Return to Tohoku: Tanya Gardecky “Hi ho! It’s off to school I go!”
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Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) is one of the 20 Tohoku region JET alumni selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to return to their town to both engage in volunteer efforts and also help document and share what’s going on there.
Here’s an excerpt from Tanya’s latest post: “Hi ho! It’s off to school I go!”
But when I went to the grade 3 classes the teachers changed it a bit and had some of the students mention their experience with the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. From what I understood, the students were very surprised by the earthquake and were confused about the tsunami. Some didn’t believe the tsunami was happening or that it was that big, others simply had no idea what was happening.
JETwit will continue to post updates from Tanya and other participating alums. You can also follow Tanya’s blog at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ShiogamaJET/.
Click here to read other “Return to Tohoku” posts.
If you are returning to Tohoku and would like to share your updates, please feel free to e-mail jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
AJET’s revamped website continues to impress. There’s now a section called AJET Voices that lists all the main JET online publications and also invites JETs to submit an article. The goal is to help JETs connect with their communities.
Here are the publications listed:
- The Wide Island View (Hiroshima)
- Yomoyama
- NagaZasshi (Nagasaki)
- Ganbatte Times: The Unofficial Kyoto JET Webzine
- The Refill (Fukuoka)
- The Hyogo Times
- HAJET (Hokkaido)
- The TRAM (Toyama)
- JETFuel
- Shimane Black Taxi
- Mie Life
- Ishikawa JET (Thanks to Leah Zoller for calling this one to our attention.)
For more about AJET Voices, here are AJET’s own words:
Have you done something you felt was special? Want to promote an event you are involved in? Just want to get published? AJET Voice is AJET’s way of connecting you with the rest of the JET community throughout Japan. All JETs are encouraged to submit and share their experiences with everyone.
The JET Programme is all about multicultural exchange and grassroots internationalization. If you have participated in something which you felt furthered these goals, please share it with the rest of us! Submit your articles of 200-300 words with any pictures to activities@ajet.net
Publications across Japan
Currently representing voices from Nagano, Hyogo, Toyama and many others, the site is growing in hopes of being a resources for all of Japan and those interested in the perspectives born from living here as a foreign resident.
By Prefecture
Many of the publications represented on the site are fundamentally newsletters, PDFs, or print magazines. If you are interested in or reside in the prefecture of a specific publication and wish to submit or regularly receive it, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
AJET
All of the publications on this site are in some way connected to the JET program and often each prefecture’s AJET (Association Japan Exchange and Teaching) branch. Submissions from guest writers and non-JET program teachers is extremely common and decided by each publication along with the content and editorial vision.
As a unified site, all content abides by the site’s editorial ethic not to publish any content felt to be uncritically prejudiced or offensive.
Return to Tohoku: JETAA Sydney’s Sharon Van Etten
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Sharon Van Etten (CIR Iwate-ken), President of JETAA Sydney, is another Tohoku region JET alumni selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to return to their town to both engage in volunteer efforts and also help document and share what’s going on there.
You can follow Sharon’s blog Revisiting Iwate at: http://revisitingiwate.blogspot.com/
JETwit will continue to post updates from Sharon and other participating alums. Click here to see previous “Return to Tohoku” posts.
If you are returning to Tohoku and would like to share your updates, please feel free to e-mail jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Return to Tohoku: JET alum Tanya Gardecky arrives in Shiogama
Blogs, Earthquake Tsunami, Japan Local, Notable JET Alums, Return on JET-vestment, Travel/Tourism, Volunteer, Writers Comments Off on Return to Tohoku: JET alum Tanya Gardecky arrives in Shiogama
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Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) is one of the 20 Tohoku region JET alumni selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to return to their town to both engage in volunteer efforts and also help document and share what’s going on there.
