JETFuel Magazine Spring 2017

Spring 2017

Cover Artist: Bronwen MacDonald

03 – Letter from the Editor Just what it says on the tin.

06 – Osusume!

William Tjipto Some recommendations from the south.

05 – Art Break Iggy Jeffery

Art, for your eyes!

08 – I Was Bored, so I Played Softball Amberly Rose Young

12 – Olympic Interlude Dillon Davis

Making the best of a bad situation.

Olympic organizers take note.

13 – Of Hearts and Light

16 – Zine Dillon Davis

A definition.

23 organizers – So Interesting Olympic take note.

Ariel Montemayor

Once upon a time…

17 – Minoh Falls Morgan Butterfield

Dillon Davis

Sure you want to camp alone?

Some alternatives.

24 – Positivity

28 – Rejuvenate at a Jjimjilbang

Saskia DeLaurentis, Davis Son

SiRena Webb

Looking on the bright side.

Learn about Korea’s version of onsen.

33 – Stressing Out?

38 – How To Be Japanese Megan Daniel In case you were wondering.

Angela Hinck Aren’t we all?

Thank you for picking up this edition of JETfuel, Fukui prefecture’s ALT publication!

It’s been a long road to getting this edition out there, but I’m proud to show you all of the amazing content our contributors turned in. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted something! There’d be no JETfuel without you guys.

This is the first issue released since Simon stepped down from the role of editor and up into his new, shiny position as the kencho ALT and turned his skills to making the monthly kencho newsletter. So you might notice that this issue is… honestly, pretty plain in comparison to the old ones. A design expert I am not, though I am pretty good at combing through Google for clipart that’s not watermarked or under copyright. That’s a marketable skill, right?

Hey future employers, look at this sakura branch I found on the internet!

Please hire me

What always has made JETfuel stand out though is the content, and that comes from you guys. I’m in my second year here in Fukui now, and I have to say, we have an amazing ALT community. That’s not just me buttering you up- I mean that in the truest, sappiest way. Not every prefecture has this same sense of community, or is as active with events and volunteering as we are. And there are so many passionate and interesting people here that make the JET experience so much richer for everyone involved. So thanks for being yourselves, thanks for sharing some of your talents with the magazine this time around, and never stop being awesome.

Sincerely,

Art Courtesy of Iggy Jeffery

I Was Bored,

So I Played Softball

By Amberly Rose Young

“When my days are filled with empty schedules, I look into my heart and realize that I'm deeply annoyed.”

“Why am I sitting here?” I ask myself. Oftentimes I feel invisible and ignored. I flew all the way here from California and moved my life to Japan, to sit at this desk? I can drive myself crazy by thinking about it. Sometimes, I channel my energy into making activities- PowerPoints, lessons, and worksheets related to the textbook, many of which never get used. But really, I find the best way to alleviate my feelings of invisibility is to force my presence upon my students. If I can't get in the English classes, I might as well try to go to other classes.

Today I only had one team teaching class, so I knew I would be bored at my desk for most of the day unless I took action. Now that I'm learning the kanji for the names of the subjects, I can just barely read the schedule. I saw that one of my free periods coincided with a PE class. I was a bit nervous, but I forced myself to approach one of the PE teachers after the morning meeting, even though he was clearly busy with some mysterious bureaucratic task.

"Sumimasen, kyou wa, third period, PE?" I said in my feeble mix of Japanglish.

"Hai, demo Inoue-sensei!" He said, waving me off. I had approached the wrong teacher.

Oops...

I consulted the chart I made with all the teachers' names to be sure I had the right one - I'm one year in, and I still haven't memorized all their names! - but I located the correct teacher and asked him the same question.

"Hai! Welcome! We play softball. Come on!" he said.

Yay! So after third period, I headed down to the locker room, quickly changed clothes, and ran outside to join the sixty kids (two ni-nensei classes) for softball.

After their ritual bow and unified greeting of "Onegaishimasu!" Inoue-sensei gave a brief lecture in Japanese that made the kids laugh a few times - I have no idea what he was talking about - but then he said something about "ALT Amber," so he must have acknowledged my presence. I came to the front and smiled and waved, and then suddenly all the students took off running.

I followed, trying to keep up, but after one lap around their big dirt field I fell into the last ten or so runners. After the jog, students broke up into groups of eight for their ritual warm-up. I intentionally joined a group of students I don't see very often.

To a synchronized call and response of "Ichi, ni, san, shi!" and "Go, roku, nana, hachi!" we went through a series of stretches and exercises, including burpees and push-ups. These kids are tough! I'm amazed that PE classes are in addition to their after-school sports, and most kids walk or ride their bikes to school. They are way more active than I was when I was a junior high school student.

My group's leader, a tiny but personable young fellow, ran to Inoue-sensei and retrieved a clipboard and four yellow balls, which were surprisingly soft and bouncy.

