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By Niall Magee
Last weekend I was invited to go on a tour of Uchiko to help promote it as a tourist destination. As a disclaimer, all expenses were paid for by the city, except for dinner at the German restaurant and the washi products I bought.
By Casey Waller
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.
(more…)do sometin’
That new tuh meh,
Make sometin’ that we could share,
Post it up inside ah here…”
Machel Montano Ft. Tarrus Riley, 2016
By Apphia Pereira
Memory yuh say? So said, so done. Several in fact!
As I embarked on a journey into a world of drastically different cultures, I was ready and enthralled with my upcoming prospects.
My name is Apphia Pereira, some call me Phee or Pheefi, and I come from the beautiful Twin Island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Coming to Japan has always been a G.O.A.L of mine and honestly, the timing, though at one point I may have thought was too late, is one that I can now appreciate. I applied after a really difficult year and I did not get any of my three choices but I also ticked the no preference box because I did not particularly care where I was placed. I was just looking for adventure and fulfillment. I honestly didn’t mind experiencing what the rural life had to offer.
(more…)By Justin Woodard
I was not really sure what to expect from the three-day Hojo festival. Leading up to the event I was told there would be fights, broken mikoshi, and a parade. Naturally, I was having a hard time imagining how all of this would fit together into one festival, especially one in Hojo. After all, when I arrived in Hojo for the first time, it gave me the impression of being a quiet, small town, similar to the one in the United States I grew up in. The only way to find out for sure how everything would come together was to go to the festival and witness everything for myself.
(more…)By Kathryn Shea
Four year old me had many ideas about what I wanted for the future. Some included wanting to be a paleontologist or astronaut, discovering new species of the saurian or alien kind. Others were as mundane as wanting to be an ice cream truck driver because I liked the music. That was before I discovered how creepy that tinny music could be. Yikes.
One of the dreams that stuck around for longer (than my two week dream of selling ice cream, for example) was being a horse rider. Didn’t matter if it was as a rodeo rider, rancher, racer or jumper. I just wanted to ride horses. My aunt let me ride her horse a few times and my grandparents bought me cowgirl outfits when we went to see rodeo rides. My friends encouraged this by taking me riding for their birthday parties. Even if actually owning a horse or taking riding lessons wasn’t possible, I took every chance I could get to interact with horses.
So you can imagine how excited I got when I was told that there would a horse festival in Kikuma on October 20th.
(more…)By Christian Jalim
Hey everyone! I’m Christian and I am from the small country of Trinidad and Tobago (/ˈtrɪnɪdæd … təˈbeɪɡoʊ/). For those who don’t know, it’s actually a country in the Caribbean archipelago that comprises of two main islands, Trinidad… and… you guessed it… Tobago. I hail from the larger sister island, Trinidad but from a very small, rural village called Manzanilla (a name of Spanish origins but the pronunciation has been anglicized). Trinidad and Tobago is fairly known in the Western hemisphere, however, halfway across the world in Japan, especially in a Prefecture such as Ehime, my country is barely known to the locals, or so it may seem.
(more…)Patrick Peh
Beginning of a Journey
A year ago, I was told that three of my five schools would be in the islands, and I would have to take the ferry or the kousoku, the express boat, to the islands and then find my way to school. That was how my journey to Nakajima and Nuwajima began.
(more…)By Rebecca Paskiet
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.
(more…)Compiled by Jordan Rocke
Introduction
When I first applied to JET, the question of “What sort of person becomes a JET?” was not at the forefront of my mind, but I certainly had an image. The image I had, of a young, straight out of university, genki American or British person, was certainly reinforced the sorts of people who appoint themselves representatives of the programme on social media.
(more…)