JETAA Chapter Beat 2.24.09
JETAA Chapter Beat, JETAA Chapters 
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Freelance writer/editor Jonathan Trace (Fukuoka-ken, 2005-08) takes us on a walk around the JET Alumni community…
- Phoenix Matsuri – This past weekend the JETAASC Arizona Subchapter was out enjoying the annual Japan-related Phoenix Matsuri, which included parades and an Udon demonstration. Be on the lookout for more upcoming events with JETAASC Arizona!
- Tampa Happami – Saturday, March 7th, 2:00 to 4:00 at Kate Jackson park in Hyde Park. Florida’s own version of Hanami with snacks and sun. Rounding off the day is some Karaoke fun at night, so don’t miss it.
- Haru Natsukashii Dinner – Saturday, March 21st, 6:00 at Koume Restaurant. Food, games and prizes to ring in the coming spring. Be sure to join in.
- Japan-A-Mania! – Saturday, February 28th. JETAA, Big Brothers Big Sisters of NY and NY de Volunteer is hosting a day of Japanese culture and activities for NYC kids. Help out and share your love of Japan with the kids.
- JETAANY Quarterly Meeting – Thursday, March 5th, 6:30 to 8:30 at the Japan Local Government Center.
- Ski Bus – Day Trup to Tahoe – Saturday, March 7th, pickup at 6:00 A.M., locations to be decided. Spend the day on the slopes with JETAANC. Let’s skiing!
- Japan Society Year Ahead Part II Discussion – New Youth Culture in Japan – Thursday, February 26th, 6:00 at the Variety Preview Room. Learn about the effect of popular culture on Japan’s youth and what it means for the future.
- Biographies of Non-Eminent Monks: Situating Contemporary Japanese Buddhist Priests Discussion – Thursday, February 26th, 5:00 at IEAS Conference Room. Discuss the often overlooked lives of Japanese Buddhist Monks and their place in society.
- JASW Sushi Making Workshop – Sunday, March 8th, at Maneki Neko Restaurant. Workshop A begins at 10:00, Workshop B begins at 1:00. Come learn how to make perfect sushi rice, flawless maki rolls and some nicely shaped nigiri sushi with Chef Tao.
- JASW Discussion: Comparing US & Japan Litigation Processes – Thursday, March 5th there will be a discussion about US and Japanese litigation laws. Do not miss the conversation about this interesting subject.
- Nihongo Dake Brunch – Sunday, March 1st, 11:00 at the Penn Quarter Teaism. Brush up on your Japanese and catch up with friends.
- JETAA Oceania Logo Competition – JETAA Oceania is looking for logos. Help promote the JET Programme and embrace your creative side. Entries due by March 1st, 2009.
- Japanese Architecture Lecture – Tuesday, February 24th, 5:30 at the James O Fairfax Theatre at the National Gallery of Australia. Paul Noritaka Tange of the Tange Institute is giving a lecture on the work of his father, noted architect Kenzo Tange and his influence on modern Japanese Architecture.
- O-Shaberikai – Wednesday, February 25th, 5:30 at the Holy Grail in Civic. Join in and meet Japanese people living in Canberra and other locals interested in Japan.
What happened at your chapter’s event? If you attend(ed) any of these exciting events, JetWit would love to hear about them. Just email Jonathan Trace with any info, stories or comments.
Musubi: A Sushi Iteration
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Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-04) is a freelance writer with a focus on food. You can read more of her writing at TravelingTastebuds.blogspot.com.
America is a wonderful place and I have to thank Alex Russel and his guest post for introducing me to an American snack original: musubi. Hawaii is known for mixing and melding multiple cultures to create something that is uniquely Hawaiian and Spam musubi is a crown jewel in this tradition. Made with spam, the ubiquitous canned ham brought to the islands by World War II soldiers, musubi proves to be a hearty snack worthy of the President of the United States. You can take Obama out of Hawaii, but…
Click Here for the rest of the story
Casting for two TV shows
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JET Alum Suzette Brown (Tochigi-ken), a casting producer, shared the following two casting calls:
1. PURSUIT OF HEALTH
Currently seeking men and women from a variety of ethnicities, ages and Tri-State area locations for a health series for the web for a major online provider. This is not scripted. Casting for real stories.