The clipboard must have given instructions of what to practice; skills like playing

catch with one bounce, catch with no bounce, fly balls, and grounders. Most of these activities devolved into the same conundrum; chase the ball that you missed before it rolls into the rice field.

I was paired with two uncoordinated girls who wouldn't stop giggling. I imagine they were surprised that their English teacher was at their PE class, or maybe they are just constantly stuck in giggle-mode. But one of them really wanted to talk to me, and kept trying to ask me questions. It was clear I could catch and throw (better than them, at least), so after some necessary thinking and gesturing time, she said, "Why throw straight?"

"I played softball in high school!" I answered. Theoretically she could understand all the words, so I imagine she maybe understood me.

"Softball, like?"

"Yes, I like softball very much!" I replied. Then I decided to give them a throwing lesson. "Elbow up!" I said. "Use your whole arm!" Oops, too many advanced words.

Thanks to my ape-ish gestures, though, I think they got the idea.

Soon their army-general PE teacher blew a whistle, and they all jogged over to listen to a final lecture that I couldn't understand. We bowed to the empty field and shouted, "Arigatou gozaimashita!" and students hurried off to their next class. I got a few weird looks, but some students seemed glad to see me and stopped to say hi to me. A few students even ran up to me, going out of their way to grant me a precious

shouted, "Arigatou gozaimashita!" and students hurried off to their next class. I got a few weird looks, but some students seemed glad to see me and stopped to say hi to me. A few students even ran up to me, going out of their way to grant me a precious high-five. After these positive interactions, my energy was replenished, and I felt I could get through the rest of the day with a smile on my face.

Sometimes at work, I feel like my time and talents are being wasted. When I'm stuck in this negative thinking, the best way I've found to combat it is not scrolling on Facebook, but rather standing up and finding some way to get involved at school.

I asked the special-ed teachers if I could join their classes, and together we made an awesome Halloween board and carved pumpkins. During test week when I had no classes scheduled, I asked the music teacher if I could join her class, and sang with the san-nensei students. Last year, I participated in every club activity at least once, and I joined gymnastics, kendo, and hip hop dancing PE classes. After a year as an ALT, I've realized that if I stand up and ask to be involved, my life at school improves drastically.

I want to remind all ALTs - and myself during my lazy moments - that oftentimes it's up to us to find ways to get involved!

Ariel Montemayor

there lived a young girl with a light about her and a magic all her own. She would use her magic to help all those around the kingdom, and the more she did, the brighter her light shone.

One day while out in town, she met a boy.

She liked the boy very much, and he liked her. He touched her heart very softly and very gently, but as he pulled his hand away a small crack formed.

The boy and the girl laughed a lot together, sharing secrets and sharing dreams.

However, as the sun set in the sky, the time drew near for the boy to leave for his own home far away. They said their goodbyes and he left, but the farther he went the more her heart began to crack and her light began to fade.

She desperately tried to hold her heart together and keep her light from growing any fainter. Just when she thought her heart couldn’t crack any more and her light fade any more, her heart shattered into a million pieces and her light went out completely.

The girl tried to use her magic to mend her shattered heart and bring the light back, but the more she tried the darker her world became and the more broken her heart became.

And so in the dark she sat, and in the dark she cried.

After some time a kind man happened by and, seeing her sorrow, sat down beside her.

“Why are you crying?” He asked warmly, his own light shining brighter than anything she had ever seen.

“Oh mister,” she wailed, “my heart has broken beyond repair and my light has gone out forever! I will be eternally stuck in this darkness! But look at how much your light blazes. How could you ever understand my troubles?”

With a chuckle he revealed his heart to her and she gasped. His heart had been broken, but it had also been fixed. The cracks were filled with wonderful rivers of gold and the missing pieces now danced with beautiful patterns and shapes that she had never seen before. There, at the bottom of his heart, was a pattern of green spots against a blue background.

“When my heart was broken, I felt the same as you,” he explained.

“When I was at my worst, I met a woman from a land far, far away from here. She dried my tears and told me that everyone goes through hard and dark times. Times when the entire world seems against you and there is no hope of ever escaping… but that’s not what’s important.”

The girl stared up at him as she spoke, her tears having finally stopped.

“What is important, then?”

He smiled down at her and gave her a handkerchief, a silly blue thing with green spots all over it. “What you do when times like that come, that’s what’s important. Will you sit here in the dark the rest of your life crying over what was, or will you try to find your light somewhere else, and see what could be?”

Staring down at the handkerchief, the girl squeezed it as she thought.

“I don't want to cry here anymore.” She concluded. “I want to see the world, and see what the future holds for me there.” Wiping her face of any tears that remained, she stood up and held it out to him.

However, he gently pushed it back towards herself. “You keep it. On your travels, you may find someone else who can use it just like you did.”

