Nippon Club Newsletter (February 2002)

The 12th Nippon Club Annual Meeting 10/12

The annual meeting of the Nippon Club will be held along with the club Picnic. It will be a great opportunity for everybody to meet with members and have a lot of fun.

2002 Club Picnic

Let's go to the picnic! The twelfth Nippon Club Picnic will be held at Apex Community Park. Enjoy barbecue, Japanese foods, performance of Triangle Taiko (Japanese drums), door prizes including round trip to Japan and much more... Come and join us for a fun-filled day outdoors. Please note that the possession, use, or display of alcoholic beverages is prohibited by park rules.

Time: October 12 (Sat) 1:00 pm-4:00 pm.(rain or shine)

         Registration starts at noon

Place:	Apex Community Park

          (2200 Laura Duncan Road, Apex, NC 27502) (map)

          http://www.apexnc.org/depts/parks/facilities.cfm 

          Note: Place was changed from last year's picnic.

Admission: Adult $7 (advanced ticket), $10 (day of the picnic)

                 Child (5-12 years) $3 (advanced ticket), $5 (day of the picnic)

                 Children under at 4 years old and under are free

For more information, contact Tami Takamiya: me@tamichan.com or 919-677-1470.

Silent Auction

Please bring your items that are not used at home to the Picnic for sale (30% of final price will go to the Nippon Club). Your junk is someone else's treasure!

Important Notice to Newsletter Readers

At the last meeting of the Directors of the Nippon Club it was decided that, starting with the November/December issue, the standard delivery of the newsletter would be via email. This will save the Club a great deal of money and printing effort. The Board also decided to continue to make the newsletter available in print form at area establishments. The Club will also mail newsletters to those individuals who want to receive a printed copy and will charge $5 per year for expenses. We hope to gather current email addresses at the picnic. You can also sign up for mail delivery at that time. We hope to see everyone at the picnic!

If you cannot come to the picnic, you can let us know your email address by sending email to triangle_nippon_club@yahoo.com with the Subject "newsletter email".

2002 International Festival

The International Festival will be held on Friday, November 8 through Sunday, November 10 at both the NC State Fairgrounds Graham Building and Dorton Arena. Detailed information can be found on the International Focus, Inc. homepage at: http://www.internationalfestival.org

The Nippon Club will participate in the following events

Main Stage (Adults' Performance at Arena)
Young People's Performance (at Arena)
Coffee House (Shakuhachi & Koto)
Sidewalk Cafe (Food Stand)
International Bazaar (Accessory stand)
Cultural Exhibit (display)

The Nippon Club directors are currently working very hard on the preparation, and we will need the cooperation of the Nippon Club members to make this a successful event. Proceeds from the Sidewalk Cafe and the International Bazaar will help pay for Japan Club activities such as the distribution of these newsletters. Please sign up for the following opportunities to contribute your hands to the local community.

(each roll will be 3 to 4 hours)

Role	Number of required person	Number of sign up person
Installation & Set up (Thu evening, Fri afternoon)	6	2
Yakisoba (Fri, Sat, Sun)	8	2
Norimaki & Inari (Fri, Sat, Sun)	20	6
Sales person(Fri, Sat, Sun) Cafe and Bazaar	35	10
Attendant of cultural exhibit	8	2
Break down and take out	6	2

Please contact Toshi Yamamoto: yammer@nc.rr.com 919-543-9821 [daytime], Osamu Wanibe: OWanibe@aw-NC.com 919-479-6436 [daytime], or Tami Takamiya:me@tamichan.com 919-254-2915 [daytime].

Dear members:

Thank you for your pledge to make a gift to the Nippon Club in the Triangle. With the faithful support of you and your friends, we will be able to continue the club activities including publishing our newsletters.

We have published six issues each year for over ten years, but this month's issue is only the third of this year and we are already running out of funds. The Nippon Club, as well as our newsroom, is totally run by volunteers and individual's contributions. The goal for this year is $1200. We have so far received one gift of $120 as of August of this year. Please help us continue to enable members to share information and thoughts with the local community.

For your convenience, you can use this letter (please detach the form on page2) and the enclosed envelope to make your gift. If you have any questions regarding your pledge, please contact David Robinson at: dsrobins123@msn.com (919)845-4333, Tami Takamiya at:me@tamichan.com (919)254-2915 [daytime] e-mail: triangle_nippon_club@yahoo.com

Thank you again for your investment in Nippon Club of the Triangle.
Sincerely,

Hosting Japanese Visitors

Citizens for International Understanding and Shizuoka Prefecture association for International Relations have been engaged in a series of cultural exchanges to promote better understanding of both cultures. As part of this cultural exchange, both countries send a group of people to learn about the other. From October 27th to the 30th, Ms. Michiko Muramatsu, the leader, and thirteen other people from Japan will be visiting the Triangle to learn about the lives and the situation of those after retirement.

This program, "Aging," is coordinated by Angie Bolin, and they held an orientation for host families on how to welcome Japanese guests. The speaker, Ms. Marty Babcock, NC Center for International Understanding, gave the following overview of the two countries' views on hospitality:

Japanese hosts place a lot of importance on providing good hospitality so that the guests have the best time possible and have a smooth visit. To Japanese hosts, this entails that they plan out the activities for the stay beforehand and present them to the guests when they arrive.

