【RocketNews24】Pics of Pikachu packs from a day of Pokémon hunting in Yokohama
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Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Casey Baseel, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
A few weeks ago, the handlers of the Pokémon franchise announced the Pikachu Tairyou Hassei Chu, or “An Outbreak of Pikachus” event. First they brightened our day with a TV ad showing the adorable Pocket Monsters hanging out in a shopping mall. Then they teased us with a photo of the electrified rodents landing on the dock.
And now, they’re here!
We grabbed our cameras and went Pikachu hunting in Yokohama, and we were not disappointed. We were, though, almost completely paralyzed by the awesome overdose of cuteness that comes from a parade of a pack of 20 Pikachus.
Check out all the cute Pikachu action in videos and pictures here!
Posted by Albert David Valderrama (Ibaraki-ken, 2010-present), JET Programme ALT/PA, co-founder and National Co-Representative of API AJET, and Chief Editor of the @api webzine.
_______________________________
@api #005 is out now! Read the full issue at http://goo.gl/rnrBqh or click the image below.
@api #005
Inside this issue:
- People: Faces of API AJET, National Representatives
- Essay: A Year of Pretending to be Japanese by Aimee Wenyue Chen
- Review: HOME:WORD by Cat Dinh
- Interview: @api Exclusive with Sandy Cheng, Chair of the AJET National Council
What is “@api“?
“@api” is a web-based magazine put together by contributors and members of the Asian Pacific Islander Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching (API AJET). Archived issues are available on Issuu and WordPress.
What is API AJET?
Asian Pacific Islander AJET (API AJET) was created during the summer of 2012 following many talks about the specific issues the API community faces.
This special interest group (SIG) aims to create a supportive environment for all APIs living in Japan. We also hope to increase awareness about API issues and incite dialogue among curious JETs and non-JETs. Furthermore, API AJET hopes to act as a tangible resource for anyone interested in understanding an API’s unique perspective (as a foreigner) in Japan.
The group is open to all. Join to share, discuss, and learn about the API experience. Membership is free!
For more information go to our website at api.ajet.net, email us at api[at]ajet.net, or find API AJET on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter (@apiajet).
WIT Life #272: Japan Cuts
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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.
This weekend wrapped up Japan Society’s annual film festival Japan Cuts, and all of the films that I caught out of the 28 presented this year were wonderful. I particularly enjoyed the opening film on the first Friday of the festival, The Snow White Murder Case (白ゆき姫殺人事件). This movie made its U.S. premiere, and told the story of the murder of a beautiful young office worker. The prime suspect is her plain co-worker who has disappeared following the murder, and in the online world the case is made for her guilt before the official investigation takes place. As interviews are carried out with others at the company and the truth is gradually revealed, viewers come to realize how culpable we are in automatically convicting suspects based on hearsay and popular opinion. This film skillfully highlights just how pernicious social media can be in stringing people up before they have the opportunity to defend themselves. Although this sounds like a dark story, it also has comic moments that serve to lighten the mood.
Two kid-centered films that I liked more than I expected were Maruyama, the Middle Schooler (中学生円山) and Hello! Junichi (ハロー！純一), both of which use dance and humor to great effect. The former focuses on a 14-year old in the height of puberty who uses his active imagination to Read More
【RocketNews24】Emotional anime short celebrates Tokyo Station’s 100th birthday【Video】
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It’s been 100 years since the opening of Tokyo Station. For many people, it’s more than just a rail hub, it’s a symbol of the city and the lives of those who live in and around it.
With just about everyone in Japan’s capital passing through sooner or later, Tokyo Station serves as the backdrop for a lot of nostalgic memories, not to mention some life-changing events for workers and travelers alike. So it’s fitting that the anime made to commemorate Tokyo Station’s 100th birthday is filled with both comforting looks back at the past and hopeful expectations for the future.
【RocketNews24】Tokyo’s cat pub, the cat cafe for grown-ups
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Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Casey Baseel, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
In Japan, since so many people who love cute animals live in apartments that don’t allow pets, you can find cafes that’ll let you relax in the company of everything from owls to bunnies. The most common and widely documented are of course cat cafes, but what do you do when you’re craving not only a little feline companionship, but also want something a bit stronger than a cup of coffee?
Simple: you head to the cat pub in Tokyo.
Read more at RocketNews24
Leaving JET: “Dear God, what have I done!?”
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By Hollie Mantle (Gunma-ken, 2011-13) who lives in the UK but has great memories of Gumma, home to the wonderful choking hazard konniyaku.
