Japan Symposium finished Successfully!

The biggest day ofthis semester, Japan Symposium was successfully ended with the great Taiko Drum performance and Asian fashion show on last Thursday!

The Opening Ceremony with our college president and Consul General of Japan at Chicago was attended by over 120 audience which was followed by sessions of Dr. Norma Field and Dr. Jason Jones. The afternoon movie viewing and discuaaion over the recent award winning film "Okuribito (Departure)" was well accepted as well.

Thank you for all those attendees as well as orgnaizing committee members of College of DuPage.

Spring field trip is coming up this weekend and this blog will become the report of the each day events!

Japan Symposium on Thursday 3/22/2012!

This is the week of Japan Symposium. The Tea ceremony will be held at Student Lounge of SSC at 1pm tomorrow on Tuesday! Ms. Akiko Sato will perform this ceremony as she did it for us last fall!

Actual Symposium will be on Thursday at SRC 2800 at the college began by greeting from our president and the Honorable Counsul General of Japan. Three speakers, Dr. Norma Field, Dr. Jason Jones, and Dr. Stanley Murashige will talk about various topics about Japan including recent Nuclear disaster, Horror cinema, Arts, etc.

Japanese Taiko Drum will conclude the event!

Spring Japan trip is coming up soon, too!!!! Amzing record-high temperature in Chicago!

JCC/GTS Dinner was flourished!

March dinner has just passed with about 20 participants including several new faces. On Sunday night I had a dinner with some JET alums to think back just one year ago, which is the day Tsunami attacked Japan.

The first class for the Spring Kyoto Trip was held and everyone introduced among others and all wished stronger dollars and full-bloom of Cherry Blossoms.

There will be American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) annual conference this week in Toronto, Canada and I will be presiding one session. I am looking forward to meeting several professional friends in rather warm Canada!

March began! Japan Symposium Returns!

The JCC/GTS monthly dinner will be on Friday 3/9/2012. I hope to see many spring-like faces there.

One of past students, Matt Bedford left for Gifu, Japan to teach English there. I am very happy to see his dream coming true after his graduation with many ups and downs from the college!!

Tha Japan Symposium will be held at COD SRC 2800 on Thursday (the whole day) 3/24/2012. Jason Jones (Univ. of Wisconsin at Milwaukee), Norma Field (Univ. of Chicago) and Andy Murashige (Art Institute of Chicago) will give the enthusiastic lectures. There will be Film viewing, Fashion Show, Taiko Drum and Japanese Dance are also coming to wrap up the event at night!

Hope to have you in the audience/spectators!

Middle of the Spring semster!

Time really flies! While Japanese 2202 shrank, newly added 1101 got quite a few students, the number of students taking Japanese this semester has grown and we have even decided to run a couple of Japanese 1102 in Fall semester!

Spring Field trip to Kyoto, Japan has 10 students in it and the timing for visiting there for SAKURA viewing seems to be Perfect according to the SAKURA front forecast which announced the SAKURA full bloom in Kyoto be 4/6/2012 which is in the middle of our trip!!!

Summer Study Abroad has already over 15 students and that is very exciting news!!

JET (Japanese government English teaching assistant program) Interview has begun and GTS will be a interviewer on 2/23-25!

The JCC dinner next month will be 3/9/2012!

February dinner went well!,

Wow! A month has passed since last update! Monthly dinner was filled with unusual members.

Spring semester classes are moving on without major problems except for too few students in 2202! Two from 2202 and four from 1102 are going to Japan with me this summer as well as three from Waubonsee community college and one from Harper community college.

Despite the fact that Japan is still sufffering from radiation fear, many can come with me and I feel very confident in what I am offering!

We have decided to offer summer 1101 class during my absence at the college and offer more classes in fall to the point that we are recruiting a new part-time teacher!

GTS is going to Miami, FL this weekend to participate in Japan seminar!

Late Happy New Year!

Late happy new year! This is the first day of the Spring semester 2012 and the first day of having siginificant amount of snow in Chicago area in this season!
I am glad to say that all the planned Spring semester classes are running including the Japan field trip class!
Japanese 1101 has over 40 students in 2 sections, and Japanese 1102 has over 30 students in two classes! Japanese 2202 (fourth semester class) has been shrunk a bit but about dozen students continues to learn. Spring Japan Trip class has over 10 students and we will certainly go to Kyoto for flower viewing in early April!

Regular JCC/GTS dinner will resume tomorrow though the second Friday of the month!