Contrastingly, American hosts would try to provide the guests with what the guests want to do. They would wait until the guests arrive and plan the schedule with them.

In this case, Ms. Babcock recommends that the hosts have a pre-arranged schedule beforehand and check it with the guests before they arrive. If the guests arrive and are asked what they want to do, they will be surprised and not know what to say, causing them to be embarrassed and uncomfortable. Other suggestions for the hosts included:

Call them by their family name followed with a polite suffice, "san". (i.e. Muramatsu-san)
No touching or hugging
Speak with simple words or write it down. Japanese read English much better than they speak it.
Prepare smaller portions of food
Try not to feel uncomfortable with silence. Japanese enjoy silence
Show them the basic facilities, such as how to use the different faucets and the bathroom.

The main suggestion was to consider what the Japanese guests expect rather than what you are used to doing as a host.

* Ms. Marty Babcock, Director of Programs NC Center for International Understanding, would welcome ideas from any of our readers on these ideas. martyb@ga.unc.edu Phone (919) 715-2784

Duke Speech Contest

On April 13th, 2002, Duke University APSI(Asian/Pacific Studies Institute) hosted the 16th annual Japanese Speech Competition at Freeman Center. The 17 contestants came from Duke University and three surrounding colleges, NC State, University of Virginia, and William and Mary. They separated into 4 divisions, varying from those that are still uncomfortable speaking Japanese to those that are almost fluent. The four judges, led by Mr. Ikuma from AW North Carolina Inc., evaluated the contestants on the content of their speeches, as well as their grammar, sentence composition, pronunciation, and intonation. While the speeches ranged from awkward to those that could have been spoken by Japanese, they all reflected the students’ concentration and hard work.

Those in Levels II-IV have all spent some time in Japan, whether it be a short while or a few years, and their speeches reflected on their unique experiences in Japan and their analysis of Japanese culture.

Born and raised in Venezuela, Ms. Tsutsui gave a thoughtful speech titled, ?Am I Japanese or am I Venezuelan?? and Mr. Rafferty, who has a Vietnamese wife, gave a personal speech titled, ?ietsu dousen? that spoke of the differences and similarities between Japanese and Vietnamese culture. Mr. Blitzer spoke of his vigorous and extremely strict judo training at Waseda University that almost matched military discipline. His speech, titled ?I?m Still Alive,? made an impression and brought a lot of laughter from the crowd. After the contest, he commented on the judo in the two nations and how different the people?s dedication to judo can be.

To top it off, during the intermission period while the judges were convening, there was a dance rendition of the popular Japanese pop group, ?Morning Musume,? led by Duke University?s volunteers.

Knowing that these people will become the leaders in US-Japan international relations gives me a great outlook on the future. Thanks to Ms. Mavis Mayer who has been devotedly hosting this program for many years. (Japanese version was in June issue)

* Ms. Mavis Mayer is an Administrative Coordinator for Duke University's Asian/Pacific Studies Institute.

Raleigh: The first impression of the US

Teruyuki Yamamoto

After one week in the U.S. I noticed the vagueness of Japanese expression. We usually say something indirectly in Japanese while American say directly. We say “It looks like,” “It seems like,” “Maybe,” and these kinds of vague expression in almost all sentences. You can hear the words “mitai” or “kamo” in the last words of sentences in Japanese. If you cannot, maybe you are speaking with Japanese American. In particular this trend is strengthened between teens and 20's recently. You can frequently hear someone expresses "Cho (means super) good" if you get on a subway in Tokyo. These words might be said new Japanese words, but I don’t think it is going in a good direction. However, in a terrible thing, I didn’t feel something was wrong so much when I got on a subway every day three months ago. I wonder I got used to it. Correctly speaking, I myself used those words.

At the same time I found the difference in the way of communication among South American, American and Japanese. In generally, South American does not pay much attention to others? stories and always talks aloud. Conversation between South American seems to totally quarrel for me. There is a difficult rule in America for them. It is "the rest of person must listen to a story of other when he/she is speaking." On the contrary, Japanese learns to pay attention to other?s story since we are children. However we speak less spontaneously than South American and American. I think I can interpret this rule that all speaking an opinion in America is a main premise of this rule. So it can be over in the result that South American and American cannot understand what Japanese thinks about. It was difficult to suppose the reason of South American and American tendencies, but when I tried to think about the reason of Japanese tendency, I can find it is because of ?the interval.? Japanese moves except conversation, a delicate expression, an atmosphere in communication technology. We can feel "the interval" in everywhere. For example, in a Japanese garden, Japanese dance, a forecast of Kabuki. A general idea of "the interval" is one of a characteristic of Japanese culture bred by a single nation for many years. There are a few intonations in Japanese, but it should play the harmony which is exquisite with the manners to do by unique rhythm and modesty. We can share a certain moment each other without any word and we can totally enjoy that moment as a part of communication. Appropriate expression is not found by my halfway knowledge.

* Mr. Teruyuki Yamamoto: After graduating from Tokyo University and 2 years of working for a law firm in Tokyo, he decides to attend the Law School of Boston University in the US. In order to make a smooth transition, he made a perfect plan: Spend one month in North Carolina to get used to the culture, go to Boston and attend summer school, and, finally, attend law school. Although in reality and contrary to his fail-proof plan, he is just struggling to keep up with the classes, currently.