The topic is staying healthy and the series is hosted by two health experts. We’re looking to feature people with 2 types of health stories – inspirations and interventions. With interventions, we’re looking for people with a real life health issue (nothing major) that our host helps to resolve. With inspirations, we will showcase various people who will share their tips and show us how they remain healthy (e.g. a dancer who has to nurse her aches and pains so she can dance her next show, a singer tells how she nurses a sore throat, etc).
I’d love to find someone who uses Japanese remedies to stay healthy.
Compensation is $200 for a half day shoot to tell your story. Must be available on March 7 to audition. Please respond with a blurb on your own unique strategy for staying well or tell us what your health issue is. You can email: Read More
Soft Power, Hard Truths: From Akihabara to Katsucon
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The latest Soft Power, Hard Truths Daily Yomiuri column from Roland Kelts (author of Japanamerica) in which he describes taking his Tokyo U. students on a field trip to Akihabara (i.e., the heart of otaku culture) reflecting on their reactions.
Job: Executive Director – OpenCourseWare Consortium (multiple locations)
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Via the Chronicle of Higher Ed international programs job page:
2/20/2009
- OpenCourseWare Consortium ( Multiple locations) : Executive Director
JETAA Florida Gets a New President
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JETAA Florida has elected Tom Gregorich (Tokushima-ken, 2001-03) to be its new chapter President. He has been the regional coordinator for the Orlando area for a couple years now and regularly travels to JETAA events around the Sunshine State. Here’s a snippet from Tom’s platform:
I was a JET from 2001-2003 in Tokushima-ken on the beautiful island of Shikoku. I went to Japan speaking no Japanese, and with little previous knowledge of the country, but I left three and a half years later (I stayed a bit longer after my time with JET was finished up) a permanent Japanophile. Now that I am living in Florida I am constantly on the look out for Japan related groups and activities. My goal for JETAA is to create a community built upon this shared enthusiasm for Japan.
Tom says he would like to set up a monthly group to get together to speak Japanese and practice. He also mentions that for the past year fellow alum John McGee has had a monthly tsudoi, which is a little get together at Panera bread to meet and discuss ideas for JETAA over coffee and suggests continuing this tradition, with perhaps the location alternating between Orlando and Tampa, and possible Miami as well.
JetWit says welcome, Tom! And ganbatte kudasai!
WIT Life #29: International Recognition to Wipe Away Domestic Woes
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
For those of you who didn’t tune in to the Academy Awards last night, Japan cleaned up in all the categories in which it received nominations. Going against heavily favored Waltzing with Bashir from Israel, Director Yojiro Takita’s Okuribito (Departures) took the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since the establishment of this award in 
1957, Japan Read More
Spread the love for Jetwit
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Spread the love for Jetwit. Now you can have your very own Jetwit virtual button to put on your website or blog. Or use it to pimp your MySpace profile. All you have to do is copy and paste the HTML code below into your blog or site:
<a href=”https://jetwit.com/wordpress/”<img src=”https://jetwit.com/Documents/jetwitbutton.jpg” width=”150″/></a>
AJ, the elephant by Zi Mei. Button design by Amber Liang.
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
This rant is in reaction to yet another Gaijin in a Strangeland vehicle starring Brittany Murphy. Ramen Girl. The mythicization of Japanese culture or should I say, Tokyo. “Put tears in the broth.” Augh!
I suppose there is some part of us that wants it to be true. After all, we don’t want the Japanese to be “just like us”. Noooo. That’s buzzkill for the exotic hard on. Barred behind a wall of cultural differences, a needy bitch of a language barrier and a society oft coined as “repressed”, it’s downright fucking magical to buy into the wax on/wax off charms of the Floating Kingdom. Where there are question marks, there are bound to be intrigue and lies and after all, what is Hollywood for?
