Magazine
2018-2019
Table of Contents
3 Letter from the Editor 4 Odélie’s Photos 7 Fukui Taisenkai 10 Watercolors 12 “Finding Yourself” in Japan Or Some Other Cliché and Yet Shockingly Accurate Sentiment
18 Iggy’s Sketchbook 20 Cafe Spotlight 23 Leaver’s Interview: Ximena Interview: Saskia 25 Leaver’s 27 Eiheiji Temple Photo Spotlight 28 A Guide to Rescuing Kittens 34 Climbing Fuji: A Non-Climber’s Perspective 35 Micro-Stories 38 Wanderlust 40 Image Credits
Letter From the Editor
This is it: my last issue of JETFuel. I’ve been involved with this zine in some capacity since 2016, though the history of JETFuel goes back much farther than that. It used to be a physical, paper-andink thing back when the ALT population in Fukui was much smaller. But even being digital now, the look and feel of the zine changes so much over time. Just take a look back at the oldest entry on our Issue page to see what I mean. Most of those writers aren’t in Fukui anymore, which makes reading those older issues like looking into a time capsule of ALTs gone by. I’m sure this issue will also be like that one day, full of curiosities for newer expats and nostalgia for us kouhai. Thank you to all the contributors, co-editors, and the readers who have kept JETFuel going all this time. I can’t wait to see what the next editor(s) do with this little local zine I’ve become so fond of. I know it’s going to be great. And to everyone reading, whether you’re staying in Japan or leaving, reading this in 2019 or sometime in the future: keep being awesome.
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,
Angela Hinck
Hi! My name is Odélie and I'm a first-year JET from Canada. As a CIR in Fukui, I have the enviable job of promoting my home prefecture on social media! Through photographs and videos, I aim to share the many charms of Japan's happiest prefecture.
Ono Castle Facebook: @experiencefukui Instagram: @experience_fukui Youtube: @experience_fukui
Look at the next couple of pages for more of Odélie’s photography!
Ichijodani Ruins
Kuzuryu Dam
Mt. Akausagi
Ono Castle
Every month in Fukui City, the Fukui Taisenkai crew gets together for some fighting game action! Fukui Taisenkai is a gaming meetup (every Thursday night and one Saturday a month) at S-Garden, a board game store and cafe. Japan has always been known as the place where the strongest fighting game players come from. While most of the strongest players come from Tokyo or Osaka, smaller towns are breeding absolute monsters when it comes to fighting games. Here’s a look at the local fighting game community in Fukui!
Fukui Taisenkai By Zack “ZMangz” Urbano Press Any Button To Continue!
Players gathered to watch Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the horizon, players are sending off the previous game in style.
The player in front wearing glasses is named Nietono. He’s considered to be among the top 10 Super Smash Bros. for Wii U players in Japan and placed third at Evo 2018 for Smash. Many top players travel out to smaller communities to help promote local communities and help their players improve at the games. Some other notable players that have been to Fukui include Cho, a top level Dragon Ball FighterZ and Street Fighter V.
S-Garden is a very small space, but that adds to the intimacy of gaming there.
Some of the other featured games at Fukui Taisenkai include Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Dragon Ball FighterZ, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, and Street Fighter V.
The man behind Fukui Taisenkai, Ao-san (left). Wonder what they are talking about?
Nietono celebrating after winning the local Super Smash Bros. tournament. There was no prize other than pride and getting some much needed experience.
If you’re in Fukui and want to get some fighting game practice in, come hang out! All pictures taken by Zack “ZMangz” Urbano”
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“Finding Yourself” in Japan OR
Some Other Cliché and Yet Shockingly Accurate Sentiment by Garrett White
Huddled with my Houston-consulate peers on the eve of my departure to Japan, I distinctly remember one of the coordinators standing before us all and saying the following:
“Take a picture of yourself on the plane to Tokyo because I guarantee that the person who leaves tomorrow will not be the same as the one who returns.”
