Via the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) website:

“Spring 2012 will be a special season as it marks the centennial anniversary of Japan’s Gift of Trees to the U.S. To celebrate this anniversary, we’re giving you and a guest the chance to explore Japan inside and out. Read through all 6 itineraries, pick your favorite, and enter for your chance to win your dream vacation!”

This is my first foray into cooking here in Rio where I integrate Brazilian and Japanese influences.

Ingredients
Broccoli and cauliflower florets
Thin slice of alcatra (rumpsteak)
Olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 handful of sliced shiitake
1 garlic clove, minced
Tablespoon of soy sauce
Tablespoon of brandy
Tablespoon of red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons of French grain mustard
Dash of hot paprika
Hot sauce to taste
Freshly ground mixed pepper (black, white, pink, and green peppercorns) to taste – substitute black pepper if that is all you have
Salt to taste

Instructions
1. Boil broccoli and cauliflower florets in salted water until tender, set aside and keep warm. Reserve some of the water and set aside.

2. Season both sides of the alcatra with salt and pepper.

3. Heat a saucepan and coat generously with olive oil.

4. Sear the steak on both sides. Since the steak is thin, one minute per side is sufficient for medium rare.

5. Remove steak from saucepan and set aside.

6. Using the same pan and oil, add chopped onions, stir and scrape the meat bits to incorporate into the onion and oil mixture. Sauté until the onions wilt and begin to brown.

7. Add the garlic and shiitake and sauté until the mushrooms cook through. Then add the remaining seasonings. Dilute with some of the vegetable cooking water if the mixture gets too dry.

8. Cook the mixture until it reduces to a saucy consistency. If you want to be really fancy, you can whisk in a bit of cold butter, but that is optional.

9. Serve on a plate with the steak, vegetables and sauce on top.

10. Enjoy!

Japanese “hinomaru” red sun flag design with washi (traditional art paper) origami crane pattern. Another tribute to the people of Japan. All royalties will go to the JETAA USA Japan Relief Fund, a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

The JET Alumni Association of New York, in partnership with NY de Volunteer, will be holding a fundraiser to benefit Japan on Tuesday, April 5, 2011. The night will include great drink specials, entertainment, and – a highlight of the event – wonderful raffle prizes. （日本語版は下記）

Over 30 generous JET Alumni and local businesses have donated goods and services to the cause, such as: cooking classes, bottles of sake, private dance lessons, handmade jewelry and more!

Please show your support for this cause which is so near and dear to our hearts. All proceeds from this event will go to the JETAA USA Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. During the event we will be collecting messages for Send Hope to Japan from the World to further express our solidarity during this difficult time.

This is an open event and will have a great crowd of JET alumni, members of the local Japanese expat community, and many other New Yorkers wanting to show their support. Feel free to invite your coworkers, neighbors, roommates, and anyone else interested in looking for a way to help!

When: Tuesday, April 5, 6:30-9:30pm

Where: Slate
54 West 21^st Street between 5^th and 6^th Ave
(Nearest subway 1, 2, F, M, N, R, and Path)

• $5 = 1 ticket
• $20 = 5 tickets
• $50 = 15 tickets
• $100 = 35 tickets

Increase your chances of winning! 100% of raffle sales go to the JETAA USA “Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.”

$20 = Standard Admission (entry and 2 raffle tickets)
$25 = Standard Admission + 1 additional raffle ticket
$40 = Standard Admission + 5 additional raffle tickets
$70 = Standard Admission + 15 additional raffle tickets
$120 = Standard Admission + 35 additional raffle tickets

Special Thanks to our Sponsors & Donors:
Japan Society, Hills Learning, Bao Noodle, Institute of Culinary Education (ICE), City Bike Coach, New York Video School, Shockra Studio, Boutique Pink Diamond, Bloomsbury Publishing — more to be listed soon!

Please share this event on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr!

JETプログラム参加経験者の会NY支部会は、この度NY de Volunteer(2003年NYで初めて日本人によって 設立された非営利団体)とパートナーシップを組み、４月５日（火曜日）に東日本大震災支援の為のファンドレイズイベントを行います。当日はドリンクが提供されるだけでなく、エンターテイメント、そして最後には豪華景品があたるくじ（ラッフル）が催されます。それらの景品は多くのJET卒業生達や地元企業のご好意により寄付された、お料理教室のチケット、日本酒、個人ダンスレッスン、手作りジュエリー等盛り沢山です。

I worked with Joey from BareBurger, an organic burger restaurant in Greenwich Village, Murray Hill, and Astoria to create this flyer for their Japan disaster relief fundraiser promotion.  They will be donating 20% of their sales next Tuesday, March 22, to Red Cross efforts in Japan.

