Researcher needs JET alum help with interesting survey
Cultural Outreach 
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I recently had an interesting conversation with Justin Kraemer, a PhD student at Rutgers University, who is conducting research on how Japanese and local employees in the U.S. build trust within Japanese companies. Justin needs more respondents, so if there are any JET alums out there who work for Japanese companies in the U.S., please get in touch with him. It’s a very worthy research topic, and it would also reflect nicely on the JET alumni community to play a helpful role.
Japanese-American Research with JET Alumni in Mind
Trustful relationships at work are the foundation on which performance is achieved. However, building such relationships may be particularly complex when employees come from different national cultures. To better understand intercultural relationship-building and to highlight Japan in the conversation about East and West, cross-cultural researchers from the Business School at Rutgers University are studying how Japanese and local employees build trust within Japanese companies in the USA. JetWit is enthusiastic about this partnership as the work of these researchers has been endorsed by the Honjo International Scholarship Foundation, the Japanese-American Association of New York and the Japanese-American Association of Kentucky (JASK).
These researchers are now seeking Japanese firms in the USA to supplement the number of Japanese firms which have already agreed to participate. Though certain things must be included in this Japanese-local “matched-set” survey, this would be a great opportunity to better understand the opinions of employees in your Japanese firm. As it stands, the survey takes about 15 minutes to complete. Though a traditional paper-and-pencil deployment would be preferred, online deployment can be arranged. In any case, there will be no direct costs for participation as all expenses related to the research will be paid by the researchers.
With at least a handful of individual participants, each participating firm will receive anonymous data from its own employees as well as select aggregated data from all participating companies. An in-person presentation of results can also be organized. We look forward to discussing how this research project can benefit your company.
Please direct inquiries to:
Primary Researcher: Justin Kraemer
Email: jkraemer@andromeda.rutgers.edu
James Kennedy reviews “Pluto killer” book for Wall Street Journal
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James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of the acclaimed young adult novel The Order of Odd-Fish, has a great review in the Wall Street Journal of a sugoku omoshiroi book titled, How I Killed Pluto, And Why It Had It Coming by professor of astronomy Mike Brown.
Here’s the link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630683559145518.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Write for Ibuki Magazine? Book ideas for Chin Music Press?
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After running a “Culture Spreaders” post on MEF Bruce Rutledge a couple weeks ago, Bruce sent the following response:
“Wow. This was a pleasant surprise. Thanks for the accolades!
I encourage anyone interested in writing about Japan to get in touch. We’re looking for contributors to Ibuki (stories should have a Pacific Northwest hook) and book ideas for Chin Music.
You can reach us at speak [at] chinmusicpress.com. JET alums Jessica Sattell and Joshua Powell are on our staff.”
Tom Baker wrties about a slew of movies, manga and a video game
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Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. As another example of JET ROI, he is one of at least four former JETs to have been on the newspaper’s staff in recent years. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.
His articles in the past two months include interviews with movie director Breck Eisner and video game producer Rich Rosado, plus a slew of reviews. Click on the titles in these thumbnail summaries to find the articles:
In 1973, legendary horror director George Romero make a low-budget movie called “The Crazies,” in which the accidental release of a biological weapon turns many of the people of a small town into homicidal maniacs. Present-day director Breck Eisner has remade that movie with a much bigger budget, and he discusses the changes he made in the interview.
“Red Dead Redemption” is a video game that lets you shoot a lot of people and then makes you feel guilty about it. Rich Rosado, one of the producers for Rockstar Games (a company better known for its “Grand Theft Auto” series) says that’s intentional in the interview.
“Black Butler” is a manga in which a rich orphan seeks revenge for the death of his parents with the help of a supernatural butler.
“Fairy Tail” is a manga follows the friendships and rivalries among a guild of young, good-looking wizards.
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is a movie that needs no introduction.
“Daybreakers” is a movie in which vampires have taken over the world – and not all of them are happy about it.
“ A Single Man” is a movie in which Colin Firth plays a gay man in America in 1963 who is devastated by the sudden death of his lover.
“Knight and Day” is a movie in which Cameron Diaz becomes a hostage/apprentice to secret agent Tom Cruise.
“The Expendables” is a movie in which Sylvester Stallone leads a merry band of morally mixed-up mercenaries.
Foxhound87: Diwali: A Festivals of Lights Part 2: Just Desserts
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Joshua Small is a First Year JET currently living in Ikaruga-cho, Nara-ken and has been chronicling his experience on his blog Snorlax87.