I wish I could go back in time and ask him if he knew just how literal that would end up being for me. Because as someone who left Houston thinking they were female and will go back realizing they were transgender, my situation is about as literal an interpretation of that as you can get. Now to be fair, I don’t think he had a person like me in mind when he said it. I believe this bit of wisdom is relevant for everyone who embarks on JET. I am just one extreme case on a spectrum of examples showing how this experience is life-changing. This isn’t the first program I have done where the journey was prefaced with sentiments like this. Before I left for the Disney College Program (DCP), many people who’d done it (alumni, we call them) told me similar things. Phrases like “It will completely change your life!” and “You’ll never be the same afterward!”were plastered all over social media groups designed for incoming participants. And you know what? They’d been right that time, too. So what is it about these “programs” that is so revolutionary for personal and professional development? I believe there’s three parts to this answer, and many participants in programs like this can relate to at least one if not all of them.
These experiences are some of the first times we’ve:
1. had a full-time job. 2. been immersed in a completely different culture to the one we know. 3. been isolated in some way from friends, family, and other support networks that we’ve come to rely on in the past.
I know what you may be thinking. “But you’re from America, and the DCP is in America!” Just because it is in the same country I was born in does not mean Disney is not a world of its own. Ask any alumni, and they’ll tell you the same. But let’s keep things within the scope of JET for the sake of this magazine and break these points down one by one. A person’s first full-time job is a big thing. It could the first time you experience what work in a particular field feels like. It could be the first time you are putting academic knowledge into practice. It could also be the first time that you have so much time-or the first time you have very little at all. With JET, these factors combine differently for every participant. But a few things that remain static are a) having to adhere to a full-time contract and b) receiving a salary instead of an hourly-based income. These are integral. It’s here that we decide what kind of workers we are when an hourly income isn’t driving us. Staying late isn’t rewarded monetarily, and minutes aren’t deducted from a timesheet when we don’t come in on time. And for better or worse, the ALT contract gives us a lot of freedom in how much effort we put in at our job. There is very little disciplinary consequence for doing the bare minimum or flat-out being a bad ALT, short of extreme cases, and honest feedback from schools is nearly nonexistent. All of this essentially means that we are 100% in charge of making this role our own. We are expected
to know what works and what doesn’t by ourselves or only with the help of our fellow ALTs. That is a lot of responsibility for someone who may be entering the full-time workforce for the first time. I have always been prompt in arriving to work, but in college, I used to believe in “leaving when the work was done.” If I didn’t, I would have never sat down and written a complete essay. To an extent, I still believe this. But I had to stop extending myself beyond what was rational. This isn’t university, and my job isn’t the same as “homework.” If a teacher comes to me at 4:00 p.m. about a PowerPoint for third period the next day, I have to remind myself that I may have time the next day to get it done, and it’s okay to use that time instead of staying late. Does this mean I never stay late? Of course not. But once I recognized the responsibility of making this job my own, I was able to realize that being deliberate about my time at work and my time at home is very important. Work-life balance isn’t about maximizing the time we get away from our jobs. It’s just about maximizing time, period. In programs like JET, this kind of clarity is often slow to discover but ends up more genuine for it. And the reason is that we are on an island nation with a culture that is likely very different to the one in which we were raised. Coming to Japan, we are thrust into an unfamiliar work environment with a plethora of subtle etiquette cues that we aren’t
often fluent in. Finding balance can seem like an ongoing sink-or-swim decision that we don’t always have full control over, even if it feels like we should. And culture shock is the tsunami that eradicates all previously held notions about what is acceptable in the workplace (and life in general) and forces us to relearn everything. This is a big pill to swallow for a lot of people, and for some it’s too much of an undertaking. And realizing that you are struggling and that you aren’t finding your way in this job is acceptable. What isn’t acceptable is knowing that you are failing and then either not making a significant effort to improve or not leaving the program and allowing another, potentially more successful person to take your place. Most of us understand this, and seeing as we are here for at least a year, we choose the former. After all, once preconceptions have been razed to the ground, the only choice that remains is to start over and build anew. The path of least resistance, so to speak.
After a year of working in a culture with notoriously strong gender roles and yet, in my situation, a good degree more freedom in what was considered “business attire,” I realized that no combination of clothes from America or clothes from Uniqlo would make me feel comfortable in feminine wear. It took me a good while to realize the disdain for what it was. I was too busy trying to translate head tilts and “maybes.” But as I came into myself at this job, I was able to clearly see this issue in a way I was never able to before.