Download PDF version of the flyer

Designer’s Statement

JETAANY “JET-AH-NEE” – a bold, dynamic, genki brand, embodying the best of Japan, JET, and NYC

The Apple a symbol of New York City as well as the teaching profession

Red like the rising sun in the Japanese hinomaru flag and the indelible ink of an inkan seal

Brush strokes evoke both traditional Japanese painting and urban street art

Download PDF

We are asking JET Program participants past and present, as well as other friends of the program to speak out and petition the Japanese government to reconsider the cuts.  Please sign this petition in support of the grassroots cultural exchange the JET Program has fostered and write directly to the Japanese government explaining the positive impact the Program has made in your life and that of your adopted Japanese community.

For more background on this issue, please refer to “JET Program on the Chopping Block” by Jim Gannon on jetwit.com.

Keynote speech by playwright and JET alum Randall David Cook

From Twitter via @myGengo.

I am taking a pledge suggested by the film and now refraining from visiting aquariums and aquatic mammal shows.  I will also be sure to buy dolphin-safe seafood.  Here are some main points of the film:

• Over 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered in Taiji every year
• When the dolphins are caught, some are sold to aquariums and wildlife shows, while the rest are killed for meat
• Dolphin meat, as well as the meat of other whales, contains dangerous levels of mercury, but the mayor of Taiji has tried to give away the contaminated meat for school lunches
• Sometimes dolphin meat is deliberately mislabeled and sold as “cleaner” whale meat
• Mercury poisoning from eating contaminated seafood could result in symptoms similar to those of Minamata Disease

Towards the end of The Cove, former Flipper-trainer-turned-activist Ric O’Barry walks into an International Whaling Commission conference with a video monitor strapped to his chest playing graphic footage of the Taiji dolphin slaughter, exposing the international delegates to the horrors of whaling.  In another scene, O’Barry stands with the video monitor playing the same slaughter footage in the middle of Shibuya crossing, taking the message directly to the Japanese people.   But how can the filmmakers increase their impact among the Japanese public?

O’Barry’s SafeJapanDolphins.org is accepting donations to help with targeted media campaigns and screenings of the film in Japan, but I don’t think the movie is available in Japan yet.   I would suggest that the filmmakers release footage of the dolphin slaughter (or ideally, the entire film) under a Creative Commons or similar open license, that would allow the film to be freely shared on the internet, allowing people to see it even if it is not playing in their local cinema.  Certainly this would be a way to get around powerful government and business interests in Japan who do not want the film to be seen by the Japanese people.  Imagine of video of the slaugter “went viral” on the internet.  Imagine concerned Japanese people being able to view the footage on their cellphones and sharing the video with their family and friends.  That is when real change will begin.

I realize that documentary filmmaking is not cheap.  Indeed, I do believe that the heroic people who made the film possible should be financially supported for their work.  But we cannot let the complications of copyright stand in the way of promoting an important story and saving the dolphins.  Perhaps the film can be freely released online under a Creative Commons license after the theatrical run is completed, or when a donation threshold is reached.

Some have criticized The Cove’s filmmakers and the dolphin freedom activists for being racist or neo-colonialist against the Japanese.  Indeed, Japan is not the only country that hunts whales.  “White” countries like Iceland and Norway hunt whales too.  I think all countries should be held responsible.  I lived in Japan for three years, I love the country, but I disagree with the dolphin hunt, that hardly makes me a racist (in any case, I’m Asian too).  It is unfortunate though that the film did not give more of a voice to Japanese people opposed to the dolphin hunts.  They do interview a few Japanese people opposed to the slaughter, but these Japanese people are not the main protagonists in the film.

It is interesting to note that while whale hunting has been part of Japanese culture for hundreds of years, it was the Americans who occupied Japan after WWII who encouraged the resumption of whale hunting as a cheap source of protein to feed the war-torn country.  But today, Japan is a rich country and they don’t need to eat whale meat for protein any more.  In fact, most Japanese people do not eat whale meat, and do not consider dolphin to be food.  When filmmakers showed people on the streets of Tokyo and Osaka footage of the dolphin slaughter, they were surprised and horrified.  Hopefully, the film will be available in Japan soon to raise greater awareness.

