This is my last blog entry. I decided to make it a kind of "best of" list. I've posted all of my favorite photos I took during my two years teaching in Japan. In addition, I have a few lists I made during my last couple of months in Japan: my opinion of the best things about Japan and the worst things about Japan. I realized that a lot of my favorite things and least favorite things about Japan involve food, so I made a separate list: My favorite food in Japan that I can't get easily in the U.S. and [View Full Entry]

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The following is an essay I wrote about my experience in Japan. It was published in both English and Japanese in the 2008 Japan Exchange and Teaching Journal. Lessons from Obaa-chan and Ojii-chan: Overcoming Ageism in the Aging Society of Japan Japan: the land of contrast. It is the land of skyscrapers and mountains, hi-tech toilets and hot spring baths, vending machines and tea ceremony. It’s also the land of a decreasing birth rate and an increasing population of elders. In fact, Japan is facing a serious demographic dilemma, as about a fifth of its population are aged 65 years [View Full Entry]

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Well, what can I say? This is it. The end of my two years in Japan. The end of my life as Jennie-Sensei, as the only white person in the community, as the first woman to come here to teach English, as that weirdo who got countless stares but even more cheerful greetings, as an independent woman taking on the world. Obviously, the past two years hasn’t been all adventure and enlightenment. There was a lot of loneliness, feelings of not fitting in, frustration with language, culture, coworkers. But as a whole, these last two years were exactly what my predecessors [View Full Entry]

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Note: These last few blog entries are extremely overdue. I am posting them about three months after these events took place. With only one more week of school left before summer vacation, and the temperature and humidity going up, up, up, school life on the island of Yuge is going out with a bang. Not that the students aren’t studying as hard as ever and us teachers aren’t delivering our regular lessons, but in addition to the daily academics of school, we are taking advantage of the summer and our beautiful island in the Inland Sea. And with only two weeks [View Full Entry]

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The countdown has begun. It is officially only one more month until I leave my Yuge home. I’ve started to get schmaltzy about everything these days, thinking it may be the “last time.” Seriously…I need to pull myself together. I even get teary-eyed if I see a commercial I like on TV thinking “this might be the last time I see this commercial!” or if I buy some dish detergent at the supermarket thinking “this might be the last time I every buy another bottle of dish detergent here!” Yes, it’s a little out of control. But, I’m not the [View Full Entry]

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The first week of May is a chain of holidays (including Showa Day, Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and Boy’s day) that are strung together to form what the Japanese call, “Golden Week.” It is one of the only times most people have a break from their jobs throughout the whole year, so everyone flocks in huge masses to vacation spots. The chaos of it all reminds me of “moving-in” day at West Virginia University, when everyone knows better than to go out in their cars or visit any shopping centers. During Golden Week, the only way you can avoid traffic or [View Full Entry]

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Spring has come to my little corner of Japan! And in Japan, spring time means only one thing…SAKURA! Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms. Sakura are a national symbol of Japan, and Japanese people are not short of obsessed with the flowers. Every night the national news reports on the sakura developments throughout the country, and every weather forecast is transformed into a sakura tracker to update the public as the sakura zensen (cherry blossom front) moves northward up the archipelago. Sakura are so sacred in the Japanese culture because they are only in bloom for abo [View Full Entry]

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Another school year has come to a close. Graduation and closing ceremonies were held, students have gone on a two-week spring break, and teachers are in the midst of cleaning out their desks and their apartments to move to their next schools assignment. I can’t get over how destructive the Japanese teaching system is to teachers’ lives, families, and well-being. I suppose it’s nice to have a new start at a new school every three years, but what about creating a life with lasting relationships in one place? My friend and co-teacher, Eri, is being moved to another island aft [View Full Entry]

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Well, I have now crossed another item off my list of “things to do in Japan before I leave.” For a long time I have wanted to visit a small island in the Inland Sea called Naoshima. It is known to be an art island, and although it’s about the same size as Yuge, it has the attractions of two large contemporary art museums. Most of the people who live on the island are somehow affiliated with the art world, and there are also many old village houses that have been converted into art spaces. I thought it was a bit [View Full Entry]

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Setsubun is the day before the beginning of the spring season as associated with the Lunar New Year that Japan used to follow along with China. So, Setsubun used to be like New Year’s Eve until Japan switched to the Western calendar where New Years is January 1st. Setsubun is kind of like Japan's version of Groundhog Day in the U.S, but involves throwing beans at demons instead of a groundhog. When the winter is coming to a close, Japanese people celebrate setsubun by ritually cleansing themselves and their houses of bad luck and demons. You do this, of course, by [View Full Entry]

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