Pictured: A Typical Solemn Moment at Ainoshima Junior High School

Since it played such an important role in shaping my new comic Tonoharu, I thought I’d devote a journal entry to the JET Program.

The JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) Program was founded twenty years ago by the Japanese Government to:

promote grass roots internationalization at the local level by inviting young overseas graduates to assist in international exchange and foreign language education in local governments, boards of education and elementary, junior and senior high schools throughout Japan… [and] to foster ties between Japanese citizens (mainly youth) and JET participants at the person-to-person level.
Source: JET Program Official Website

Japan is, of course, an island nation, and is ethnically homogenous, with 99% of the population being Japanese. Outside of large cities, Japanese kids don’t have much (if any) contact with foreigners, so it’s easy to understand how English education would seem totally irrelevant to their lives. It’s the job of the JET program participant to serve as a living example that English has actual utility outside of the classroom, thereby (hopefully) inspiring students to devote a little more energy to working on their English skills.

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Image from Tonoharu: Part One 

In an effort to add some more of that all-important “content” to my blog (without going to the effort of actually creating it) I’ve decided to post some slightly edited versions of the e-mails I sent out to people during my stint on the JET Program. I figured I’d post a new one every Tuesday until I run out of them; I have enough for probably two months or so. These Tuesday entries will be in addition to, not instead of, my weekly update of all-new material every Friday (Wow!).

So here’s the first one that I could find, written Mid-August 2003, shortly after my arrival to Japan:

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Pictured: Me, in the Future (???) 

As mentioned in my first entry, I’m currently living off my savings and cartooning fulltime. My hope is to make fulltime cartooning a sustainable reality, and as such, money is the predictable bottom line. If this venture fails to earn me at least a living wage, I’ll be forced to abandon it (or at least abandon its fulltime pursuit).

But as important as capital is, if I devote too much time to the pursuit of funds, then I wouldn’t have any time to devote to my artwork, thus rendering the whole endeavor meaningless. So there’s a delicate balance that needs to be reached, between time spent on my art and time devoted to the logistics of getting by. Only in rare instances are these two factors in harmony with each other. One such instance is in my pursuit of a Monbukagakusho (or “Monbusho” for short) Scholarship.

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Be Afraid… Be Very Afraid… 

Here is the second in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one was probably sent out… Octoberish?, 2003:

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Here is the third in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. Seeing as how there’s a Halloween reference, this one was probably sent out in September, 2003:
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Pictured: The unstoppable Gal Sone eats 40,000 calories in one day

Here is the forth part in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from November, 2003:

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Pictured: A close-up of a typical Japanese Christmas Cake 

Here is the fifth in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from December, 2003:

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Image From Tonoharu: Part One 

Here is the sixth in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from January 2004ish:

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Pictured: Japanese kids preparing for a mustard gas attack lunch 

Here is the seventh in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from mid-February 2004: 
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Pictured: Another Day, another ceremony… 

Here is the eighth in my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences teaching English in Japan through the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from April 2004:  

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Pictured: The upper right corner of a poster from one of my elementary schools, featuring all the teachers’ photos and names. Yours truly is pictured hovering in the little UFO.

Here is the ninth and final of my Tuesday mini-series of reflections on my experiences in the JET Program, lazily culled from e-mails sent to friends and family at the time. This one looks to be from August 2004, written in recognition of my one-year anniversary in Japan:

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Pictured: One out of five knobs, and a little window.

I’ve been to Japan a few times now. First as a high school exchange student, then as an educator through the JET program, and most recently for as a ”tourist”,  living with my then-girlfriend for three months at the tail end of 2006.

My first night in her apartment she gave me the obligatory tour. The thing that most caught my attention was the shower. It looked like something from straight out of the Industrial Revolution.

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