Another successful and fun-filled neighborhood fall festival… Our neighborhood association puts in a lot of effort for this two day event. Not only does it bring our neighborhood closer together, but it promotes good relations with other neighborhoods through shared celebrations. Lots of photos (again) this year so I am dividing them into six parts. Part One includes the blessing by the shinto priest at the local shrine before we started.

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Over the past decade, and specifically after the successful bid of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games was announced back in 2013, Tokyo suddenly came to the realization that it needs to boost its art and culture assets to make the city more international while also answering the needs of its growing educated art population. As a result, today we have designated governmental organizations supporting young talents to promote Japanese art, street art projects and art festivals across the city, and every new shopping complex has its own art display (think Ginza Six and Magnet by Shibuya 109, to name just a few).

But one place in central Tokyo looks at those sudden trends slightly puzzled, but more so proud, as it has been doing this for over 100 years, based on the principle that art is a natural attribute to our lives. The place is Nihombashi Mitsukoshi Main Store, Japan’s first and most iconic department store which has since 1907 displayed arts of all kinds to the public at its galleries — mostly for free.

Making art naturally accessible

As if foreseeing the future, the historical store — whose roots go back to 17th century Edo Period Japan — launched its art gallery just three years after the official declaration of Mitsukoshi Nihombashi Main Store as Japan’s first department store in 1904, serving not only as a luxury shopping emporium but also as a center of Japanese cultural promotion. This involved the establishment of its Fine Arts Floor (currently the 6th floor of the Main Building), which now includes expansive art galleries, a historic theater, a refined tea ceremony goods store, a kogei crafts exhibition space and even a frame gallery, where visitors …continue reading

    

Teaching English to Japanese preschoolers is a bit different from being an assistant language teacher (ALT) or teaching adults in English conversation classes. Because you are usually the only fully grown human being in the classroom, you have a lot of freedom in what you teach and how you teach it. With great freedom, though, comes great responsibility. Now, you are the one who has to control the rowdy kids.

To many people, this might seem terrifying but if you can get your students to play even a simple game — they grow to love you. This, as well as a few other perks of the job make teaching kindergartners not as scary as you would think.

Classroom control is still challenging for new teachers though, often due to the lack of training. I had no idea what I was doing when I started and just tried to bribe kids with stickers until they shut up. After a while, you will learn techniques that work for you and will start implementing them in your classes. You will probably start using the same techniques over and over again as classes can get a bit repetitive.

You might even find yourself feeling a sense of déjà vu because of this. Your next class is the one with the crazy kid who likes to scream about Pokémon at the top of his lungs — wait. Wasn’t that the last class? Or is it the next? No, it’s all of them.

Japanese preschool kids all have their own personalities but when put in a classroom environment. it’s my experience that they have a habit of fitting into one of six main categories. These personality types are fairly similar the world over, but each of these student classifications comes with a Japanese twist.

1. The Crybaby

As soon as they …continue reading

    

Abandoned restaurants are not unusual in Japan – but rarely are they in that good condition. …continue reading