampa Natsu Matsuri grows annually, with more booths and attendees each year. For this summer’s event, which was held on June 15, I was very excited about our new location at Christ the King Catholic Church, which gives the festival more space to grow, and provides an outdoor area with covering and lights in case of inclement weather. The festival itself features Japanese games for kids, such as kingyo sukui (goldfish scoop), Japanese culture demonstrations, and sales of Japanese food and goods. The okonomiyaki is always a hit, and this year a few food trucks even joined us for the event.
The festival is usually held in June or July. If you’re in Tampa next summer, I hope you’ll come relive your memories of Japanese summers.
To participate in or receive emails about Tampa Natsu Matsui, please email tampa@floridajetaa.org. For John McGee’s June 2012 JQ article about the history of the festival, click here.
WIT Life #238: Internet use in Japanese elections
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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 together with her own observations.
Japan will be holding its Upper House elections (for half of the 242 seats) on July 21, and in looking toward this there have been reduced restrictions on Internet use for campaigning purposes. Previously this was not permitted for reasons such as fear of libel and identity theft.
The two separate bills submitted to change this would enable candidates to use blogs and social media such as Facebook and Twitter during the 12-day campaign period for Upper House polls and the 17-day campaign for those of the Lower House. The difference between the two versions is that one allows voters to send out mail on behalf of their favored candidates, whereas the other limits the right to mail solicitation to political parties and candidates.
In accordance with these changes, Japan’s parties have created a variety of tools for constituents to get to know their candidates and interact with them electronically. For example, the LDP is targeting the young smart phone generation with a game called “Abe-pyon” that has the Prime Minister jumping up to Read More
Job: Postings from Idealist.org 7.4.13
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Via Idealist.org. Posted by Geneva Marie (Niigata-ken 2008-09) Geneva is a contributor to both JETwit and JETAANY. Geneva is on a continuous (epic) search for Japanese-related jobs in the United States. Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
Grants Associate
Posted by: Give2Asia
Type: Full-time
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $35,000-50,000
Application Deadline: July 7, 2013
Give2Asia is seeking a Grants Management Associate who will be responsible for supporting the grants made by Give2Asia, a US public charity which promotes and facilitates philanthropy to Asia (www.give2asia.org). Give2Asia’s grants are made from contributions and recommendations provided by donors using our personalized US-Asia giving services. Bachelors degree with minimum 2-3 years of professional experience (corporate experience strongly preferred).
http://www.idealist.org/view/job/s7Dh5ZXptSXd/
Program Associate
Posted by: Give2Asia
Type: Full-time, Part Time
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $35,000-50,000
Application Deadline: July 12th, 2013
Give2Asia is seeking a program associate who will be responsible for supporting donor stewardship activities, with an emphasis on Give2Asia’s corporate donors. Primary responsibilities include providing wide-ranging assistance to Program Officers who manage relationships with Give2Asia’s largest clients and serving as a center of knowledge around Give2Asia’s best practices in corporate stewardship. Bachelors degree with minimum 1-2 year of professional experience (corporate experience highly preferred).
http://www.idealist.org/view/job/gDKbNWkmFW8d/
Operations Director, National Cherry Blossom Festival
Posted by: Downtown Improvement Business District
Type: Full-time
Location: Washington, DC
Salary: Competitive Salary with Benefits
Application Deadline: Not Specified
The Downtown Business Improvement District Corporation (BID) is currently recruiting for an Operations Director, National Cherry Blossom Festival. This full-time position will focus on the strategic growth, sustainability and success of Festival events and on year round programming long-term financial and organizational sustainability and effectiveness. Minimum of seven years successful management experience in large-scale event production, festivals, entertainment, conventions, or related field. Focus on productions, marketing, logistics, communications and the transformation opportunity of the event experience, required.
http://www.idealist.org/view/job/59hBD8j5Jtnp/
Thanks to JET alum, and owner of Howalnd Tutoring Service, Todd Swenson for sharing this posting. Posted by Kim ‘Kay’ Monroe (Miyazaki-shi, 1995 -97). Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
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Position: In Home Tutor
Posted by: Howland Tutoring Service
Type: part time
Location: Westchester County, NY
Salary: $34/hour, $44/hour if English/Japanese bilingual
Start Date: N/A
Overview:
Howland Tutoring Service provides one-on-one ESL and schoolwork tutoring to Japanese students with limited English ability ranging from kindergarten age to adults. The tutoring is done in the client’s home, so tutors must provide their own automobile transportation. Our students live in the Rye/Harrison and Scarsdale areas of Westchester County, NY and the Greenwich, CT area. Tutoring is done during after school hours and in the evenings. We are looking for experienced, knowledgeable, energetic and friendly tutors to work with our students on a regular, long-term basis.