Since Diwali is the festival of lights, a couple JETs provided some cheap sparklers for us to light following dinner. We had to leave the hotel, so we moved the party to a courtyard in front of the Nara Visitor Center. Most people left to do other things. About 14 of us stuck around for the sparklers. Our merry group of foreigners lit sparklers and danced around. We were having a grand ol’ time until the fuzz showed up. Yes, between conducting traffic with light sabers and trolling the prefecture for a Mr. Dounut, the police took an interest in our festivities. Myself and one other JET tried to sneak away from the group, but were caught and asked to return. Damn. 2 others DID manage to sneak away. As they hobbled into the train station, I yelled (as only a true hypocrite can), “Cowards!” They got away, we didn’t…
CLICK HERE to read the rest of the post.
http://snorlax87.blogspot.com/
Foxhound87: Diwali: A Festival of Lights Part 1
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Joshua Small is a First Year JET currently living in Ikaruga-cho, Nara-ken and has been chronicling his experience on his blog Snorlax87.
The Nara JET community recently celebrated Diwali, the Indian “Festival of Lights.” We have one JET who was born in India and she wanted to share her culture with Nara ALTs. About 26 of us gathered in a rented kitchen at a hotel adjacent to JR Nara.
Side Story about the Kitchen: The kitchen in this hotel was originally built to provide an environment to improve relations between partners in relationships. Maybe the wife can show her husband how to cook and they can work together to make a meal. Does this sound ridiculous? It is. Nara AJET exploited this information and reserved the kitchen under the guise of improving relations between men and women. We had to make sure guys and girls were both cooking and cleaning just to keep up appearances. This is how we booked the kitchen for freeeeeeeeee.
Everyone was told to bring their own plates, cups, and silverware (unnecessarily, I might add). No one knew that the kitchen was already stocked with EVERYTHING…
CLICK HERE to read the rest of the post.
http://snorlax87.blogspot.com/
WIT Life #138: Kaikai and Kiki Thanksgiving Parade Debut
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WITLife 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.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! And for those of you are who are on the Japanese calender, I hope you had a relaxing 勤労感謝の日（kinrou kansha no hi or Labor Thanksgiving Day) this past Tuesday. Though there is no turkey or cranberry sauce on this Japanese holiday, it resembles our Thanksgiving in that it is an occasion to commemorate labor and production and give one another thanks.
This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has a new addition from Japan, balloons of artist Takashi Murakami’s Kiki and Kaikai creations. They are following in the footsteps of Read More
INTERVIEW: Evans Revere on North Korea’s provocations
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John Ellis-Guardiola (Miyagi, 2002-04) is a NYC-based TV news producer who worked for the New York Bureau of Tokyo Broadcasting System and is now at the Reuters CCTV desk. At TBS he covered many topics, especially related to North Korea and the U.N. You can follow his blog at jelgua.wordpress.com.
Thanksgiving 2010 will be another U.S. holiday peppered with news from North Korea. This is a pattern – July 4, 2006, missiles; Memorial Day 2009, nuclear test. With the latest news about cross-border firing on the Korean Peninsula, I asked Evans Revere, a former senior U.S. diplomat, a Senior Director at the Albright Stonebridge Group, and Diplomat-in-Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School, for his insight. He kindly provided these answers via email.
Q: How do you interpret the most recent provocations on the Korean Peninsula and the revelation of centrifuges to Dr. Hecker? Some suggest this most recent round of belligerence is related to leadership succession issues. What is your take?
A: My own sense is that the leadership/succession issues have long since been decided. The course that North Korea is on has been set for some time, and the recent Korean Workers’ Party meeting that anointed Kim Jong Un as the next leader when his father passes brought to a conclusion a long, complicated, and secretive process that was set in motion when Kim Jong Il took ill in the summer of 2008. Now that the course has been set, the North Koreans are moving on several fronts. If anything, recent developments in the military and nuclear arenas probably have the blessing of both the older and the younger Kim. There are credible reports that the two visited… Click here to read more.
Op-ed on U.S. energy policy by JET alum
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JET alums are indeed everywhere. Here’s a recent opinion article by New York-based alum Sam Lederer (Shizuoka-ken, 2005-07), a Contributor at Americans for Energy Leadership, on potential directions in U.S. energy policy for the “lame-duck” session of the U.S. Congress.
CLICK HERE to read some of Sam’s other writings on Japanese energy and environmental policy.
Sam can be reached via his LinkedIn profile and can be followed via Twitter @samlederer
Lars Martinson interviewed in Hero Magazine re “Tonoharu: Part 2”
Books, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Interview/Profile, JETs in the News, Notable JET Alums, Writers Comments Off on Lars Martinson interviewed in Hero Magazine re “Tonoharu: Part 2”
There’s a nice interview with JET alum Lars Martinson in Hero Magazine. Lars recently published Tonoharu: Part 2, a graphic novel about teaching English in Japan that follows up on the success of Tonoharu: Part 1.
Here’s the link to the article: http://heromagazine.org/?p=189
Stephanie Boegeman (ALT, Akita-ken, 2006-09) gets her kicks from finding fun crazy ways to see the world and getting paid to do it. She is constantly in search of job, internship, and travel ideas to add to her site Playing With Hire, in the hopes that more JET alumni and like-minded souls join her in her quest to find creative, inspiring, and unique ways to make ends meet.