In February some of you would have ticked that fateful box and signed away all ties to that sweet, sweet wage packet and comfortable life you’re living tucked away in one of Japan’s mountainside prefectures, famous for cabbages or sweet potatoes or a particular flavour of senbei. (Oh the fame, the glory!) As it’s coming up to just before home time, I thought I’d give you a few tips just to horrify you into clinging desperately to your futon and make you comfort-eat kara-age as you think ‘DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?’ Read More
【RocketNews24】Japanese student’s English homework captures futility of life
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Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Clara Clegg, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
I’ve marked my fair share of English exam papers here in Japan, and there have been a few gems of hilarity in amongst the spelling mistakes and butchered grammar, but nothing that measures up to this beauty. One student’s answer to a simple question was so deep and existential, it read like poetry.
Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Casey Baseel, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
The international nature of professional soccer makes for some uniquely compelling individual matchups at the World Cup. Since the event is only held once every four years, during the time between tournaments the members of each country’s national teams go back to playing for their respective, privately owned clubs.
It’s easy to imagine how this could make things awkward for a player who has a club teammate who’s on the roster of a different national team. One day you’re doing everything you can to beat him at the World Cup, but a few weeks later, you’re going to have to go back to working together, no matter how bitterly contested your match in Brazil was.
Sometimes, though, the opposite happens, and these personal connections bring a little extra sportsmanship to the World Cup, like what happened between Japanese defender Yuto Nagatomo and Colombian midfielder Fredy Guarin.
WIT Life #271: New York Japan Cinefest at Asia Society
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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.
Last week I went to the 3rd annual New York Japan CineFest held at Asia Society. It featured six short films ranging in length from 4-30 minutes, many of which had already received awards at other film festivals. I attended with fellow JET alums, so it was fun to dissect the films together and relate them to our respective Japan adventures. The event opened with The Misadventures of Incredible Dr. Wonderfoot, and directors Grier Dill and Brett Glass were on hand to offer an introduction.
In addition, two of the movie’s stars, Tsukasa Kondo and Tadashi Mitsui, also shared their experiences of making the film. The former is actually one of the creators and stars of the web series Second Avenue, which follows two 20-something Japanese roommates in Brooklyn, an aspiring actress and a Japanese gay law student (played by Kondo). The first season of six episodes (mostly in Japanese with subtitles) are really entertaining, especially for viewers who understand Kansai-ben
.
It was fun to watch the quirky podiatrist Dr. Wonderfoot, but my personal favorite out of all the flicks (and audience award recipient) was one of the concluding films, Little Kyota Neon Hood (I also liked the final film Lil Tokyo Reporter that was based on the true story of L.A. Japanese-American community leader Sei Fujii). This film takes place in Tohoku and features 10-year old Kyota who is suffering from Read More
I’ll Make It Myself!: Rosemary-Orange Ricotta Muffins
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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. 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.
Can’t find ricotta in your grocery store in Japan? Never fear! It’s a piece of cake (muffin?) to make your own in Japan. Muffins work well in the moven, too.
【RocketNews24】Who needs pre-furnished apartments when you can get one that comes with a cat?
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Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Casey Baseel, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
Some Japanese apartments are incredibly sparse. In the most extreme cases, your lease gets you four walls, a kitchen sink, bathroom, and that’s it. Oh, you want lighting fixtures, a stove, and air conditioning? Sorry, you’ll have to purchase all that on your own.
As a result, savvy apartment hunters are always on the lookout for properties that include some of these amenities. And while it’s incredibly convenient to find a place that already comes with ceiling lamps, it still can’t match the thrill some animal lovers in Japan experience when they find a new pad that comes with a cat.
AJET Connect Magazine Interviews an Award-winning Saga JET Author
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Via the Saga JET Programme website:
This month’s edition of AJET’s Connect Magazine features a double (DOUBLE) page spread interviewing current Karatsu City JET Andre Swartley about his award-winning book – Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl. If you haven’t read this month’s edition, the interview and short review is below. If you want you buy a copy of the book click here.
Review and Interview: Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl
Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl delves into cultural exchange on a level that most people never get a chance to experience. When a group of American high school students arrive at a small German town for a summer work-study program, they find themselves caring for a potentially illegal alien in a life-threatening situation.
Leon and Autumn, a pair of teens staying with the same host family, are at the forefront of the action. Instead of spending their summer doing the work they traveled to Germany to do, they find themselves looking after a girl named Shin. Her presence is the glue that holds this story together, as well as what makes it so unbelievable. Shin’s story is vague at first and takes its time in clearing itself up.
The build-up to the second half requires readers to have some faith that that these characters will eventually find themselves in slightly more realistic situations, which they do. Spending a summer abroad in Germany is adventurous, but saving a fellow foreigner who should have been taken into custody from the beginning is a bit of a stretch. Read More
JET alum launches publishing site and contest that pays you for your short stories
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Have a short story? Upload it to www.fictionarcade.com to earn royalties and the chance of winning a chunk of the nearly $10,000 award pool between May and December!