Qualification:
Tutors should minimally have a college degree, but ESL and or teacher certification and experience working with Japanese students is preferred.
Closing Date:
December 31, 2013 (Tuesday)
Application Procedure: Please forward your resume to Todd Swenson at swenson.howland@gmail.com
Posted by Celine Castex (Chiba-ken, 2006-11), currently programme coordinator at CLAIR Tokyo.
CLAIR is currently in the process of revising and updating the Teaching Material Collection, a compilation of teaching resources from current and forme
r JET participants. We are interested in collecting activity reports for our new section on Special Needs Schools from current and past JET participants. We are looking for original ideas for activities which you have used in your classes and which you feel could be effectively used in other JET participants’ classrooms for special needs students.
Please describe and outline your activity in accordance to the following format when filling out each section.
– Activity Title
– Submitted by: [Write your first and last name here.]
– Contracting Organisation: [Put the name of your current/past contracting organisation.]
– Target Group: [e.g. “ES 5th year,” “JHS,” etc.]
– Target Disability Group: [Visually impaired students, Hearing impaired students, Health impaired students]
– Difficulty Level: [Fundamentals: alphabet, colors, simple sentences, etc.; Basic Conversation: simple dialogue, direction giving, etc.; Conversational: attempting actual, guided conversation on a given topic; Other: to be precised, etc.]
– Activity Objective: [Write the goal of this activity. Example: “To practice asking and giving directions.”
– Procedure: [Explain the activity in clear and concise terms.]
– Materials and Preparation: [List the materials needed for the activity and how they are to be prepared and used.]
– Division of Roles for JET and JTE: [Write what the JET should be responsible for doing and what the JTE should be responsible for doing in terms of preparation and execution of the activity.]
– Suggestions and Advice: [Write any practical tips or advice you may have for making the activity run more smoothly and effectively. Also, if you have any troubleshooting advice, please write it here.] Read More
Job: University Job openings in China
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Via Hunter College tesol list serve. Posted by Kim ‘Kay’ Monroe (Miyazaki-shi, 1995 -97). Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
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Position: English Instructors
Posted by: Nanyang Normal University
Type: Contract term
Location: China (Henan)
Salary: 6500-7000 Yuan per month depending on qualifications and experience
Start Date: The beginning of September 2013
Overview:
University Job openings in China Nanyang Normal University is an undergraduate institution of higher learning in Henan Province of China. The university has about 1400 full-time faculty and 23,000 full-time students.
The main course the English teachers will teach is Oral Communication. You will be free to develop your own curriculum based on your experience and the needs of the students. The teaching requirement is 20 teaching periods a week (one period is 45 minutes). Class sizes are normally 15-25 students. Read More
Posted by Gemma Villanueva (Fukushima, 2008-11) on behalf of fellow JET alum Vinnie Burns.
JET alum Vinnie Burns is doing a critical study for his masters programme. His topic is on the motivation and job satisfaction of ALTs on the JET Programme. His particular interest will be to investigate what school leaders and managers can do to improve the motivation and job satisfaction of ALTs.
If you are interested in participating in his study, he has two different questionnaires — one for current ALTs and one for former ALTs. You only need to fill out the one which applies to you.
Former ALTs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nLXFph_DFKldFPP0vmqtXg-lrOVjNp6ptSFbeHxzj6k/viewform
Current ALTs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-die2kh_-THKKTqlI6ofGxmx3_DwRFPkMSi9vB8bETk/viewform
Sister City Ties Ep #1: ALTs of the JET Program
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Eliot Honda (Ehime-ken, 2009-2012) has started a unique video series on Sister City Ties in which he interviews current and former JETs:
I’ll Make It Myself!: Localizing Big Boy
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A recent returnee, ze also 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.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
…During a work conference in Chiba that first fall, I ended up out for a quick lunch at Big Boy, which is essentially a hamburger-and-standard-”American”-fare family restaurant in the US. In Japan, as with most “Western food” family restaurants, Big Boy has been cleverly localized. There are no hamburgers, only hamburg plates.
JQ Magazine: JETerations — How Alumni Touch New Generations of JETs
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Clare Grady and William Collazo representing fifteen years of JET at the Pre-Departure Orientation, Florida, 2012. (Courtesy of William Collazo)
By Bahia Simons-Lane (Gunma-ken, 2005-07) for JQ magazine. Bahia is the president of the Florida JET Alumni Association.