Here’s an excerpt from Tanya’s latest post:
I eventually made it Shiogama (and instantly noticed some damage around the train station) and went city hall. There I was greeted by the Mayor and vice-mayor, along with many staff from the Shiogama Board of Education, and they welcomed me back. We talked about the state of the city after the earthquake, and I was shown a book full of photos of the damage in Tohoku. Most I had seen in the news already but to see them all in one book was a bit of a shock. They said they had made much progress in the reconstruction, and this was something I wanted to see. From city hall I went to the Board of Education to meet the staff again and to discuss my week. It’s a very busy schedule but I know I can’t afford to get worn out because there are people, places, and things I want to and need to see.
JETwit will continue to post updates from Tanya and other participating alums. You can also follow Tanya’s blog at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ShiogamaJET/.
If you are returning to Tohoku and would like to share your updates, please feel free to e-mail jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
WIT Life #179: Japan in Transition, Yet Again
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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.
Yesterday’s NYT featured two articles relating to Japan’s financial and political situations. The first discusses how Moody’s lowered Japan’s credit rating by one step to Aa3, the fourth-highest grade (Standard & Poor’s had brought them down to AA back in January, putting them on par with the U.S.). The second recounts Vice President Biden’s recent trip to Japan, including a stop-off in of Tohoku. He served as a source of encouragement to some of the survivors he met in the disaster area.
Biden’s visit came at a time of great political turmoil, as it is forecast that Prime Minister Kan will be stepping down next week. A partywide ballot to decide a new party leader is expected on Monday, with the new leader being appointed prime minister on Tuesday. Kan indicated his desire to Read More
Latest Newsletter from Councilman Anthony Bianchi
Article/Journalism, Celebrity, Japan Local, Local Government, Notable JET Alums, Return on JET-vestment, Translating/Interpreting, Writers Comments Off on Latest Newsletter from Councilman Anthony Bianchi
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Here’s the newest newsletter from JET alum and Inuyama City Council Member Anthony Bianchi (Aichi-ken, Inuyama-shi, 1988-89):
***Page 1***
***Page 2***
CLICK HERE for more JETwit posts about Anthony Bianchi.
Show off your translating skills! An English translation or summary of some or all of the above would be great if any readers are up for it. Full credit will be given!
Return to Tohoku: JET alum Tanya Gradecky arrives in Japan
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Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) is one of the 20 Tohoku region JET alumni selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to return to their town to both engage in volunteer efforts and also help document and share what’s going on there.
Here’s a quick excerpt from the first post on her travel blog:
“I’m about to head off to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a meeting and then I will be on my way to Sendai and Shiogama City in Miyagi Prefecture!!”
JETwit will continue to post updates from Tanya and other participating alums. You can also follow Tanya’s blog at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ShiogamaJET/.
If you are returning to Tohoku and would like to share your updates, please feel free to e-mail jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
JET Counselor: Roy Huggins (Hokkaido, Sapporo, 2007-10) is a counselor and therapist in both Portland, OR USA (Portland Counseling & Therapy) and Japan (All Japan Counseling) via the magic of Internet chat. He specializes in helping JETs in Japan, international folks and intercultural couples.
How do you keep upbeat when your boss doesn’t speak English, your significant other is sixteen time zones away, the sweet little kids you work with keep diving at your backside and it takes an hour of driving to find the nearest person who understands all this? It’s a tough puzzle, and one that many JETs struggle with even now. Based on my conversations with JET alumni at the USA national conference last month, JET alumni both urban and rural can empathize even years after returning home.
Culture shock is a constant for nearly every JET. Beyond that, there’s discrimination (or the appearance of it), isolation, and other vicissitudes of international living. Most of us seem to have a good time anyways, though, or at least remember it all as a good experience.
At the USA national conference I got the chance to talk with the sempai about what worked for them. Going with the assumption that people who were motivated to volunteer for their local JET alumni chapter probably found ways to succeed on JET and value their Japan experiences, I asked everyone I could to tell me what they did to deal with culture shock, discrimination and anything else that came up during their time.