With that the man left.

As she watched him go, her heart grew warm and the bottom of her heart came together, forming a rather silly pattern of green dots on solid blue.

the girl set out for her travels, deciding to go wherever her feet led her and resolving that, wherever she ended up, that was precisely where she was meant to be.

Her journey led her to many wonderful lands and places, letting her see things she could never have dreamed of in a thousand years. And while she went, she used her magic to help those around her, just as she had done at home.

With every experience she found her light started to shine brighter and her heart started to grow, bearing the patterns and colors of all the cultures and friends she had met. And even once her heart was whole once more and her light was back and gleaming more than it ever had before, she continued on her way to see and learn more.

many years later, she wandered down a path and came across a man sitting and crying in the dark. She knelt beside him and asked him what was wrong.

When the man looked up at her, she saw the face of the boy she had met all those years ago. Looking down, she saw him holding the remains of his heart in his hands.

“My heart broke,” he stammered, “and my light has gone out. I’ve tried and tried to fix it, but nothing helps. There’s no hope.”

“Take this and dry your eyes.” Pulling the old handkerchief out of her pocket, she handed it to him and smiled warmly. “Now, let me tell you what to do when you have no hope and all you see around you is darkness.”

By Morgan Butterfield

I will never go camping alone.

I will begin, perhaps obviously, at the start.

I am currently spending a year of my life teaching in Japan. I was able to enjoy some of Japan’s wild landscapes during the later summer months of my arrival.

Yet with the long winter we experience here, when spring came around I was itching to see as much of it as possible. Thus, the plan to hitchhike from my home just south of Kanazawa to Miyajima (a famously spiritual island just off the coast of Hiroshima) and back again began to unfold.

I must add before I go any further that, although I remain open to the concept of spirituality, I have never before had reason to believe in demons or ghosts. Japan is the land of the spirit and the soul, and offerings to those that have departed this world can be found in every single place you look.

However, these too I just believed to be rituals buried deep within their ancient culture.

I checked the weather forecast for the area: showers, it said. “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” A quote by the great Bob Marley that I repeated to myself as rain lightly patted the windows. By this point in my journey I had given up trying to hitchhike. I was able to see much more by taking the inexpensive local train, and so it was on one of these many local trains I was sat, ready to `just get wet.`

Aside from the few days me and some friends spent exploring Miyajima, I spent my time alone. My only conversations were with the abundance of locals I met who were politely inquisitive as to what I had in my hiking bag, and the racoons that I would less politely tell to fuck off when they woke me up in the middle of the night. Some of these nights were filled with the sounds of the city, an exchange made in my favour as I was then greeted by the dawning sun rising to highlight whatever historical monument I’d pitched my tent in front of. However, most of my nights were spent far away from the sounds of men and children. The blissful sounds of nature led me into my dreams.

It was a good fifty minute walk away from the small town of Minoh through a beautiful forest and the gorge created by the waterfall.

On sunnier days I am told it is an extremely popular place for tourists and locals alike.

However, on this particular day I was greeted by few people. As with most of my walks along this journey, I took the less trodden path and wound my way up the side of this gorge further into the thickness of the trees.

The rain was quieter here, more muffled. The grey sky barely made it through the canopy but there was plenty of residual light.

It is on one of these nights that my story takes place.

It was nearing the end of my journey, and as such I had ticked most of the places off my list of things to do. So I asked my mum to choose my next destination and I woke up to very clear instructions on how to get to a secluded waterfall called Minoh Falls. I tell you this as a warning. Do not camp here.

I passed a small shrine on my left and smiled at the small cup of coffee placed on its mantle. My first reaction to seeing cups of coffee and bottles of water on shrines is always that of surprise. If you’ve ever been to Japan, you will notice a very immaculate landscape, void of any litter or bins. The phenomenon of placing cheap vending machine coffee on shrines I was told stems from the thought that the spirits are tired, and Japan being the highly caffeinated province it is, happily aids their weary guests.

I inspected the shrine more closely. It didn’t appear to be made out of stone, nor was there any head remaining. I shrugged it off as a product of time and made my way further down the path.

The rain had turned the waterfall from what I would imagine is usually more of an attractive stream into a tremendous torrent of falling water.

The fifteen-meterhigh fall then ran its way back down a fairly magicallooking gorge and around a corner. I spent the afternoon reading, drinking whiskey and trying not to get my camera wet. I didn’t want to pitch my tent until evening lest the park rangers see me and tell me to pack up.

Only ten minutes past the previous shrine did I find another; an almost identical headless figure sat bow-legged with its hands by its sides.

