{"id":52062,"date":"2026-04-30T01:21:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=52062"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:21:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:21:34","slug":"the-same-moon-by-sarah-coomber-yamaguchi-ken-1994-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/30\/the-same-moon-by-sarah-coomber-yamaguchi-ken-1994-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"The Same Moon by Sarah Coomber (Yamaguchi-ken, 1994-1996)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Posted by: <strong><em>Margie Banin<\/em><\/strong><em>\u00a0(Kochi, 2005-2007), a former CIR with a love of the written word. Currently she connects others to Japan through translating, writing, and editing texts on Japan. Margie also manages the JETwit Bluesky account, serves as the JETwit Volunteer Coordinator and a JETwit jobs-list welcomer, and engages in various other JETwit outreach activities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/the-same-moon-cover-2026-1-194x300.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52063\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/the-same-moon-cover-2026-1-194x300.png 194w, https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/the-same-moon-cover-2026-1.png 565w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The third edition of Sarah Coomber\u2019s memoir, <em>The Same Moon<\/em>, has just been released as of April 2026. Based on Sarah\u2019s experience teaching in rural Japan in the mid-1990\u2019s, <em>The Same Moon<\/em> is described as a story of encouragement and hope. Here\u2019s a little background from Sarah about her book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMany of us experience a time in life where we\u2019d like a do-over, and I sure felt that way about my early twenties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being briefly wed and quickly divorced by age twenty-four, all I wanted was a fresh start. I abandoned my Minnesota life for a job teaching English in Japan, planning to take a year to reflect, heal and figure out what to do next.&nbsp;<br><br>I ended up the lone English speaker in an isolated rural area, where I was drawn into serving tea to my male co-workers, performing with a&nbsp;<em>koto&nbsp;<\/em>(zither) group, advocating for female students and colleagues, and embarking on a controversial romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course I signed on for a second year\u2014not because this was&nbsp;the Japan I was seeking, but because it turned out to be the Japan I&nbsp;<em>needed<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more at <a href=\"https:\/\/sarahcoomber.com\/\">https:\/\/sarahcoomber.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Discover more JET alum authors in the <a href=\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/library\/authorsbooks\/\">JETwit Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. . Posted by: Margie Banin\u00a0(Kochi, 2005-2007), a former CIR with a love of the written word. Currently she connects others to Japan through translating, writing, and editing texts on Japan. Margie also manages the JETwit Bluesky account, serves as the JETwit Volunteer Coordinator and a JETwit jobs-list welcomer, and engages in various other JETwit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1647,40,408,1645,6],"tags":[1386,610,726,1646,1379],"class_list":["post-52062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-author","category-books","category-jet-alum-author-beat","category-jetwit-library","category-writers","tag-books","tag-jet-alum-authors","tag-jet-alum-writers","tag-jetwit-library","tag-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-dxI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52062","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\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52064,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52062\/revisions\/52064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}