Go see the movie and take action!

Links

• The Cove Official Site
• SaveJapanDolphins.org – Take Action
• TakePart.com/TheCove
• CNN – Dolphin slaughter brings charges from both sides
• YouTube – Dolphin Swim Programs & SLAUGHTER Linked!!!!
• YouTube – Dolphin Slaughter in Japan
• Petition – Help Save Japan’s Dolphins
• NY Magazine – The Cove’s Richard O’Barry on Secret Dolphin Slaughter — and Flipper’s Suicide
• NY Times – The Cove: From Flipper’s Trainer to Dolphin Defender
• CS Monitor – Review: ‘The Cove’
• Roger Ebert’s review of ‘The Cove’
• 日本でのイルカ保護にご協力ください
• Whale Love (日本語)

The History of JETAANY’s Webmaster
By Shree Kurlekar (Shiga-ken, 2005-07)

Originally published in the Summer 2009 issue of JQ Magazine

Since the fall of 2006, Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06) has served as the Webmaster for JETAANY, revamping our site and making it one of the best and most user friendly across  the global JET network.

Born in Taiwan, Lee-Sean spent most of his formative  life in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.  At age 18, he fled to the East Coast to the south of Boston, attending the prestigious Harvard University. At Harvard, he studied abroad in multiple countries, a prelude to what was to come upon graduation. He spent time at the University of Barcelona, the Sorbonne in Paris and Lund University in Sweden.

Having taken Japanese all through college, Lee- Sean knew that he wanted to live in Japan, and, much like the majority of the JET population, with no clear idea of what he wanted to do in the “long-term career” department, decided to apply to the JET Programme.

Lee-Sean spent three years on JET as an ALT in Oita-ken, Nakatsu-shi on Kyushu. The memories that still linger in his heart the strongest are of the onsen (mineral hot springs) and the monkeys. (Oh, and going to the Naked Man festival…)

Relocating to New York after his stint in Japan, Lee-Sean has been living almost exclusively in lower Manhattan. Though he ventures north and to the other boroughs regularly, he has only lived in Tribeca and the Financial District. However, this summer he left the city to take part in an internship at Creative Commons in San Francisco.

His official title there is “International Outreach Intern,” and he’s currently working on a wiki-based community site called OpenEd that is currently in beta. It aims to be a portal site to promote open educational resources, which encompasses everything from lesson plans to worksheets to multimedia assets. Since the JET community already does a lot of sharing of this kind, he definitely recommends checking them out at http://opened.creativecommons.org/.

This internship is in conjunction with his current pursuit of a master’s degree in interactive telecommunications at New York University. It’s an interdisciplinary program that deals with the convergence of art, technology, design and how they interact with people and society.

Before committing himself to academia again, Lee-Sean used to work in the non-profit sector in tech and media, doing things like making Web sites and producing videos for non-profit organizations. When asked how his current career relates to his experience on the JET Programme, Lee-Sean was quick to point out that JET definitely helped him with his public speaking and presentation skills: “Hey, if you can ‘perform’ as an ESL teacher in front of a bunch of Japanese chuugakusei (junior-high school students), you can pretty much do anything in front of any audience.”

Though he doesn’t use it much now, Lee-Sean also credits JET with increasing his knowledge in Japanese and enriching his life with the cultural experience and knowledge he gained there. The most direct relation, however, was being able to write “international experience” on his applications to international non-profits and non-governmental organizations.

In the near future, Lee-Sean plans on finishing up his last year of grad school, which means the next year will be spent solidly on his thesis. He would also love to live abroad again sometime, maybe somewhere in Europe or Southeast Asia, with Thailand or Singapore as frontrunners. He’s open to lots of different possibilities after he graduates and is even considering a trip back to Nippon.

In the long term, Lee-Sean would love to grow his freelance work into some sort of sustainable full-time business doing consulting, strategy and media/Web production for non-profi ts and social causes, or do that and teach part-time somewhere.

He can see himself teaching media studies and production at a high school or college. He also wants to further develop his art and musical projects, including the band and multimedia production company he created with a friend: Hepnova Multimedia, which he describes as “a genre-defying music collective, multimedia production company and modern lifestyle brand.”

