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BREEZE #116

JUNE, 2017: BREEZE ISSUE #116
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GREETING FROM THE DIRECTOR

Greetings!
Greetings! I am writing this message in my office surrounded by lots of cardboard boxes as weare moving to the temporary office for a few months. From now until the time we will come backto the current location in August, we will keep ourselves busy organizing many projects with
our outside partners. We will be inviting a California-born Shakuhachi (bamboo flute) masterfrom Japan to jazz up Little Tokyo with a performance of his eclectic music in a club setting,along with a family fun workshop on the making of bamboo musical instruments.
Fashion is another great topic of interest for us this year as we hold a lecture inviting a Japan
based expert on the history of Japan-US cultural exchanges on fashion. In July, we are planning
another lecture and workshop featuring a washi (Japanese paper) thread spinner and weaver.

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While busy with our move, we have encountered some good news that several past
participants of JET-MIP (JET Memorial Invitation Program) have been accepted by the JET(Japan Exchange and Teaching Program) program and will be going to Japan to teach. It isgreat to know that they have kept their interest in Japan throughout their college years andchose Japan as the location for their first job. More power to the young and adventurous!
Sincerely,Hideki Hara, Director

BAMBOO MUSIC INSTRUMENT MAKING WORKSHOP FOR KIDSSUNDAY, JUNE 4 / 3-5PM
ECHO PARK FILM CENTER (1200 N. ALVARADO ST., LA)
FEE: $10 (PER HOUSEHOLD)RESERVATION REQUIREDThe Japan Foundation, Los Angeles is proud to bring the shakuhachi (bamboo flute)master, John Kaizan Neptune from Japan and present a bamboo music instrument making
workshop for kids. Participants can learn the craft of making a bamboo instrument and also
enjoy playing it with master John Kaizan afterwords.
He tries to renew contact with his beautiful ex-wife Kyoko (Yoko Maki) and in a stormy summernight sheltered at his mother's home with his family he attempts to take back control of his
existence and to find a lasting place in the life of his young son Shingo (Taiyo Yoshizawa).
Ryota reaches an understanding on his family life and uses the chance to bond with his sonand tries to make memorable experiences he had with his father as a child with his son before
time and place for it passes over. (Wikipedia)
More Information and Making Reservation

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JAZZIN' UP: SHAKUHACHI INTERPRETATIONSBY JOHN KAIZAN NEPTUNEMONDAY, JUNE 5, 9PM/10PM
BLUEWHALE (123 ASTRONAUT E S ONIZUKA ST. SUITE 301, LOS ANGELES)ADMISSION: $10
John Kaizan Neptune is widely acknowledged to be among the top masters of the shakuhachi,or Japanese bamboo flute. Well-known in Japan, this California native is also an accomplishedjazz artist and composer who has gained respect in both the East and West for his versatile andtechnically sophisticated melting pot of sounds.
More Information