In familiar territory, it is so easy to blame discomfort on something else and have that false narrative reinforced by coworkers. In Japan, I am on my own. I decide what an “ALT” should dress like, within reason. And my coworkers, despite having strong opinions about what is appropriate “female” attire, will often not tell me to my face that I can’t wear something a certain way to work. So I was “allowed” to slowly incorporate men’s clothes here and there until I realized, “Oh, this is what I want to wear from now on.” Fashion may seem like a superficial example, but as a trans So we build. And in doing so, navigatindividual, it’s really important to me. And ing this new culture means we have to build that kind of block-by-block understanding is slowly and be precise in how we relearn life. something I attribute to being in a different This is where terms like “cathartic” and “met- culture. As we untangle this job and how we amorphic” come from in regards to programs fit inside of it, we create an environment for like JET. Because in this slow process of redis- discovering our true feelings about what satcovery, we find things that had been nagging isfies us in life. at us or bringing us down even from before we came to Japan, and we can eliminate or Lastly, we are creating this environment minimize these things. away from friends, family, and support networks that we relied on prior to coming
to Japan. This is another sink-or-swim situation, really, and this separation from what we’ve known for so long can be too much for some people to handle. And that’s okay. There is no shame in admitting you need to be back on familiar ground in order to grow. Heck, that’s why I am heading home in July. But I find that the majority of people on this program flourish in some way, and they learn to do so on their own. Not to say that we don’t make friends or build support networks here, but
what that means for me), or it could be simple (realizing that just because I can eat a tub of ice cream without permission doesn’t necessarily mean I should. Ever since realizing I am trans, I have wanted to write something about it for the JET community. But every time I sat down to talk about how I discovered myself, I realized I couldn’t do it without bringing up what a unique situation JET is and how that helped me along the way. And in doing that, I realized that this is not something no one else can
I love my friends and family. I love my hometown. But I believe being away from those familiar people and places helped me realize things about myself much quicker than I would have had I stayed in El Paso. rather that we are forced to go out and do that largely from scratch.
relate to. We all change during our time here.
So no, I am not going to go on about I love my friends and family. I love my what my childhood was like or how I am feelhometown. But I believe being away from ing about pronouns, names, or medical decithose familiar people and places helped me sions. I am more than willing to discuss all of realize things about myself much quicker than that one-on-one with people who are quesI would have had I stayed in El Paso. Being tioning or want to educate themselves further isolated and forced to create a new life for on what being transgender means. But that myself--one where I couldn’t just fall back isn’t what matters for this magazine. What on or blame something familiar when times matters is that my case, despite being an were tough--made me think more critically. extreme, is partly about how JET has shaped Everything from what kind of people I want to me--how it shapes all of us. surround myself with to what kind of hobbies and routines are vital to my daily health. It We all come into this program with difcould be complex (dissecting my gender and ferent backgrounds. But whether we are 22 or
40, whether we never lived away from home or we are leaving a spouse and child behind for this journey, JET gives us the unique opportunity to live outside of our old lives and look back at them with a new perspective. For someone like me, this really is life-changing. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way--like I’ve “found myself” in Japan. So I challenge you to think back on the person you were before you arrived here. It doesn’t matter if you just arrived last summer or have been here for much longer than the JET Program allows. If you could see a picture of yourself then and now, would you say the person in one is identical to the other? And when you find that they aren’t, move on to the better question: How are they different?
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” -Martin Buber
Iggy’s Sketchbook
In the autumn following the Snowpocalypse of 2017, I made a promise to myself to start a hobby over the winter that would keep the icicles of isolation at bay.
I took up watercolor painting thinking it might be nice to add some color to my cold apartment. These are the results.
Thanks for looking!
Cafe Spotlight
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Check out awayfromorigin.com for more great articles.
Leaver’s Interview with Ximena Ramirez
How long have you been on the JET Program? I will be leaving after two years of being on the JET Program.
What ultimately made you decide not to renew your contract this year? My main goal coming to Japan wasn’t to be a teacher but to experience living abroad and experiencing a part of Japan that tourists don’t usually see. Being a professional in a Japanese work environment was incredibly difficult, but I’ve definitely grown a lot as a professional and person. On top of just missing my friends and family, I felt that I was ready to take my experiences back home and rub it in their faces.
What’s on your “Leaver’s To-Do List” for the next few months? Eat. EAT. E A T. Eat damn it. Japanese cuisine has to be some of the best in the world, and it’s incredibly affordable here. I’m going to miss nights out where a full meal, all-I-can-drink booze, and karaoke would only cost me about $30…
What are you dreading the most about leaving JET/the moving process? All of it… packing up boxes, filling out paperwork, making sure I don’t go broke, saying goodbye to the friends I’ve made here. I’m a lazy, fat cat at heart, so being responsible and running errands isn’t something I’m thrilled about.