I expected a lot of what I think of as “good luck stories” — stories about Read More
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James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of the acclaimed young adult novel The Order of Odd-Fish, will be curating the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival with the New York Public Library around November 5 and with the Harold Washington Library in Chicago around November 16. And he has a special request for JET alumni who are into film making:
There are some Newberry award winners that are about Japan and the Japanese, and nobody has done a 90-Second Newbery film of them yet!
Off the top of my head, I can think of:
(1) Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, which is about John Manjiro (2011 Honor Winner)
(2) Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, which is about WWII Japanese-American experience (2005 Medal Winner).
(3) Commodore Perry In the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg. (1986 Honor Winner)
So, as for JET alumni:
(1) I’d love to put the call out to the JET alumni community, which surely must include filmmakers, to make 90-second films based on those books for the film festival. (It would be even better if they were totally in Japanese, with subtitles!)
(2) The film festival at the NYPL on November 5 will be not only films, but also live acts between the films — a kind of cabaret atmosphere — live 90-second Newbery reenactments, or songs, etc. So this is also a call out to any arts groups / comedy teams / bands / etc. who would be interested in doing something as a between-film live segment for the 90-Second Newbery film festival?
Here’s a little more info from James about the 90-Second Newbery Festival: Read More
JET alum James Kennedy reviews “Super Mario” for WSJ Book Review
Article/Journalism, Books, JETs in the News, Notable JET Alums, Return on JET-vestment, Reviews, Writers Comments Off on JET alum James Kennedy reviews “Super Mario” for WSJ Book Review
James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of the acclaimed young adult novel The Order of Odd-Fish, just did a Wall Street Journal book review of SUPER MARIO, Jeff Ryan’s history of Nintendo.
In the article, James apparently also had the chance to correct some bad Japanese in his book. (Who says the JET program doesn’t teach marketable skills?)
“Errors crop up. Speculating on the name of Mario’s evil twin, Wario, Mr. Ryan claims that “in Japanese, wariu means bad.” Actually, the Japanese is warui.”
The book review was in Friday’s print WSJ, and here it is online: http://on.wsj.com/paNu5f
Another Canadian JET to visit Tohoku via the MOFA program
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Turns out the Ottowa Citizen article was not entirely correct about Brent Stirling (Fukushima-ken, Fukushima-shi, 2006-10) being the only Canadian among the 20 ex-JETs selected for the MOFA program to go back to their town/city in Tohoku, help with volunteering and write about and share their experience.
But the post on JETwit about the article did help generate a response from Toronto-based JET alum Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) who will also be participating and whose travel blog you can follow here: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ShiogamaJET/
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Here are a few JET-related articles and radio piece written and produced in the past month by JET Alum Bluegrass Subchapter member Graham Shelby (Fukushima-ken). (Thanks to Graham for sharing the info.)
- Graham went to Nashville at the end of July to interview some of the new JETs about to depart from the consulate there. Here’s a radio piece he produced that aired this past week on the public radio station here in Louisville. (It’s short.)
http://www.wfpl.org/2011/08/15/audio-new-teachers-prepare-for-life-in-japan/
- Graham also put together a quick piece focusing on one of new JETs who happens to be headed to Fukushima. It aired a few times on NPR’s national newscasts during Morning Edition on August 1. They don’t archive the newscasts online, the newscaster’s intro sounded something like this:
“While many people are struggling to find jobs, hundreds of Americans, many of them recent college graduates, have found an employer eager to hire them – in Japan. From member station WFPL, Graham Shelby has more.”
- Lastly, Graham did another short piece that was Kentucky-specific that was picked up by a few stations here.http://www.wfpl.org/2011/07/30/kentuckians-prepare-for-japanese-teaching-assignments/
As Graham’s work demonstrates, there are clearly opportunities to find and tell compelling stories from the world of JETs and former JETs. If you have any ideas, angles, upcoming events or possible outlets in mind, please feel free to contact Graham gshelby3 [at] gmail.com.