AMETORA: HOW JAPAN SAVED AMERICAN STYLE
THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 7PM
FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING, THE ANNEX(605 WEST OLYMPIC BLVD. A332 LOS ANGELES)RESERVATION REQUIREDTokyo-based writer W. David Marx will talk through his book on the development of menswear
in Japan and how Japan now exports their own premium take on American classics like denim,Ivy League clothing, and street wear to the rest of the world.
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2017 JAPANESE LANGUAGE GRANTS ARE STILL AVAILABLE!
The following Fiscal Year 2017-18 grant programs are still available to support JapaneseLanguage Education in the United States.
1. Learners Event Grant previously known as "Speech Contest Grant" (Deadline: 9/1/2017)
2. Teaching Material Purchase Grant (Deadlines: 9/15/2017)
3. Japanese-Language Education Project Grant (Deadline: 2 months prior to project startdate)
Read MoreJAPANESE LANGUAGE EDUCATION UPDATE 43:EXPLORING JAPAN THROUGH TADOKU (EXTENSIVE READING)As the summer draws near, what better way to encourage Japanese learning than throughsummer reading in Japanese? And one tried and tested way to develop learners’ Japanesereading skills is through tadoku, or extensive reading. As the name suggests, those engaged
in tadoku read a large amount of materials, be they novels, children’s books, manga, orsomething else. Tadoku itself has been gaining much attention among teachers of Japanese,and at the most recent 2017 AATJ spring conference in Toronto, it was noted that manystudents themselves want the opportunity to read more books. As a result, Japanese teachers
have been building up their own tadoku collections for their students, separating their books
into graded levels to allow students to find the right book for themselves.
So how does tadoku work? The guidelines are simple:
Students should be able to choose what they read, and the books can be from any genre
The books have to be easy for the student to read. Readers should not have to feel like they
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need to use the dictionary, but instead make educated guesses on unfamiliar words. If theyfind that a book is too difficult, they are recommended to find a new book.
Reading should be its own reward. (It is good to note, however, that those who do more
recreational reading have been found to have improved their vocabulary, writing, and grammar,in addition to of course their reading skills.)
Essentially, tadoku is student-centered. Because the book’s difficulty level and subject are
self-selected, the student feels more in control of his or her engagement with the Japanese
language. And because students are reading extensively, they can explore the rich field ofJapanese literature. There is still a vast abundance of works in the original language that havenot been translated; there is still a lot to discover.
Thus, by taking control of their own direction, expanding their reading skills and exploring
Japanese literature, students will be able to find stories from Japan that relate to them, or withwhich they can empathize. Tadoku is one means in which to steadily introduce the diversity ofJapan, and through the variety of stories, whether through manga or light novels or regularnovels, people can form a new connection to Japan. No matter how different the characters in
the pages may seem from oneself at first, there will be something there, something that speaks
to our human universality, a feeling or idea that we can share with someone else; it is from thisthat we can even create cross-cultural dialogue. That is the beauty of reading. And tadoku
can help us discover this.

FISCAL YEAR 2017-2018 JAPAN FOUNDATION PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
The Japan Foundation offers two training programs, one for specialists in a cultural oracademic field at our Japanese Language Institute in Kansai as well as another for Japanese
language teachers at our Japanese Language Institute in Urawa. For the current fiscal year, wewill be providing four postgraduate students with the opportunity to train in Kansai and two
Japanese language teachers to train in Urawa. We hope they are able to make good use of
their time in Japan and hope to hear about their experiences in a future issue of Breeze. For
information on the 2018-2019 program cycle, please check back in October.
Short-term Teacher Training Program (June 27 to August 17)
Ms. Colleen Allison Laird (Western Washington University - Bellingham, WA)
Project-based Training Program (November 7 to December 6)
Ms. Naoko Nemoto (Mount Holyoke College - South Hadley, MA)

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Japanese Language Program for Specialists (Short-term: June 7 to August 2)
Ms. Gina Kim (University of California-San Diego)
Ms. Karen Tsai (University of California-Santa Barbara)
Japanese Language Program for Specialists (Long-term: October 4 to April 4, 2018)
Ms. Amy Obermeyer (New York University)
Ms. Ran Liu (University of Pennsylvania)

JET-MIPPERS BECOME JETS
It has been six years now since we sent the first group of participants on the JET MemorialInvitation Program and some of the past participants have graduated from college and havealready gone through the application process for JET. If you remember, this program waslaunched immediately following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami tocommemorate the lives two American JETs that were lost during the disaster. This year, four
past participants of JET-MIP (Christopher Mahmood, 2011, Hokkaido Prefecture; Andy Juarez,2012, Kochi Prefecture, Sarah Wade, 2012, Yamanashi Prefecture; and Kelly Kratz, 2013,Hokkaido Prefecture) were accepted into the JET Program, following in the footsteps of Taylor
Anderson and Montgomery Dickson. They will be acting as cultural ambassadors in the cities
they are assigned to promote international exchange and good will between two countries thathave had a long and enduring relationship in the global community.

JFLA STAFF UPDATE
We are sad to announce that Ayako Bessho will be leaving the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles
at the beginning of June and will be returning to Japan after completing three long years ofservice here. During that time Ayako took over the J-LEAP program and continued to develop itto support Japanese language teachers in the US. She also assisted in managing the JF
Nihongo classes here in Los Angeles. We wish her the best of luck wherever she lands.
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Past Issues (2020)

Past Issues (2019)

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Past Issues (2018)

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Past Issues (2017)

Breeze #122Breeze #121Breeze #120

Breeze #119

Breeze #118

Breeze #117

Breeze #116

Breeze #115

Breeze #114

Breeze #113

Breeze #112

Breeze #111

Breeze Past Issues

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