{"id":30095,"date":"2013-05-10T22:54:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T02:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=30095"},"modified":"2013-05-10T22:54:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T02:54:11","slug":"jq-magazine-jetaa-new-york-greets-distinguished-guests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/05\/10\/jq-magazine-jetaa-new-york-greets-distinguished-guests\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: JETAA New York Greets Distinguished Guests"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Inuyama<\/a>

Inuyama City Council Member Anthony Bianchi, center, poses with fellow JET alums at the Japan Friendship Festival, Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza, May 2013. (Photo courtesy of Ann Chow)<\/p><\/div>\n

By <\/b><\/em>Ann Chow<\/b><\/em><\/a> (<\/b><\/em>Hyogo-ken<\/b><\/em><\/a>, 2007-09) for <\/b><\/em>JQ<\/b><\/a> magazine<\/b><\/a>.<\/em> Ann is a native New Yorker and serves as the Membership Development Chair for the JET Alumni Association of New York.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

On April 17, members of the JET Alumni Association of New York<\/b><\/a> (JETAANY)<\/b> were invited to attend a reception at the Nippon Club<\/a> for the Governor of Tokyo, Naoki Inose, who was in New York to drum up support for his city\u2019s bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Among the guests at the reception included Willie Banks, the three-time track and field Olympian, and world record holder from 1985-95 in Men\u2019s Triple Jump. (Cool trivia: Banks speaks fluent Japanese.)<\/p>\n

And on May 3, several JETAANY members, along with employees of CLAIR and the Japanese consulate, were on site to help Inuyama City Council Member Anthony Bianchi<\/b><\/a> (Aichi-ken, 1987-91)<\/b> and B. Bridges participants at the Japan Friendship Festival<\/a> at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. The B. Bridges program (short for \u201cBrooklyn Bridge\u201d as well as “Building Bridges” and \u201cBe Bridges\u201d) was created as a cultural exchange program by Bianchi and the administration of Xaverian High School, of which Bianchi is an alumnus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea for the B. Bridges exchange program was born\u00a010\u00a0years ago at\u00a0an event the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, held for me at Borough Hall after my first election, so it was great to be able to hold this, our Japan Friendship Festival: Inuyama Day at Borough Hall,\u201d Bianchi said.<\/p>\n

The program has sent close to 500 people from Brooklyn to Inuyama City and vice versa. This year, 40 participants came from Inuyama City to stay with families of students attending the school. On a beautiful sunny day, JETAANY members were able to help the group out at various booths which showcased tea ceremony, Japanese calligraphy, and traditional Japanese toys and wares.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cooperation of the Brooklyn Borough President\u2019s Office, the Japanese Consulate of New York, the Japan Local Government Center, and the JET Alumni Association of New York were crucial to making this event successful,\u201d explained Bianchi.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI was also proud of our B. Bridges members, as well as our exchange partners at Xaverian High School, who made great use of the opportunity. This, I believe, made the event a great experience for all those in attendance.\u201d<\/p>\n

For additional photos from the events, click <\/i><\/b>here<\/b><\/a><\/em> and <\/i><\/b>here<\/b><\/a><\/em>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ann Chow (Hyogo-ken, 2007-09) for JQ magazine. Ann is a native New Yorker and serves as the Membership Development Chair for the JET Alumni Association of New York. On April 17, members of the JET Alumni Association of New York (JETAANY) were invited to attend a reception at the Nippon Club for the Governor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,53,369,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-events","category-japan-local","category-jq-magazine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7Pp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30099,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30095\/revisions\/30099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}