I'm Going Back to Japan! Nihon he kaerimasu!

So, after 5 years of hoping to return back to Japan, I am finally going back. If you kept up with my blog, you'd know that I spent 2 years in Nara, Japan (2003-2005) as an assistant language teacher (ALT) on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. Unfortunately, I will only have one week to stay there to visit my friends in Nara (Heguri-cho), Tokyo and Osaka, but it will be worth it. I hope to see my former students who must now be in junior high, high school or college. I miss them so much and I've been having that old natsukashi feeling lately when I flip through or discover photos and handwritten notes from them. I will see my former co-worker, Yoriko, to reconnect with some students and then my former co-workers. Besides Tokyo, Nara and Osaka, I hope to take some excursions to Hiroshima and various sites on Kyushu Island. Can't wait!

Japan Connection

I originally started this blog because I was tired of sending out the mass emails to my friends about my experiences in Japan. Since being back in the States, it's now turned into something that I hope reflects the international experiences ordinary people have everyday.

Well, one of my co-workers from my days as a teacher in Japan, Yoriko Kawakita, asked me to host her daughter, Yuka, when she came over from Japan for her month-long college vacation. Yuka is a 20-year-old Pharmacy student from Nara, Japan. She started in Philadelphia and then came down to visit me here in DC.

Meanwhile, my friend, Nicole Daley, who also taught English with Yoriko, was visiting Japan for a month following her graduation from grad school. What a small and interconnected world we live in!

Jero's Rise to Fame in Japan

Soooo, my friend, Jerome White, was featured in the Style section of the Washington Post as a new up and coming singer in Japan! He is African-American with a Japanese grandmother and sings "enka" music, a traditional style of Japanese music. Read the article for more on "Jero" (his Japanese stage name).

With Spring, Comes New Beginnings

Last weekend, I went to see the Cherry Blossoms of Washington, DC. If you are not familiar with this festival, here's a brief history:

The National Cherry Blossom Festival annually commemorates the 1912 gift to the city of Washington of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and celebrate the continued close relationship between our two peoples.
In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two of these trees on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. By 1915, the United States government had responded with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan. In 1927, a group of American school children reenacted the initial planting; the first festival was held in 1935, sponsored by civic groups in the nation's capital. Visit http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/ for more info.

In other news, I've started my job as a consultant with my first client, America Abroad Media (http://www.americaabroadmedia.org/) . I'm working as the Online Coordinator and I'm responsible for helping to complete the overhaul of their new site. Hopefully the new site will be debuted before my contract is up. I'm really excited! The organization does radio programming for NPR (and other broadcast media) as well as some television work. They're having a Town Hall on American Foreign Policy at AU this Monday, April 7th. The hosts are WAMU's Kojo Nandi and famed journalist, Martin Kalb. The guests will be representatives from the McCain, Clinton and Obama campaigns. VERY cool stuff.

Also, it's official, I'm going to Australia with the International Scholar Laureate program as a Communications and Journalism Faculty Advisor. I'll be gone for 11 days in May. I really don't know what to expect right now, but i'm really excited! This will be my first time to the continent. I met and made friends with quite a few Aussies during my time on the JET program, but unfortunately I won't have enough time to visit them. I'm interested to see what the media is like there and I am excited that we'll get to meet with the media from various ethnics groups and the Aboriginal community. This will be a trip to remember and I HOPE that I can get a new camera so that I can show you all this amazing place!

So, this is the beginning of my freelance lifestyle. I'm giving myself until the summer to at least see if I can survive. Luckily, since starting the freelance lifestyle, it leaves my schedule open for opportunities like Australia. After this trip though, I'm curious to see what kind of next gig I'll get.... Shameless advertising moment coming...

Check out my Web site, also named Cultural Connections, and pass the word on that I'm looking for writing and consulting gigs: http://www.intlculturalconnections.com/ .