Ohhh, Mr. Keisuke (yes, you have a first name) Miyagi:
You have forever damned your race with your awesomeness! Your humble janitorial exterior and invincible hidden dragon have created fantastical expectations for Japanese everywhere in cinema. Japanese people must all have two identities now. Every ramenya san must be a tough yet secretly kindhearted sage, every high school girl a porn star, every businessman a casual ninja, every sushi artist a contraband swordsmith for the likes of vengeful blondes. Come now. Let us stop making a fetish out of the entire nation. I propose some indie film maker focus on the truly lethal demographic of Japanese society:
Obaasans.
These dames are not. fucking. around. Read More
Writing Opportunity: Japan Society Round-up
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JetWit is seeking someone to write a new periodic feature called “Japan Society Round-up.” The feature will be similar to JETAA Chapter Beat in that it will give a listing of events going on at various Japan Societies around the U.S. (and even elsewhere).
Please send an e-mail to jetwit /atto/ jetwit /dotto/ com if interested.
Volunteer Opportunity: April 2009 in India with Building Communities
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Via the JETAA DC email grouplist:
April 2009 Volunteer Opportunity in India with Building Communities
Join us in “Building Communities” with the Dalit (Untouchables) of India. We are dedicated to providing the means and resources to build communities, both the physical structures and the support and compassion necessary for a community to thrive.
- April 2009. See: www.golongitude. org/www/JET_ April_2009. html.
- Contact: Volunteer Group Leader, Emma Parfey (emmaparfey /at/ mac /dot/ com) for details.
- Exact dates: March 26 – April 6, 2009.
- Cost: US$575.00 / JPY52,500.
Thank you, or in the Telugu language of the Dalit villagers we are helping, WANDANAMURU!
Rick Mickelson, Longitude Director of International Volunteering
NYTimes article: When Consumers Cut Back: A Lesson From Japan
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I noticed this artice in the NY Times today by Hiroko Tabuchi titled “When Consumers Cut Back: A Lesson From Japan.” It was interesting to read and contemplate the impact of the lingering “depression era” mentality that the article suggests many Japanese people still carry.
However, in addition to starting with anecdotal evidence (i.e., one or two examples of frugal Japanese people) and extrapolating to a more generalized, anxiety-inducing trend, I was also a bit bothered by the implied conclusion that Read More
JETAA NY Quarterly Magazine (JQ) Interviews JetWit
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From the 2009 Winter Issue of JQ, the JETAA NY Quarterly Magazine:
JetWit.com: Taking the JET Alumni Community to Another Level
After spending the last several years growing the JETAA NY Quarterly newsletter into a full-fledged alumni magazine, Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) began focusing his efforts on JetWit.com last fall. JQ caught up with Steven to learn more and see how he’s doing.
JETAANY Quarterly: Hey, what is a JetWit, anyway?
It’s just “JET” plus the acronym for “Writers Interpreters and Translators.” I started the WIT e-mail group last May to find more writers for the JET alum publications and also to help freelance translators find more work opportunities. I wanted to create a sort of public face for the WIT group to be able to do these things on a more consistent basis. I also wanted to create an online archive of newsletter articles that editors from other JETAA chapters could easily access and copy and paste for their own chapter newsletters.
JQ: Then why does JetWit look like an elephant?
[Laughs] I knew I wanted a Japanese-style mascot, so I went to graphic designer and Web developer Zi Mei (Saitama-ken, 2002-05) because I’d seen some of the excellent characters he created on his site (sugarcloud.com). I told him I wanted a cute little furry animal, and he somehow he came back with an elephant that he named A.J. which I love anyway. Read More
Bankruptcy Bill #11 – Organic Bankruptcy
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Bankruptcy Bill is a cartoon created by Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Gideon Kendall. To see more strips as well as original bankruptcy haiku, go to bankruptcybill.wordpress.com.
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Dudes, I have a confession.
I am scared shitless of the yaki-imoyasan.
Granted, I am a petit pussois and many things creep me out. But I will chalk this up to sheer cultural ignorance and unexplainable skeevies. The potato man is out to get me.
For those not in the know, a yaki-imo is a roasted sweet potato and a yaki-imo ya san is the elderly chap designated by some hellish force to peddle it. Oh, the sweet potato man ain’t lookin’ for your money or to warm your cramped fingers, friend. Nah-uh. He wants your soul. You’ve been warned. Read More