What are you looking forward to the most? Did I mention I’m a fat cat that loves food? I want my rice, beans, and plantains.
Do you plan on continuing to live and work in Japan?
As much as I wouldn’t want all of the Japanese and work etiquette that I learned to go to waste, I am really looking forward to going home and seeing my friends and family. That said, I will be back! Japan can’t get rid of me that easily.
What advice do you have for your JET Program kouhai, re: enjoying their time Japan? Take it easy. I’m not trying to jump onto the ESID train, but everyone’s experience is different and unique to them. With that in mind, don’t compare yourself too rigorously to your fellow ALTs and peers. Furthermore, when you first arrive, you’ll be given so much advice, so many tips and tricks, so many packets and worksheets with suggestions on how to be a great ALT and improve the classroom. It’s overwhelming. You want to do everything right, and you want to make sure you assimilate as smoothly as possible. The truth is, that won’t happen. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll put your foot in your mouth, you’ll (definitely) have a class that bombs- or a few. That happens, and you won’t be crucified for it. Your JTEs and students want to talk and interact with someone who isn’t from their hometown and country, so just have fun and enjoy your position for what it is. At the end of the day, this is all temporary. So just relax, take things as they come, and enjoy living in Japan. It really is the opportunity of a lifetime.
What’s your best memory from your time on JET? There are too many to count. From salsa classes in Takefu and several tabletop campaigns to dinner parties with my host family and being on a boat in Lake Biwa (I’m on a boat!), I’ve had great memories because of the friends that I made. I know that I’ll be leaving Japan, but I made friends that will last me a lifetime. (I hope. Jen, you better message me back when we leave.)
Anything else to add? I can’t believe I’m missing the Olympics. If you’re staying and reading this, I am very jealous and I hate you.
Leaver’s Interview
with Saskia DeLaurentis
How long have you been on the JET Program? This is my third year on the JET Program. Originally, I was going to do two years, but I realized I wanted to see my first-year students graduate, so I decided to stay another year.
What ultimately made you decide not to renew your contract this year? I decided not to recontract because I am ready for new challenges. It’s my third year and I know what to do as an ALT. I think there’s not much left to learn in the position of an ALT, so I want something totally different. I haven’t decided what kind of job yet, but I want to use Japanese in the next job.
What’s on your “Leaver’s To-Do List” for the next few months? Finding a job in the Kansai-area and trying to make one more Japanese-English pun I can tell everyone. I want my puns to live on among the ALT community.
What are you dreading the most about leaving JET/the moving process? I dread leaving the comfortable lives we have as ALTs. I can actually afford a car and have a nice apartment, things I will most likely not have when I move to Kansai. Most of us can also get the holidays off, but with a new job that’s probably not going to be in education, I will just have to work like everyone else. Maybe, the thing I dread the most is leaving my husband Happiryuu behind in Fukui.
What you looking forward to the most? I am looking forward to facing new challenges. When I move, I will have to do many things on my own. This will be so difficult, but I believe it will make me so much stronger. I am also looking forward to building a new life. My life in Fukui is great and I love everything about it, but I feel like I know Fukui now. I am ready to go to a new city and meet new people.
Do you plan on continuing to live and work in Japan?
Yes, most definitely! I won’t live here forever, but I want to live here for a few more years. In the future, I want to be a tea ceremony teacher and I need to stay in Japan for a few more years to be able to do that. Japan is a comfortable place to live. It has its flaws of course, but no country is perfect. In the Netherlands, I would complain about stuff too.
What advice do you have for your JET Program kouhai, re: enjoying their time Japan? You don’t have to say yes to everything, I have done that and it left me so drained. Do the things you want to do. One piece of advice about Japan in general: it’s a country of contradictions. You can see it in so many aspects of life in Japan. Realizing this made my life much easier for some reason.
What’s your best memory from your time on JET? I can’t possibly choose the best memory, but I think the best thing about being on the JET program is the friends I made. Actually, people here have become more like a family for me. With all these people, I have made so many memories and made my time here in Fukui so worthwhile. I am so happy that I was placed in Fukui, the happiest prefecture of Japan.
