My home for a year

I spent my year in Japan in a small city called Ube, in Yamaguchi prefecture.

Yamaguchi is in Western Japan, at the very southern tip of Honshu (Japan's main island). Ube is far away from Tokyo, but is actually in a great location... it has the convenience of being located on Honshu, but at the same time, it's near two other major Japanese islands, Kyuushu and Shikoku, so there are a lot of opportunities for convenient travel. It's not too difficult to catch a shinkansen (bullet train) or an airplane for long distance travel- Ube is the only city in Yamaguchi-ken with an airport.

In terms of comfort, Yamaguchi-ken apparently has the mildest climate in all of Japan. Although I found it extreme, coming from Southern California, I will admit that it is good weather in comparison to other areas. As far as size goes, Ube is tiny compared to what I was used to- its popuation is around 175,000 people. But it truly was urban enough to keep me content; it is a pleasant place. Although it's not a major metropolis, and I tended to visit bigger cities for serious shopping, I was able to get all my basic needs in Ube. At the same time, it has a sort of small-town feel, with wide streets, rice fields, trees, and friendly people. All in all, I feel fortunate to have lived there.

The city of Ube has a lovely park, called Tokiwa Park, which is over 300 years old, and is the home to a group of pelicans who live there of their own free will- they can to come and go as they please, but they choose to stay. Believe it or not, Ube is actually home to Japan's most famous pelican, Cutta-kun, who apparently liked people and made a habit of visiting kindergartens around the city. I honestly thought Cutta-kun was only a local celebrity, but he actually is well-known nationally. I saw a news report about him once on national TV... and there is even animated movie about Cutta-kun! In addition, Tokiwa park also has a large number of swans, which are very beautiful but not quite as famous as the pelicans.

Besides the birds, Tokiwa park is well-known for the annual Ube sculpture exhibition, and has a large permanent collections of sculptures. The exhibition seems to be famous throughout Japan, and as a result, Ube city abounds with sculpture all over the city centre as well as the park. It's nice to see such an appreciation for public art.

What I did there

As I mentioned on the front page of this site, my year in Japan was made possible because I was employed as an Assistant English Teacher on the JET Program. The Program is sponsored by the Japanese government, and I felt privileged to participate. Experiences on JET vary from person to person, but my position entailed visiting each of Ube's twelve junior high schools and a selection of its elementary schools. I also helped judge an English speech competition, and performed various translating duties as needed by the Board of Education.

Because I was assigned to rotate amongst all the classes at each junior high school, I didn't get to visit any given class more than twice during the whole year. I felt that the situation was somewhat unfortunate, as I would have liked to have had the opportunity to forge closer relationships with the students and teachers that I worked with... but I like to think my presence had some kind of impact, in any case. I tried to make the most of my contact with the schools by eating lunch with the students, sharing in after-school club activities, attending school festivals, and even participating in a school play. It was so much fun!