The trees opened up slightly and the dappled light reflected at me from the damp trunks. The world was sodden and I really hoped that this waterfall had some sort of shelter for me to sleep under. Only ten minutes past the previous shrine did I find another; an almost identical headless figure sat bow-legged with its hands by its sides. Less forest growth covered this one, less time had taken its toll, but it remained firmly headless. I decided to leave an offering of my own, something I had never done before but felt inclined to after my week of passing many a shrine without offering something in recognition. I had two plastic bottles, one empty and the other more than half full. I couldn’t afford to leave all of my water, so I emptied some into the now filling bottle and left it by the shrine with its lid off. As I walked away, I toyed with the idea that this bottle would fill up every time it rained and the spirit would be happy; I had done a good deed today.

I arrived at the waterfall just after lunch, and as I’d hoped, there was a large sheltered area which I scouted and deduced would be the best spot to pitch my tent for the night.

Yet, as late as I waited, the evening patrol inevitably came past as I was finishing the construction of my anti-spider dome. “Tento dameh,” accompanied with the bilingual gesture of making an X with one’s arms, translates to something like “kind sir, this is a nature reserve and you can’t pitch your tent here so please pack it up and move.” I nodded politely and feigned the start of my deconstruction. I regretted many times over the course of this night that I did not listen to the kind old man; that I did not heed his warning, that I probably misunderstood what he was trying to tell me and that I did not ask him why I was not allowed to camp there. My only recompense for pursuing my cause of adventure is that I now have this story to tell.

When they left, I began to search the area for somewhere out of the way that I could stay safely hidden from the mean park rangers that wanted me to destroy my home. I wish I could say I found somewhere with an even more beautiful view of

the falls, but what I instead decided upon was a very large disabled bathroom. I measured the inside of the room with my paces and to my bemused delight it was in fact more than enough space for the tent to fit. To my friend that lent me his tent and has yet to hear this story, and perhaps may read it here for the first time, the bathroom was suspiciously clean.

I moved my tent into the room under the shade of twilight and began to hang my dripping clothes over the variety of handles one finds inside disabled toilets. Confident with my decision, and with the remaining light waning, I locked the door and got into my sleeping bag. It was a heavy hook-style latch attached to a heavy metal sliding door, perfectly bear-proof. After a minute, I had successfully deceived the motion sensor in the room and the light went off. I absorbed the darkness and let my ears take control of my mind.

up and braced myself for the inevitable knock knock knock on the door which would require me to pack up my tent in the rain and walk back through the forest at night. For nearly an hour I heard the sounds of vehicles moving around. I sat clutching my knees. Ears pricked. Preparing myself for what I deemed the only possible course of action. When I was finally greeted with the solitary sound of falling water, I released my knees and my breath simultaneously. My heartbeat began to subside and I braved turning on my head torch so that I could continue my book. I downed the remainder of my whiskey and for a while I let myself escape from the room I was in.

At around 11 P.M. I closed my book and surrendered my eyes to the darkness.

I allowed my body to find a comfortable place and closed my eyes.

The undisputable sounds of children laughing danced past me.

Silence followed.

Something those of you who have camped alone before will know, is that the noise of the world around you becomes tantalisingly sharp once you zip yourself up into your cocoon. The slightest snuffle of a hedgehog must be a bear and the wind that momentarily shakes your tent must be a person trying to get in. However, my agileminded brain had taken me safely inside a bathroom and behind a locked door so I felt unrecognisably secure.

My body froze. My skin grew cold.

The only way I can describe the fear I felt would be to compare it to the paralysing fear that comes from nightmares. But I was awake.

When I mustered the courage to quietly unzip my sleeping bag I reached for my phone and messaged my girlfriend and my mum, asking for them to tell me I was awake. I must have sounded crazy but I needed to be sure.

I locked my phone and continued to press my Shortly after I zipped myself up, the sounds ears to the slightest sound. Unsure as to whether of the patrol bike began to haunt me. It was my ears were now creating what I expected to hard to tell over the sounds of the waterfall hear, the laughing was fainter and further away. exactly where the car was, so I sat

I no longer trusted my ears.

I was trapped. If I moved outside of my tent, the motion sensor would trigger and I’d be discoverable by whatever it was I had just heard.

So in my tent I stayed.

a toilet. They had both found it very funny.

Neither of them were laughing now.

The logical woman my mother is tried to convince me that it was probably some kids getting drunk at their favourite spot away from their parents. Oh how much I wanted to believe that was true. The distance from the town and the quantity of rain caused my brain to refuse to accept that truth. However, it is what I began to focus on.

The undisputable sounds of children laughing danced past me.

My hands grasped my phone, waiting for some external source to reassure me that I was not in fact dreaming. My rational brain had dissipated at this point. I knew my dream mother would also be able to tell me that I was awake, but I needed something.

I heard the lock of the bathroom click and swing.

I locked my phone and silenced my breath.

My mind raced with causes and reasons and what my crazy mind kept coming back to was these forest spirits had led a bear to my home. Unlocking the door was their final task.

I couldn’t check even if I wanted to. I needed the darkness to hide.

