| Q: |
What are you doing in Japan? |
| A: |
I have a one-year contract as an English teacher in
two high schools. I also work at the Prefectural Education
Center (head of education in Yamagata Prefecture). |
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| Q: |
OK, but why Japan? |
| A: |
Why not? It's not every day you get the chance to live
and work in another culture for a year. I get to see the
inner workings of two very different Japanese high schools,
plus a Japanese office. And they pay me to be here! |
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| Q: |
What's a prefecture? |
| A: |
It's like a state. Japan has 47 prefectures. Yamagata
is one of the most rural. When I told my Japanese teacher
in Florida that I'd be going to Yamagata, she actually
laughed. |
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| Q: |
Where is Yamagata? |
| A: |
It's in the Tohoku area, which is like the American
South of Japan without the mountains or the racial tensions.
Thick dialect, bizarre foods that no one else in the country
would touch, and tobacco
rice fields as far as the eye can see. We actually live
in Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture. The whole prefecture
has about a million people. 250,000 of them live in the
biggest city, Yamagata City. In other words, we got lucky.
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| Q: |
Are you close to any place I've ever heard of? |
| A: |
Well now, I don't know. Ever heard of any of these
places? |
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| Q: |
Where can I send your care package? |
| A: |
Aw, that's really sweet of you! You can send it to:
#202
2-4-15 Kubota,
Yamagata-shi,
Yamagata-ken,
990-2482
JAPAN
The translation of that is:
Apartment 202, Building 15
Section 4, Block 2
Long, Guaranteed Rice Field Town
A City Shaped Like the Mountains
A Prefecture Shaped Like
the Mountains
990-2482
Land of the Sun's Origin |
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Got another question? Ask away, and maybe you'll get
an answer!. |
| Q: |
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