Japan Exchange and Teaching Alumni Association of British Columbia
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Volume 6 • Number 5
IN THIS ISSUE
Home, or a Reasonable Facsimile..........................1 Editor’s Rant....................2 Your words meant so much to me................................2 Tatami Timeshare.............3 Japanese Cooking Classes............................3 2000 Japanese Proficiency Exam................................3 Nikkei Place Grand Opening...........................3 Mentor Program...............4 Kimono Show...................4 Website - Help!................4 A Different Kind of Culture Shock...............................5 Alumni News... ................5 News from Japan.............6 Job Opportunity................6 Events, Events, Events....7 Welcome Back Party!!......7 Japan Suitcase................7 Hmm...English.................8 What is JETAABC?......... 8 Contact Information.........8
www.jet.org Next Issue Deadline: November 1st, 2000
September 2000
www.jetaabc.bc.ca
Home, or a Reasonable Facsimile
By Carolyn Ali alimanz@hotmail.com Ah, it seems like just yesterday I was ordering boxes of Cheerios through the Foreign Buyers Club. Now, I just have to walk down to my local supermarket to pick up a box. But wait...there’s four kinds of Cheerios...and what’s that new flavour? Maybe I need to buy three boxes to get that deal. What’s a Safeway Club Card?...my head is starting to spin... The return home. Much planned, dreaded, longed after...and here I am, finally home. Or some version of it. This month sees a new crop of fresh-off-the-plane JETs adjusting back to B.C. After three years on JET in Nara prefecture, I am also arriving home this summer after a buffer year of travel. Upon arriving in Vancouver, I assumed I would take it easy for a while, see family and friends and enjoy the best two months that BC has to offer. However, two weeks at home with the parents had me jump starting the apartment search, and suddenly I was moving into a new flat, and then a new job...wait a sec, what do you mean “two weeks vacation a year?” This is going to take a lot of getting used to... It has been great to see my old friends again. However, as all the re-entry seminars warn you, you can’t go away for a couple years and expect things to pick up as usual when you return. I left for Japan straight after university graduation when my friends and I were living the student life: old furniture, menial jobs, unlimited options. Upon returning home, my friends seem essentially the same but somehow years more “mature” than I. They have spent four years working up the career ladder and now have Real Jobs, Serious Furniture and even casually toss around mortgage terms and baby names. Meanwhile, I am hauling my bean-bag chair out of storage, getting ready to start a good but entry level job, and remain terrified of the thought of owning anything that would tie me down to one part of the globe. When I’m around my old friends, sometimes I feel as if I have been stuck in a time warp and everyone has moved on without me. My years in Japan feel somewhat like a parallel universe: I know they happened, but they seem to have happened in a kingdom far, far away. My friends were interested in Japan for the first twenty-three minutes of our reunion, but after that, they seemed to forget I ever left Vancouver. The great thing is that there are people out there who understand this. On my way home, I stopped to visit some British JET friends in London. The had all left Japan a year or two before, and it was reassuring to see that they had made a successful transition to the next phase in their lives and were living quite happily. I met some of the JET Alumni in B.C. this month, and they too are doing well. There does indeed seem to be life after JET! (please see page 6)