I heard the click and swing of the lock again.

I don’t know how much time passed before I dared unlock my phone again. But the message I needed was there. Both my girlfriend and mother confirmed my fears. I was awake. I quickly explained what was happening to them both. The last update they had previously was that I was hiding in

Then I remembered the lock, and the impending bear attack. I found my pocket knife and placed it near my head.

Did the spirit unlock it and lock it again to tease me?

I waited for another eternity, my mother urging me to focus on my breathing.

Knock knock

knock.

The dreaded sound from earlier in the night, which I had very gratefully acknowledged would not come, hammered down so much more fear than I had ever anticipated.

The peril I had experienced not half an hour before was back tenfold.

I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t move.

Silence.

My mind’s illusion of finding recognisable patterns within the randomness of the noises around me was now overwhelming. The laughing was still indefinable. I begged that it didn’t come closer.

A single loud knock brought a tear to my eye.

Many a horror film I had seen and into the forest I expected to be taken.

I shielded myself through closed eyes and clutched my only tangible connection to the outside world to my chest. My body tensed.

Bracing myself for whatever was about to come next.

And like this my night was spent.

I packed my tent up with the morning sun and was greeted with a gloriously grey, but dry, day.

I told several people about my story. The Japanese among them were quick to believe and the foreigners among them were logically sceptical.

I didn’t know how to explain it very well.

In the safety of my real home, hindsight shrouded my previous thoughts and I began to think of possibly more logical causes for my experience. I have toyed with the idea of monkeys, real children, dreams and illusions, yet nothing can explain everything I experienced.

The overwhelmingly physical feeling of fear is something I will never forget.

When I returned to work the next week I

was showing a colleague some of my photos, although importantly I had decided not to tell them the story.

When I got to the photo of my tent by Minoh Falls, he stopped me and said “Oh, Minoh. English difficult. Many, many ghosts.”

I couldn’t tell him my story but my skin crawled with the reminder that for the first time in my life, I was in the presence of something I could not explain.

The following morning, I parted my curtains and saw with horror an empty plastic bottle sitting lidless on the sill.

Earlier this year, I asked for stories about positive experiences you guys have had while in Japan. Living abroad can be rough. I’m sure you all have your own horror stories. But I’ve also heard about- and experienced- so many acts of kindness from the locals here.

A couple of personal examples: Just last month, a woman invited me over to her house. She gave me a full tour, showed me her collection of kimono, and played me a song on her piano while she sang in accompaniment. I’d known her for about five minutes. A few months before that, I got stuck at the train station because I had left my wallet at home. I couldn’t afford a ticket and I couldn’t get my car out of the paid parking lot either. The station attendant gave me 1000 yen, trusting me to bring him the change and pay him back.

I have a dozen stories of everyday kindnesses like this that I’ve experienced here in Fukui, as I’m sure a lot of you do. When times are dark as they are now for some of us, it helps to remember that people can be kind. They can be generous and accepting of differences, despite what we see on the news and our social media feeds.

That’s enough from me- here are a few stories of exceptional kindness and generosity from some of our fellow Fukui ALTs. Thank you guys for sharing your stories! – A

This happened last fall. I was doing my Saturday morning run and from far away I saw this figure walking towards me. As I came closer, I saw it was a really old man. He suddenly stopped walking and started to kind of bounce up and down as I was coming closer. When I was close enough, he threw off his mask covering his mouth and basically screamed in Japanese: “From what country are you?!” It kind of caught me off-guard, but I answered: “Ollanda.” He was all like: “eeeeeeeee, sugoi!” Then he started to ask me a ton of questions about the Netherlands and I tried to answer them the best I could in Japanese. I know it's not a really special story, but I like it, because the old man seemed to be very excited to be talking to me and I feel like we usually don't get this response to our presence.

So yeah, that is my story!

Saskia DeLaurentis

A glance out of the windows showed no people but plenty of rice fields. After a very packed-physically and temporally-Tokyo Orientation and then Fukui Orientation, I was alone for the first time in what felt like weeks. Quite a difference from sitting in the middle seat of a Boeing jet or the hotel room at Keio Plaza I shared with two other JETs. I had the whole two-story building to myself. My predecessor hadn't managed to pack up and move out in time so I was to stay in my high school's empty dormitory for a few days. Without any way to contact my friends and family in the US, or even the new friends I’d made in the past week, it was the first time I felt lonely and isolated.

I figured I should try to explore the town- maybe there would be an Internet café within walking distance. I heard that Japanese people went to them to read manga and even sleep overnight. I tried to make my jet-lagged brain focus on the buildings and signs from the thirty-minute drive that my supervisor took from the hotel to dorm. The main road in town passed a lot of rice fields so I would probably have to go to the nearest city over, Sabae. Outside of the front door were a few bikes. maybe I could borrow one- but they were all locked so I had to walk. I started sweating before I turned the first corner. I reached the western edge of Sabae after about an hour. Nothing much around, I thought. From my vantage point though I could see a more densely populated part of the city below, so I kept on walking for another thirty minutes until I reached the eki-mae area.