Anything else to add? Of course I have to tell my joke. Here it goes! In English, when people are cutting down a tree, they will say “TIMBER”, right? What do you say in Japanese?
木おつけて！
Eiheji Temple
Photos by Nikkole Martin
A Guide To Rescuing Kittens by Jocelyn Irle
I think the majority of people are sympathetic towards cats, and I doubt any of you would ignore a suffering animal.
But, imagine you’re walking home from work on a hot summer afternoon when you see a kitten scuttle into the bushes. What do you do?
Although some outdoor cats live full and healthy lives with proper care, that is not the fate of most street cats. The life expectancy of a stray cat is 2 years, as they often succumb to traffic accidents, starvation, the cold, or treatable diseases. The younger a cat is, the less likely it is to survive its first year. If you are a cat lover who has wanted to help but has been at a loss for what to do, I hope this guide will be of use to you.
Step One: Assess the Kitten’s Age
In order to help a kitten, it’s first useful to determine about how old the kitten is. This guide will give you an idea of kitten ages, but for a more detailed guide, please visit alleycats.org. Newborn: Kittens’ eyes are closed and
ears are folded. Kittens can’t walk, defaecate, or eat on their own. If you find a newborn kitten, look for its mother! At this stage, surviving without the mother is difficult. If it has been rejected by its mother, warm it up and take it to the vet immediately.
come in and kittens can start eating wet food. By the time kittens are three weeks old, it’s safe but not recommended to take kittens away from their mother. During this period, it’s important to start socializing kittens.
22-28 days old: The kittens begin show-
ing more interest in their littermates and outside world. Kittens become more play6 - 10 days old: Kittens start wiggling around a little, their eyes start opening and ful, and will be walking around fairly sturdily. At four weeks old, kittens born to feral their ears will unfold. These kittens need cats can be separated from their mother their mother. If the mother is nowhere to be found, the kittens will need around the for socialization, but it’s best to keep them with their littermates. Socialization with clock fostering by a human (or cat) carehumans (and other cats) is critical! giver.
11-14 days old: Kittens start crawling and
interacting with each other and their surroundings, but they still can’t defecate on their own yet. If the mother can’t be found, they will need around the clock fostering by a caregiver.
15-21 days old: Kittens are just begin-
5 weeks old: Kittens eat both solid food
and drink milk, and play until exhausted. The window for easy human socialization is beginning to close.
6 weeks old: Kittens have gotten good at grooming and cleaning themselves, and are running around like pros.
ning to play and walk around but are still wobbly, and are learning how to eliminate 7 weeks old: Kittens are almost fully waste on their own. Baby teeth will start to weaned.
8 weeks old: Kittens are fully weaned and
much more independent. If you plan on socializing the kittens before they are feral, now may be your last chance.
3 months old: Kittens become very independent. It’s time to get them spayed and neu-
tered to prevent more cats from being born.
but there are circumstances in which you should take the kittens. Are they living in an urban area with a lot of traffic? Is it very cold outside? Extreme temperatures and traffic are both dangerous to small kittens who are starting to wander from the nest, so these kittens should be taken somewhere safe. They may still need formula and litter box training.
4 months old: Female kittens can become
If you find a lone kitten that’s still a bit wobbly on its feet, please don’t leave it. If the mother doesn’t return for the kitten within an hour, it’ll need human help to survive.
ous behaviors like wandering and fighting.
If the kittens are walking around and playing a bit, and this is the first time you’ve seen them in this area, then they are probably about 4 weeks old. Mothers tend to start taking their kittens outside the nest around this age. This is a great time to separate a kitten from its feral mother. If the mother cat is not feral, and the kittens are staying somewhere safe, then you can leave the kittens with the mother and littermates. Either way, it’s important to start socializing the kittens and getting them used to humans.
pregnant as young as 4 months old, and males may start to exhibit marking behaviors. Get them fixed before they start exhibiting danger-
Step Two: Assess the Kitten’s Needs
Let’s say you’ve found a kitten, and have assessed its age. The next step is deciding whether to separate it from its mother or not, and whether to capture it or not. Of course, the best solution would be to capture the mother and all her kittens and bring them indoors until the kittens are weaned. But this is simply not doable for most ALTs. If the kittens are not walking around yet, leave them with their mother. They need her. If it’s cold, you can bring the mother blankets, water, and food, but give her space. If you bother the mother too much, she will change the location of her nest and bring her kittens with her. However, if for some reason the kittens are not walking around yet, but the mother is gone for more than hour, she may have abandoned them or be injured herself. Then, you should step in. Place them somewhere warm until you can get them to a vet- and don’t feed them until their bodies are up to temperature. Caring for neonatal kittens is challenging, but possible.