Alan Shelton (Ibaraki-ken, 2000-03) is an Australia-based translator and former CLAIR Tokyo employee. But more importantly, he has, along with a few other folks including JET alums, created FictionArcade.com, a pioneering new online publishing site geared specifically to short stories. And he’s encouraging JETs and JET alumni to contribute their short stories as a way to earn money for their writing. Read on for more info and to hear Alan’s story.
I trained to be a writer. Japanese was just a class I chose to fill out my first semester schedule. Now, fourteen years later, Japanese is my bread and butter and writing is just a hobby. Feel free to insert your cliché of choice about the unexpected nature of life.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I enjoy translation. It pays well; the work is steady; and I get to work at home in my underwear. What’s not to love?
Okay, I used to complain, but my wife eventually called my bluff. “If you want to be a writer, go for it. Take a break from translation, write some stuff and try to sell it.”
“It’s not that simple,” I would whinge. “Nobody buys short stories. That’s what I write, and it doesn’t pay. You give them away for free on the Internet. Maybe if its a long short story you can get it up on Amazon for 99 cents, but no one’s going to pay a buck for six pages.”
“So sell it for 20 cents,” she said.
“There are no websites that sell stories for less than a dollar,” I retorted.
And then I had a eureka moment. I would build that website. I had to build that website. Heck, the movie montage music was already playing in my mind where a team of tireless programmers were working round the clock, overcoming obstacle after obstacle until that moment when my lead programmer – who would bear a striking resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg – leans back in his chair and says, “Alan, it’s finally done.”
Of course, in reality there are no training montages, and my lead IT guy looks more like Steve Jobs, but the site is done, and it’s called Fiction Arcade. I want it to be an oasis in a digital desert for paid short fiction. I want all those time-crunched, former JETs who pay the bills with translation and interpretation but who harbor a frustrated writer inside to discover it and say, “Watch out world. A new literary flower is about to bloom!”
Here’s how Fiction Arcade works. Anyone can upload a short story for free. The author sets the price between one and four tokens (which is equivalent to between 20 and 80 cents). Readers get to preview the first half of the story for free. If they want to read the rest, they purchase tokens and then spend them to download the story.
In an age of ubiquitous social media, good stories get noticed, they get talked about and they get purchased. A dynamite 20 cent story can get hundreds or thousands of downloads. This adds up to serious money and a fan base – a fan base that will be more than happy to download the author’s next offering. It may seem counterintuitive at first, but a good, cheap short story has the potential to earn more than a higher-priced novel. And even if it doesn’t, a writer can knock out a polished short story in a few days and then let it accrue money for her over the span of months or years.
Of course, if Fiction Arcade’s virtual shelves are bare, readers aren’t going to be terribly interested. Which is why Fiction Arcade is running a series of big money story contests between now and December in order to fill those shelves. Each month the overall top author according to reader downloads and ratings will get $250 dollars on top of what their stories earned. Also, the top author in the genre of the month – sci-fi in May – will get $250. In December, the top three authors overall between May and December will get $1,750, $1,250 and $750, respectively. And in each genre, the top author will win $250.
If you’ve ever thought about writing or already have some short stories lying around, now is the time to do something about it. You have nothing to lose and only money, fame and the adulation of the crowd to gain. Come check it out at www.fictionarcade.com or find us on Facebook!
【RocketNews24】Kawasaki donut shop goes beyond cat sweets with cute alpacas, penguins, and killer whales
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Posted by Michelle Lynn Dinh (Shimane-ken, Chibu-mura, 2010–13), editor and writer for RocketNews24. The following article was written by Casey Baseel, a writer and translator for RocketNews24, a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.
If we’re speaking honestly, we don’t really need much of an added incentive to eat a donut. Really, a sweet, inexpensive indulgence that we can eat with our hands is pretty much a laser-guided strike on our willpower.
Still, we can usually muster enough self-control that we don’t plow through a half-dozen in one sitting. But when you take donuts’ numerous preexisting merits and add the visual appeal of shaping them like cats, penguins, alpacas, and even killer whales, that’s when we stop even trying to resist them.
Click here for more on these adorable donuts and to find out where you can get some.
WIT Life #269: Japan Day @ Central Park
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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.
Japan Day @ Central Park celebrated its 8th year this past Sunday, and 50,000 attendees came out on this warm, beautiful day. As it coincided with Mother’s Day, many families enjoyed the events together. In addition to the free food and culture booths, an assortment of performances were featured on the main stage. There was some stellar taiko drumming and an interesting Matrix-like duo, but many in the crowd were waiting excitedly for the crooner Jero, who I wrote about and got to interview when he came to Japan Society two years ago.
This Pittsburgh native began his career singing enka (Japanese traditional ballads) as a youngster with his Japanese grandmother, and his official career started in Japan six years ago. Jero treated the audience to his debut single 海雪 (Umiyuki or Ocean Snow) as well as Read More