As a high school Japanese teacher in Deerfield Beach, Florida, WIlliam Collazo teaches his students about his time on JET along with his language lessons. Little did he know he would inspire a student to pursue JET years after she left his classroom.
Collazo said that JET was instrumental in deciding to become a Japanese teacher. He has a BA in Asian studies and religious studies, and he also studied Japanese language at Cornell University in New York. After JET, Collazo earned an MA in East Asian studies from Washington University in St. Louis, where he turned his academic interests to studying language pedagogy.
When he applied to the JET Program, he thought he would enjoy the work since he had some high school teaching experience, but mostly he was hoping to enhance his understanding of Japanese culture by living and working there. Instead, his two years on JET from 1997-99 in Hiroshima Prefecture were life-changing. “I didn’t think I would actually become a teacher of Japanese before going,” Collazo explained, “but my experience was so profound that I felt compelled to come home to Florida and share what I had learned in public education.”
His former student Clare Grady graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Chinese and departed to Northern Gifu on the JET Program last year. It was Collazo’s stories of JET that inspired Grady to apply for the JET Program. It might seem surprising that Grady majored in Chinese and not Japanese, but by the time Grady entered university she already had considerable Japanese capability under her belt due to the Deerfield Beach International Baccalaureate (IB) program. She started studying Japanese when she entered high school, but after completing all the Japanese classes offered at her school she began teaching herself Chinese—earning her the nickname “Kanji Master.”
Job: Liquor Sales for Japanese trading company (Bergen County, NJ)
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Thanks to JET alum Stacy Smith for putting this company in touch with me when they indicated they wanted to reach out to the JET alum community to try and fill this JET-relevant position. If you apply, please make sure to mention that you learned of the listing via JETwit.
New York Mutual Trading Company is an importer and distributor of Japanese food, sake, and kitchenware located in New Jersey. We have been looking for the sales position who will be asked to increase sake/liquor sales in East Coast. Here is the descriptions:
Company: New York Mutual Trading, Inc.
Mutual Trading Company is the premier Japanese food, alcohol beverage, and restaurant supply specialist since 1926. We are the Japanese food authority – true to the heart in upholding genuine Japanese food traditions, and progressive in exploring new ways to provide innovative restaurant supplies and services. Mutual Trading imports, exports, distributes and manufactures the top brands for our retailer and foodservice customers.
Position: Liquor Sales (Japanese sake, shochu, and beer) Read More
Akita mushroom curry
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Tom Baker (Chiba, 1989-91) is writing a 47-part weekly series of posts on his Tokyo Tom Baker blog, in which he samples and comments on a curry from a different prefecture each week. Here’s an excerpt from his sixth installment, about Akita Prefecture.
I would have identified the mushrooms in this curry as shimeji—a standard item at any Japanese supermarket—but the ingredient label described them more specifically as buna-shimeji, or beech shimeji…
So it’s appropriate that I washed the curry down with some Buna no Mori (beech forest) beer, made with wild yeast originally collected in the forest. This 5-percent beer was slightly darker than a typical mass-produced Japanese lager, and had a flavor that was rich and strong…
Job: Director, Stanford Program in Kyoto
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Thanks to JETAANY Board Member Clara Solomon for sharing this posting. Posted by Kim ‘Kay’ Monroe (Miyazaki-shi, 1995 -97). Click here to join the JETwit Jobs Google Group and receive job listings even sooner by email.
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Position: Director, Stanford Program in Kyoto
Posted by: Stanford University
Type: Full Time
Location: Kyoto, Japan
Salary: N/A
Start Date: Target of November 1, 2013, or sooner
Overview:
The Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford University is seeking qualified candidates for the position of Director for its program in Kyoto, Japan. Applicants are encouraged to respond promptly. This is an immediate opening with a target start date of November 1, 2013, or sooner.
Stanford University is one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions and is known for its entrepreneurial character and its relationship to Silicon Valley. Areas of excellence range from the humanities to social sciences to engineering and the sciences.
The Stanford Bing Overseas Studies Program offers study abroad programs for Stanford undergraduates to enhance their overall educational experience. Now in its 54th year, the program sends about 50 percent of each graduating class abroad during their time as undergraduates.
The Stanford Program in Kyoto was founded in collaboration with the School of Engineering, and has since provided students of engineering and other disciplines the opportunity to fit language immersion and practical classroom experience into their busy schedules. The program welcomes students in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The program is hosted on the Doshisha University campus, located at the heart of Kyoto. Doshisha is one of Japan’s leading private universities with over 25,000 students and a diversity of programs. Read More