Calling all teachers at the elementary through high school level: Here is a great opportunity to travel abroad in the name of professional development. The Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching program is accepting applications through *Dec. 15th*. More details on the program can be found here.
Justin’s Japan: Interview with Colin Quinn on Broadway’s ‘Long Story Short’
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- See ‘Colin Quinn: Long Story Short’ on Broadway through Jan. 8. (Colinquinn.com)
By JQ magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.
Give Colin Quinn 75 minutes, and he’ll give you a hilarious history of the world’s greatest empires. Written and performed by the Brooklyn-born comic (Tough Crowd, Saturday Night Live) and directed by Jerry Seinfeld, Colin Quinn: Long Story Short premiered earlier this month on Broadway to rave reviews from the New York Times, Variety and Entertainment Weekly. I spoke with stand-up’s Renaissance man about the show and his admiration for today’s Japan.
Putting this show together had to have been an educational experience on so many levels. What did you learn?
It was more like thinking about things that I sort of knew more than learning. It’s like realizing how it really is amazing that we’ve never changed at all in terms of how we behave as people.
How about for the sense of stagecraft in your act?
Definitely the sense of movement; the sense of being in different places and trying to, you know, keep it about movement—a lot more movement—which I definitely think is important. In stand-up you don’t think in those terms. Thinking in terms of acting as different characters, you do it a little bit, but not really.
Your show covers China, but Japan is totally absent. Do you have any plans to inject more of it in future shows?
It is kind of a disgrace to leave out imperial Japan; they were a giant empire, let’s face it. I had this whole thing about the Dutch and Japan and England all being these little countries that ran things. Maybe I’m going to try to find a way to incorporate that stuff in. I used to have a line about how Japan was like the little guy that used to intimidate the big guy China—China was kind of the mama’s boy at that time. So maybe there’s a way that I can incorporate that back in, but we cut it out for time.
Where have you traveled to in the world?
I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to China, I’ve been to Africa, I’ve been to the Middle East, I’ve been to Europe a little bit. I’ve never been to South America.
What was your time in Japan like?
I was just doing shows for the USO, so I was at all the military bases. I spent two weeks in Japan, but I went everywhere except Tokyo. [laughs]
What other cities and places did you visit?
I was in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and all that stuff, just wherever the military bases were.
When was that?
About six years ago. I’ll tell you the truth, it was so beautiful to travel—we traveled by bus most of the places, and just passing the houses, everybody’s got these beautiful roofs. It’s like, wow, the people really just care, you know?
Click here for the rest of the interview.
Video: English Teachers – The Series
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Thanks to JET alum Jennifer Wang for forwarding the link to “English Teachers: The Series,” an original web-based comedy series about teaching English in Japan. (Kind of like Scrubs if it took place in a private English school.)
http://englishteachersseries.com
Here’s the first episode. Click the above link to see more episodes:
Job: Government Affairs Job Opening in Tokyo
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via Jet alum Marea Pariser. Posted by Dipika Soni (Ishikawa-ken, 2003-06). Dipika currently works as an in-house translator for PFU (a Fujitsu company) in Kahoku-shi, Ishikawa-ken. She is also the vocalist for the Japanese hardcore punk band DEGRADE.
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Job Position: Government Affairs Job Opening in Tokyo
Job Details:
Aflac International Inc. in Tokyo is looking for a Government Affairs Specialist to handle a wide range of duties as a member of a highly-effective government relations team. Aflac — the #1 life insurance provider in Japan in terms of policies in force — is a Fortune 200 company with more than $14 billion in annual revenues in Japan.
Responsibilities include researching and writing policy papers, presentations, and other advocacy materials; close monitoring of legislative and regulatory developments in Japan and the United States; providing a variety of staff support for senior executives; and project management, including event planning. A close attention to detail, multitasking, and the ability to work under tight deadlines are all key skills for this position.
Compensation competitive and commensurate with experience and skills.
Requirements:
Note: The person does not have to be living in Japan currently
Contact:
Nathaniel Graddy
graddy_n@aflac.co.jp
Thanksgiving in Japan?
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J-DOC, C-DOC, and K-DOC are recurring features written by Friend Of JET, Jon Hills, who maintains the blog for Hills Learning (www.hillslearning.com). Hills Learning is a NY-based language learning services company offering customized and personal Japanese, Chinese, and Korean language learning options.
Japanese Class listing can be found at: Japanese Classes
So wait, I know what you’re thinking. There were no colonists coming to the “new world” and mixing with indigenous peoples in Japan? I lived in Japan, and it was very difficult for me to even get a turkey, let alone get together for a turkey dinner with local Japanese?
Although there is no direct holiday that mirrors Thanksgiving in Japan, there is a holiday that’s very similar in terms of how it’s celebrated.
Click here Thanksgiving in Japan for the rest of the article.