In the precious spare time he does have, you might catch Lee-Sean on the waterfront in Battery Park City in warm weather. You might also see him at St. Mark’s for his Japan fixes, especially his favorite food: any kind of Asian noodles.

Visit Lee-Sean’s homepage at http://leesean.net.

When I lived in Japan, I played keyboards in a girl-rock cover band called “Nobuko and the Stone Buddhas” (or “The Stone Buddhas” for short).  We were active in Oita Prefecture around 2004-2005.  The band was named after the famous Stone Buddhas of Usuki (Photo above by Tanaka Juuyoh) Here are some MP3s of recordings we made in a rehearsal studio in Nakatsu City, where I lived as a JET Programme participant. Download all tracks (ZIP).

• 32 Flavors (Ani DiFranco cover)
• What’s Up? (4 Non Blondes cover)
• Daffodil Lament (Cranberries cover)
• Mood Swing (Luscious Jackson cover)
• Sunday Morning (No Doubt cover)

Not the Stone Buddhas of Usuki but the Kitsch Buddhas of Chinatown

Monkeys in the Mission, San Francisco

Monkeys near San Francisco Chinatown

Popular Monkey helmet, Taiwan

Monkeys in Shikoku, Japan

Kris and Monkeys, New York

So I didn’t realize until a couple days ago that there was a difference between long and short grain sticky rice (I knew there was a difference between long and short grain regular rice though).  My mom was talking to me yesterday about how she associates long grain rice with “famine” (her word, not mine). WHAT!?

Ok, so my mom grew up in Taiwan. Long before it was the land of fist-fighting politicians and the Taipei 101 skyscraper, it was a poor developing country.  There was a rice shortage when she was growing up and they had to import long grain rice from South East Asia.  Short grain rice (similar to the kind the Japanese and Koreans eat) is more commonly eaten in Taiwan, so my mom said she couldn’t get used to the taste and texture of long grain rice.  She said it was so disappointing it made her cry, and she still won’t eat long grain rice today, because it reminds her of poverty and famine.  I, for the record, have no problems with long grain rice.

This reminds of me of the fact that my paternal grandfather, who is from China, won’t eat brown rice, despite the health benefits, because it reminds him of wartime poverty when white rice wasn’t available.

Or one of my fellow former JET assistant language teacher’s students in Japan, who cried when the JET made some American-style rice pudding in class.  Apparently the kid was upset that the teacher “ruined” some “perfectly good rice.”

Moral of the story: don’t mess with an Asian person’s rice, just like you wouldn’t mess with a French person’s baguettes.

In totally unrelated music news, the HEPNOVA recording sessions are going well.  More music coming soon.  Check out what we’ve got so far on HEPNOVA.com.  And follow us on Twitter.

I attended a sake tasting and dinner organized by JETAANY on Monday night at Bao Noodles.   Chris Johnson, JET-alum, sommelier, and owner of Bao Noodles, presented a tasting of his restaurant’s Vietnamese specialties paired with Momokawa and Murai Family sake.  Chris is extremely knowledgeable about sake; he explained the different kinds of sake and how sake was made.

It was the first time I had sake with Vietnamese food, or sake with non-Japanese food for that matter.  It turned out to be a very educational experience.  It may sound strange, but it just works.  Sake is indeed a very versatile beverage.  My favorite pairing was the dessert: coconut and pandan panna cotta with nigori (unfiltered) sake.  The combination of the coconut, pandan and sake became an explosion of tropical aromas in my mouth.  Yum!

Needless to say, I wholeheartedly recommend Bao Noodles, so go check it out.

See also:

• Chopsticks NY: The Self Made Sake Ambassador
• Tasting Table: Tokyo Joe

This week in Intro to Computational Media @ ITP, we learned how to add text into a Processing sketch.  I used my Sakura (cherry blossom) sketch from week 3 as a departure point and added the Japanese characters for sakura さくら into the new version of the sketch (above). I wanted to create a kind of “digital calligraphy” that explored the relationship between words and abstract shapes and set everything in motion. I also made an autumn leaves (koyo) sketch with the Japanese characters for koyo 紅葉 and an autumn color story.  To make things more visually appealing, I increased the size of the triangles and added some transparency to the background to create a more stylized sense of the passage of time in the animation and to create an illusion of three-dimensional depth.