On that long walk doubts started forming in my mind. What was a big-city person doing in the middle of the inaka? How long until I knew the area? Would I ever feel at home here? Would I make friends among the locals? Was there anyone even my age around? It sure didn’t look it from the deserted streets I passed.

And then I found myself in front of the reggae music shop, Upper Yard. I would have been less surprised coming across a geisha or a sumo wrestler in the street.

Japanese and reggae!? It made for a strange pairing, like shrimp and corn on a pizza. “Whatever, reggae is all about that love and peace, right? so there may be someone willing to help me inside,” I thought. I entered and slowly asked the man behind the counter in Japanese if there was any internet café nearby. He looked at me for a second before replying, no, there wasn't any around. My hourand-a-half walk was going to be good for sweating off weight and deepening my tan, but not much else.

tan, but not much else.

But then he said, in English, “You can use my computer.” I was so surprised I had to confirm, so I said in Japanese: 「いいですか?」 「はい.」

He went to the back room for a minute and came out with a laptop. I opened up Gmail and sent off a few emails to my parents and friends. Accepting my new life would mean accepting the distance of 6,000 miles and a twelve-hour time difference.

I looked around at the CDs and posters depicting an island life half a world away. Well, if a reggae shop could find a home in Japan, maybe I could too.

- David son

Many of you have been in Japan long enough to have learned or experienced the tranquility of onsen culture. If not, well you should try and take part in the awesomeness ; ) In my recent trip to Korea, I was able to experience four lovely jjimjilbang, the onsen of Korea. Below is some general information about bathhouses in Korea and the four jjimjilbang I went to on my trip, so you can plan them into your schedule when you travel to Korea.

Jjimjilbang have a bit more to offer than most of the onsens in Japan (unless you’ve gone to Spa World in Osaka). I think these bathhouses are like a capsule hotel, an onsen, and a spa put together.

Some are open twenty-four hours. There is a quiet room for men and women if you want to sleep for a while or through the night, or an open space area where you’ll probably find some sleeping and snoring people laid out on a mat. If you plan to sleep here for a night, don’t forget an eye mask and ear plugs. The added bonuses of these bathhouses are the extra facilities and spa treatments offered and the types of saunas they have (some are called fomentation rooms). The one con about them is they don’t have body wash or shampoo/conditioner like most onsen. There are bars of soap available, or you can bring your own or purchase what you need.

Your experience at any jjimjilbang will be unique. Go to as many as you can find or to one that suits your needs. Either way, I’m sure you’ll enjoy a jjimjilbang.

Day Rate (5 a.m. - 8 p.m.)

Only the Bath – 8000 Won Bath and Sauna – 10000 Won

Night Rate (8 p.m. – 5 a.m.)

Only the Bath – 11000 Won Bath and Sauna – 15000 Won Pay when you enter. If you buy anything while in the spa, pay when you leave.

Sauna clothes are included in the price. Here you can grab towels. No tattoos allowed.

I think the first place you go always seems the best. Here, as well as the other bathhouses, they have extra spa treatments offered. Here is where I tried the infamous Korean buff or body scrub; a woman/man will scrub off the dead skin on your body. Depending on which treatment you purchase, you can get just the scrub, scrub and oil massage, scrub and body massage, and a shampoo and head massage. I thought this place had the cheapest prices for the body scrub compared to the other three places.

Day Rate (5 a.m. - 8 p.m.)

12000 won

Night Rate (8 p.m. – 5 a.m.)

15000 won

Weekends/Holidays 14000 won Pay when you enter. If you buy anything in the spa, pay when you leave. Sauna clothes and two towels are included in the price. Tattoos allowed.

I went to this place on the last leg of my stay and enjoyed it as much as the others. They have someone there to explain the cost and the procedures of the spa in English, but after going to the others I had already figured out everything, so the man was quite annoying in my opinion. On the way in, I didn’t see anything that said no tattoos, so I was surprised to see ladies with them inside the bath. Those with beautifully inked bodies, this is your best place to experience a jjimjilbang in Korea!

Weekday Rate (24 hours) 8000 won

Weekends/Holidays 10000 won Pay for everything when you leave. Sauna clothes rental costs 2000 won. No tattoos allowed.

This bathhouse has extra amenities since it is attached to a hotel. This place was more spacious and open and had amazing baths. It even had a pool in the hot bath area. A staff member tried to tell me to shower and wash my hair and tried to get me out of the bath. I explained I had already done so, and she walked away, but she kept watching me while I tried to experience and enjoy the bath.

Besides this annoyance, this place has amazing baths and saunas.