Brent Stirling (Fukushima-ken, Fukushima-shi, 2006-10)
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Ottawa based JET alum Brent Stirling (Fukushima-ken, Fukushima-shi, 2006-10) is one of only 2 Canadians out of 20 JET alumni selected to return to the Tohoku region to volunteer, engage and share their experience for the benefit of others, according to an article in the Ottawa Citizen.
(Note: This post previously repeated the error in the Ottawa Citizen article that Brent was the only Canadian participating. But it turns out that Toronto-based Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) will also be participating.)
Stirling, who writes on his blog ForYourBrentertainment and was actively involved in the creation of Quakebook following the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, submitted a proposal which was accepted by the program established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Japan Tourism Agency to bring 20 Tohoku-area JET alums back to Tohoku to play a role in helping their communities and then spread word of their experience afterwards.
Read the full Ottawa Citizen article here: “Months of blogging leads to trip to Japan: Kanata teacher will help with disaster relief in the country he writes about”
Tsunami: JET alum Harvard professor Ian Miller’s NY Times article
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Harvard history professor Ian Miller (Miyagi-ken, Miyako-shi)
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Thanks to a recent conversation with Peter Kelley, President of the National Association of Japan-America Societies, I just learned of this New York Times article by Harvard history professor and JET alum Ian Miller (Miyagi-ken, Miyako-shi) which ran March 19, 2011.
Bitter Legacy, Injured Coast
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion/20miller.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
By IAN JARED MILLER
Cambridge, Mass.
THE rugged Sanriku Coast of northeastern Japan is among the most beautiful places in the country. The white stone islands outside the port town of Miyako are magnificent. The Buddhist monk Reikyo could think of nothing but paradise when he first saw them in the 17th century. “It is the shore of the pure land,” he is said to have uttered in wonder, citing the common name for nirvana.
Reikyo’s name for the place stuck. Jodogahama, or Pure Land Beach, is the main gateway to the Rikuchu Kaigan National Park, a crenellated seashore of spectacular rock pillars, sheer cliffs, deep inlets and narrow river valleys that covers 100 miles of rural coastline. It is a region much like Down East Maine, full of small, tight-knit communities of hardworking people who earn their livelihoods from tourism and fishing. Sushi chefs around the country prize Sanriku abalone, cuttlefish and sea urchin.
Today that coast is at the center of one of the worst disasters in Japanese history. Despite the investment of billions of yen in disaster mitigation technology and the institution of robust building codes, entire villages have been swept out to sea. In some places little remains but piles of anonymous debris and concrete foundations.
I taught school in Miyako for more than two years in the 1990s, and it was while hiking in the mountains above one of those picturesque fishing villages that I came across my first material reminder of the intricate relationship between the area’s breathtaking geography, its people — generous and direct — and powerful seismic forces.
On a hot summer day a group of middle-school boys set out to introduce me to their town, a hamlet just north of Pure Land Beach. While I started up the steep mountainside the children bounced ahead of me, teasing me that I moved slowly for someone so tall. “Are you as tall as Michael Jordan, Miller-sensei?” yelled one boy as he shot past me up the trail.
“Not quite,” I told him, pausing on a spot of level ground to look out over the neat collection of tile roofs and gardens that filled the back of a narrow, high-walled bay.
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to a mossy stone marker that occupied the rest of the brief plateau. A chorus of young voices told me that it was the high-water mark for the area’s biggest tsunami: more than 50 feet above the valley floor.
“When was that?” I asked, but the boys couldn’t say. Read More
WIT Life #178: Fukushima Fallout, Nuclear and Bureaucratic
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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.
Interesting article from today’s NYT about the government’s (mis)handling of the post-Fukushima disaster, specifically not providing information when it was available regarding potential radiation levels. The public is now not only fearful but outraged, claiming that the government cared more about covering up than about its own citizens. One notable aspect of the article appeared on the last page, discussing a group lawsuit being carried out by Read More