There was a slight problem in getting the sketches to execute correctly though.  Although Processing is able to deal with Unicode-8 character sets, I was unable to get the Japanese characters to display correctly in the calligraphy font that I wanted.  The Japanese characters were showing, but in a default san-serif font and not the font that I created and specified in Processing.  I realized that I had to import the full character set and not just the default characters that Processing turns into bitmaps when you create a font.  However, when I checked “all characters” in the Create Font menu and clicked on “Create”, my computer froze up, probably because Japanese fonts have literally thousands of different characters, unlike the 26 letters and handful of punctuation marks we have in English.  Since I was only using 3 different characters in the Sakura sketch and 2 different characters in the Koyo sketch, I thought I that I might try creating SVG files in Adobe Illustrator for each character and then importing the Candy SVG library into my Processing sketches, which would then allow me to import the Japanese characters as vectors instead of bitmapped fonts.  Also, I only had to load the characters that I needed, and not the entire character set of the font.  As you can see from the screenshots, this approach worked!  I got the Japanese chracters to display in the calligraphy font instead of the default Processing font which didn’t work in the context of the sketches.

Click on the screenshots above and below to play with the sketches.  Drag the mouse around the frame and hold down any key on the keyboard to scatter cherry blossoms petals/autumn leaves.

The JETAA (Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme Alumni Association) 20th Anniversay Kintetsu Essay Contest Publication is now available online as a downloadable PDF.

A big thank you goes out to Liz Sharpe (JET Alumni Association Pacific Northwest) and Steven Horowitz (JET Alumni Association of NY) who worked so hard to compile the publication. And a shameless self promotion: the music/design/lifestyle company I co-founded, Hepnova Multimedia, did the cover design.

The publication is a compilation of the 15 winning essays into a format that we are hoping to have printed for new and future JETs to read to get them excited about the JET Programme as well as for the enjoyment of the JET alumni community.

For new readers of my blog (including fellow ITP‘ers, holla if yo’ out there!),  I was an English teacher on the JET Programme from 2003-2006 in a city called Nakatsu, on the island of Kyushu.  I also did some freelance writing and played keyboard in some bands, including a salsa band that played a major summer festival, an Ani DiFranco/Cranberries coverband, and did some one-off solo and special guest gigs with vocalists as well.

Click here to download the Essay Contest Publication.

Izakaya Oni
141 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003, US

A mediocre Japanese gastropub (izakaya) in the East Village. Located behind Ramen Setagaya in the space formerly occupied by Pasta/Sushi Wafu and Oriental Spoon before that.

Kris and I went last night (4 June 2008) after the Forum on Participation and Politics Online at NYU Law School. We walked by the crowded izakayas on St. Mark’s Place, including the ever-popular Yakitori Taisho and Kenka. We were starving and didn’t want to wait, so we kept walking eastwards. We stumbled upon Oni and decided to give it a try despite the fact that it was nearly empty.

We had the daikon & kani (fake crab) salad, which was passable, but a little bit of a tacky guilty pleasure. We also had an order of hokke (grilled salted atka mackerel) and fried oysters. The oysters were gigantic, but not in a good way – a little too much breading and a bit burnt. The hokke was ok too, but really, it’s pretty hard to mess up, since the fish usually comes already salt cured and frozen in a vacuum pack. All you need to do is defrost and “grill” in the toaster oven. Luckily, we had $2.50 Kirin draft beers to wash everything down. We would have had 2 beers each, but settled with one, because the waitresses were so remarkably inattentive, walking right by us several times without checking on us, despite the fact that there were only 2 other people in the restaurant at the time.

Given the ghosts of 2 failed restaurants that haunt this hidden-away-behind Ramen Setagaya space, I am giving Izakaya Oni 3 or 4 months before it goes bust.

More photos on Flickr
Thanks to Monica, JETAANY Social Chair, for the organizing the event and for taking photos!

Two Japan-related pieces from the New York Times:

Fitting In, Japanese Style

Yes, MSG, the Secret Behind the Savor

Also, in case you haven’t gotten the memo yet, white people like Japan. They apparently like Asian girls too.

I recorded the Career Forum presentations and panel discussion.  Visit JETAANY.org to read more and to download the MP3s.

Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place

Torin Boyd/Polaris, for The New York Times

Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

Published: October 20, 2007

TOKYO, Oct. 19 — On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime.

Read the full New York Times article here.