Weekday Rate 15000 won (Special prices if you enter before 9 a.m. or after 8 p.m.)

Weekends/Holidays 18000 won Pay when you enter. If you buy anything while in the spa, pay when you leave.

Sauna clothes and two towels are included in the price. No tattoos allowed.

This bathhouse is attached to a large department store, so why not do some shopping and then wind down here? Since this place isn’t twenty-four hours like the others, try to allot more time to enjoy all the saunas on the different floors. The sauna rooms at all the bathhouses I attended gave information about what each room and bath did to the body. This one and Dragon Hill Spa offered suggestions as to which bath and sauna worked together to get the best benefits for your body.

Stressing Out?

Angela Hinck

Stress is a versatile beast. There are a hundred different kinds with a million different causes, so it’s hard to say exactly what someone could do to help manage their particular kind of stress. Having said that though, there are some stresses that are unique to expats living abroad. Since I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, I wanted to write out a few things that have helped me deal with my own expat stresses over the two years I’ve been in Japan.

Am I qualified to give this sort of advice? Probably not! But keeping some of these things in mind has helped me deal with my own depression and anxiety while here, so I hope someone else can also benefit from it.

1. You don’t always n have to say “yes.”

I know this goes against every article you’ve read about adapting to Japanese culture and getting over culture shock: “Say yes to every opportunity! Even if you’re aren’t

feeling up to it, make yourself go anyway. You won’t regret it.” And of course there’s some truth to that. Our time in Japan is limited, so we should do our best to make the most of it while we’re here. Laziness and an unwillingness to experience new things makes coming to Japan a pretty fruitless experience.

But anyone who has actually tried putting this into practice will know just how much of your time it takes up. Lessons, parties, tours, volunteer events, extra school activities… it adds up fast. For those of us who have a hard time getting the basic necessities done on a normal day, whether due to mental illness or other causes, trying to do it all is incredibly daunting and stressful. Burnout is a real thing. Then there’s that all-too familiar cycle: you miss an event, so you stress over missing it. You’re so stressed that you don’t go to the next event. Then you’ve missed an event, so you stress…

It’s okay to say no sometimes. If you’re really not feeling a night out or giving up your weekend for the sake of something you really aren’t into anyway, then don’t. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t make an effort. Getting out and socializing is important beyond being fun- it’s a crucial way to help manage things like depression. And you should definitely go outside of your comfort zone whenever you can. But also know where your limits are and don’t feel as if you have to push yourself to meet some arbitrary standard of involvement. v

When you’re a foreigner in the inaka, it’s all eyes on you more often than you might like. Sometimes walking into the conbini

2. You don’t have to change yourself for Japan.

feels like walking into a spotlight. Kids point. Elderly people stare. Y’all know the drill. Being an ALT is a tightrope walk. We’re ambassadors for our own cultures, but we also are here to experience and respect Japanese culture; and sometimes that means participating in societal norms that are very foreign or even constraining. When it feels like everyone is watching, that urge to play down our differences can feel even stronger.

While I’m not going to tell you to gaijin smash your way through every situation that isn’t perfectly catered to you, I will say that you have a right to be yourself here in Japan, even if that means you don’t embody the “ideal foreigner.” We’re all individuals that are unique and flawed in our own ways. There’s nothing wrong with that. Trying to be perfect at the expense of what makes you happy is a recipe for a miserable time in Japan (and really, for a miserable life in general.)

3. Try not to obsess over the future.

The JET Program is a transient space.

There’s an end to our time with the program,

even for those unicorns that stay on for five years. For those of us who aren’t going back to a specific job or living situation, the future is this huge, hulking monster looming so tall in our difficult for those

thoughts that it sometimes feels impossible to think about anything else. This is especially difficult for those ALTs in their last year here.

This is where some mindfulness comes in handy. To help deal with future-induced anxiety, consciously try to live in the present as much as you’re able. Your future is there waiting for you, but it doesn’t actually exist outside of your own head yet. Right now, in this moment you are still in Japan. You are still teaching English. If all you do is think about a future that hasn’t even happened yet, you’re going to end up thinking yourself in circles and missing out on the time you still have here. It’s not too late to have some amazing experiences or make a real difference to your students, even if you’re leaving this summer.

You don’t have to become fluent in Japanese. You don’t have to travel to every prefecture. You don’t have to become an

4. There is no single “ideal” JET experience.

expert in Japanese cooking. You don’t have to be best friends with all your JTEs. And if you don’t do one or all of those things, that doesn’t mean you’re a failure or that you’ve wasted your time with the JET Program.

