When people study Japanese as a second language, the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is often seen as a main goal to achieve. An exam that is often overlooked is the Kanji Kentei (漢字検定). This exam is aimed at native Japanese speakers and primary school, middle school and high school students take this exam to see how their kanji knowledge is progressing. The JLPT does not test Japanese learners on their writing abilities, so the Kanji Kentei makes up for a knowledge gap that the JLPT leaves out. So, I believe that this exam is also beneficial for Japanese learners and not just native speakers.
I ran the first and personally dubbed Ehime ALT Half Marathon on June 29th of this year with two other ALTs in Ozu, Ehime. This was to be my fifth official half marathon. It was to be their first.
We were three total. Women. English teachers. Independent. Strong. Sore. Thirsty. Determined. We finished.
A fundamental part of this blog is, and always has been, reviews. Shaping our own experiences in such a way that others can get something out of them is a powerful way to communicate with audiences, and when that experience is something someone else can also take part in, a review is the most direct way to express that. Nowadays, the pop culture idea of what a review is still has this idea of being connected to a star rating or a number out of 100, but the reviews I’ve seen published in the last year are nothing like that. Take Joshua Hill’s review of his experience at Matsuyama castle, or Niall Magee’s experiences with VR in Tokyo. Both are very different ways of approaching very different materials, but both are essentially reviews.
Every three years, a contemporary art festival draws thousands of Japanese tourists and foreign visitors into the sparsely populated islands resting in the sea between Honshu and Shikoku. The Setouchi Triennale, also known as the Setouchi International Art Festival, began just nine years ago in 2010, but it has already garnered acclaim as a top destination in the contemporary art world and as one of the most unique events to take place in Japan. Whether you’re an art lover or an island adventurer (or both!), the Setouchi Triennale offers something for every kind of Shikoku explorer. As JETs in Ehime, we are extremely lucky that the Setouchi Triennale happens in our backyard. Here’s a short guide to the festival, general background and visiting information, and a brief snippet on one of my favorite islands of the area.
For a cloudy day in January, it is strikingly warm in Matsuyama city. Matsuyama is the largest city on Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island. Usually the coldest month of the year, Matsuyama is today enjoying a very mild 14 degrees C.
The warmer winter days are only one sign of the increasing grasp of climate change in south Japan. Regional typhoon patterns are also changing, and the combination of rising temperatures and increasing typhoon damage poses new threats to the region.
I woke up this Christmas Eve with a new anticipation. Instead of performing the traditional caroling and cookie decorating with my family, back in America, I would be traveling to Matsuyama Castle as a Samurai.
Last December I went to VR Zone Shinjuku, a virtual reality park in Tokyo, for the second time. It opened in July 2017 and will be closing in March of this year, but another location, VR Zone Osaka, opened last year on floors 8 and 9 of the Umeda HEP Five building. These theme parks are a part of “VR ZONE Project i Can” which is an initiative headed by game/toy company Bandai Namco to popularize virtual reality. It all started with a pop-up VR park that ran from April to October 2016 in Tokyo’s Odaiba district, near the famous giant Gundam statue.
On Saturday, February 3rd, Stonewall Shikoku held an ice skating event in Ehime’s very own Matsuyama. Stonewall Shikoku is the Shikoku branch of the national Stonewall group, a place for LGBTQIA+ people to interact with each other while in Japan to share their experiences, help each other with queer-specific problems, and make connections with other people within the community. Stonewall Shikoku is currently headed by CIR Micah Rabinowitz who is based in Kochi prefecture. Some of his duties include putting out a regular newsletter about regional and national LGBTQIA+ related issues and organizing island-wide events for people across the region to meet up. One such event was a camping trip held at the end of summer last year.(more…)
Magical realism is defined as ‘an amalgamation of realism and fantasy.’ It originated in literature from Latin America, yet numerous novels from and about Japan have drawn on elements of this genre. Japan often appears fantastical and duplicitous, especially to outsiders. Western media often exacerbates this notion, and though it is frequently true, it can sideline the presence of everyday life. Magical realism both represents and overcomes this problem by presenting multiple realities and using tangled narratives. Authors introduce reality as paradoxical, often with an underlying darkness at play. Magical realism allows characters plagued by trauma to comprehend events that have affected them, their ancestors and even society as a whole. Elements of science fiction and fantasy, dreams intertwined within narratives and prose that verges on poetic are all characteristics of magical realism. Below is a succinct, and by no means definitive, introduction to magical realist Japanese and Western authors’ who write about Japan.