Everyone has a different experience in Japan. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, different priorities, and different comfort levels. For some, just being in Japan and seeing the culture firsthand is enough. Others want to be fully immersed. Whatever you do or don’t do while you’re in Japan, it’s okay. You don’t have to do it all and you don’t have to do any of it perfectly. It’s tempting to compare yourself to other ALTs who seem to be living the “ideal” ALT life, but idea of there even being an “ideal” to live up to is inherently flawed. There is no checklist to complete with a prize waiting for you at the end. Your only mission, if you choose to accept it, is to enjoy your time in Japan on your own terms.

5. Be aware of your negativity.

When we’re unhappy with somethingfor example, some of the less glamorous parts of living in Japan- it’s easy to fall into the trap of fixating on the negative. What might start out as a

series of minor gripes can snowball into a deep-seated bitterness and dissatisfaction.

To be fair, there are plenty of things that make life in Japan unpleasant or uncomfortable for people from different countries. Is Japanese culture perfect? No. Is the culture here nothing but its flaws, with no redeeming qualities worth mentioning? It’s not that either.

It can be good to let off steam and complain occasionally, but be aware of just how much complaining you find yourself doing. Beware of becoming a source of negativity yourself, where the majority of things you say are criticisms or black-and-white statements that paint everything in an unfairly negative light. Not only are you blinding yourself to the good things Japan has to offer, but you also risk becoming a source of negativity to those around you. It’s good to vent.

Healthy, even. But beware of getting so caught up in criticism that you stop seeing anything good at all.

Further Resources Whether you are dealing with a diagnosed mental illness or not, we all need help dealing with life sometimes. But you aren’t alone, and you aren’t without options! Here are some resources you can use if you feel your stress levels are getting unmanageable.

JET Mental Health Counselling Assistance Programme: JET Program participants are eligible for a partial subsidy (up to 50% of total costs incurred, or 20,000 yen a year) to cover any counselling costs that are not already covered by our health insurance. Your supervisor has probably received paperwork regarding this already, so if you’re curious about applying, ask them for the relevant forms.

JET Online Counselling Service: This a free service offered by CLAIR to provide online counselling (via email or Skype) for JET Program participants. You need to log into the service with a password that you can get from Simon at the Kencho. Just send him an email if you’re interested in trying it.

The AJET Peer Support Group (PSG): This is an anonymous phone and Skype service staffed by JET program participants all around Japan. They’re available every night of the year from 8:00 p.m. to 7 a.m. to talk and offer advice. Number is 050-5534-5566. Skype handle is AJETPSG.

International Mental Health Professionals Japan (IMHPJ): You can use this website to find mental health professionals around the country: http://www.imhpj.org/

Tokyo English Life Line (TELL): A telephone counselling service for foreigners in Japan (not, as the name suggests, only those in Tokyo). Similar to the AJET Peer Support Group, you can call them for a variety of reasons. The hotline is available from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Number is 03-4550-1146.

A Satirical Guide by Megan Daniel

Cleaning It is imperative to keep the floor squeaky clean at all times. Under no circumstances are dirty, outdoor shoes allowed inside the house. However, wearing slippers with loads of dust and dirt on the bottom are absolutely fine. In addition, it is completely unnecessary to clean the walls. Pretend that you can’t see the marbled texture to the wall caused by the black soot from the kerosene heaters.

Eating When eating a meal, it is important to include rice in it, even if there are many carbohydrates in your meal already. Are you eating ramen? Good! Have a bowl of rice with it to pack on the carbs! And, while you’re at it, make sure that you slurp your noodles. However, be careful that you don’t actually chew your noodles as this will greatly shorten the time it takes to eat them.

Driving When driving, make sure that you do not stop when the light turns yellow. In fact, don’t stop if the light has just turned red. Two or three cards behind you can still make it through before cars start coming in the opposite direction.

Work Your work is your life. All hail work. Leaving before 9:00 PM will make you look like a lazy person, and we don’t want that, now do we? Also, make sure that you come to work either Saturday or Sunday, or better yet, BOTH! And, please, whatever you do, don’t ask to take a vacation!

Love If you are a student, then you don’t have time for love. Similarly, if you are working, you don’t have time for love either. In fact, love takes too much time, so let’s just forget it. However, if you really do feel the need to couple up, I recommend finding a mate with a good salary.

Personality isn’t very important as you won’t see your spouse often enough for it to matter.

Education If you have a child who is a student, it is important to make sure your child doesn’t have any free time. Keep them busy to keep them out of trouble. In addition to that, make sure that they aim to go to the highest-ranking university possible to ensure their future success.

Career paths aren’t so important, and can be chosen later.

Religion You are born Shinto. You marry Christian. You die Buddhist. In the time between, your work is your god.

If you enjoyed it, we also recommend our other publications about Japanese culture: How to Politely Say No Without Actually Saying No, How to Eat Combini Food Every Day and Not Gain Weight, and How to Initiate Conversations With Foreigners About Chopstick Use.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed, took the time to help out, and waited patiently for JETfuel this year. I hope you enjoyed reading!