If the kittens are walking around but very wobbly, they are probably about 20 days old. It’s best if they stay with their mother now,
If you find a lone kitten that is about 4 weeks old, please take it somewhere safe. It may be hard to catch, but without its mother, it needs human care to survive. If you find a kitten that looks happy and healthy and is running around, whether you “rescue” it or not depends on its age! It may be hard for someone inexperienced to determine the difference between a 5-weekold kitten and a 12-week-old kitten without a reference picture. As a rule of thumb, any kitten that is 5 to 8 weeks old should be captured and socialized if born to a feral mother. If you find a lone kitten that is 5-8 weeks old, its chance of survival into adulthood without its mother (or a caretaker) is small. If the mother is not feral, the surrounding area is safe, and the temperature outside is not extreme, the kitten(s) can stay with its mother until it is 8 weeks old.
If you find a kitten that looks happy and healthy and is running around, whether you “rescue” it or not depends on its age! It may be hard for someone inexperienced to determine the difference between a 5 week old kitten and a 12 week old kitten without a reference picture. As a rule of thumb, any kitten that is 5 to 8 weeks old should be captured and socialized if born to a feral mother. If you find a lone kitten that is 5-8 weeks old, it’s chance of survival into adulthood without its mother (or a caretaker) is small. If the mother is not feral, the surrounding area is safe, and the temperature outside is not extreme, the kitten(s) can stay with its mother until it is 8 weeks old. Kittens that are 9 weeks and up can certainly be taken from their mothers and rehomed if they are friendly. Kittens that are over 8 weeks old but have not been socialized will be a challenge. Socializing kittens after the 8 week mark sometimes takes months, and for some kittens, years. Regrettably, most people don’t have the time, money, and space to try to tame feral kittens after the 8 week mark. These kittens are typically left outside with their mother until they are old enough to be fixed, but taming them is not impossible. Kittens that are 12 weeks and up that are not tame can be trapped, neutered, and released back into their habitat.
Step Three: Capture
So you’ve decided to catch a kitten! These are my tips and tricks.
First of all, do you have a carrier? Probably not, but don’t worry- you can borrow a cage from the animal shelter in Fukui City for free. If the kittens are less than 4 weeks of age or friendly, you may not need a carrier, but it’s still good to have. If you are catching kittens 3 weeks of age, you can probably just pick them up. They don’t move that fast.
If the kittens are 4 to 6 weeks old and not socialized, you can use a cage or a bug-catching net. A cage is always preferable, because chasing a kitten down and netting it can traumatize it. But sometimes you live too far from where you found the kitten to go back and forth for a week, or the kitten needs immediate attention. If the kitten is too wary to go into a cage, put a little wet food in a bowl out in the open. Wait for the cautious kitten to come for food. Then, with super speed, put the net over the little guy. It’ll probably make a run for it and get tangled in the net. Twist the net up. When you transfer the kitten to a carrier or cage, go somewhere like your bathroom or car where the kitten will be trapped even if it escapes your net. If you have a week to work with the kitten, or the kitten is over 6 weeks old, try using a cage to capture it instead. Put wet fragrant food in a cage with the door open. To ensure the kitten is hungry when you try this, don’t feed the kitten that day until you’re ready to catch it (but always have out water). If the kitten is very skittish, feed it wet food from the cage for a few days until it thinks the cage is safe. I tie a sturdy string or wire to the door of the cage and string it through. When the kitten enters the cage all the way, I pull the door shut with the string. If you make any sudden movements, the kitten may make a dash for it; so if you can, try to hide your hand when you pull the string. Alternatively, you can push the door with a broom handle or something. One thing to note: if there are multiple kittens, wait until all kittens have entered. Any remaining kittens will be very hard to catch once they know what you’re up to!
Step Four: The Vet
After catching a kitten, your first stop should always be the vet. The vet will check for fleas, ticks, ear mites, respiratory infections, and if you provide a fecal sample, intestinal worms. You can bring a fecal sample the next day if needed- but definitely do it. Worms are very common in stray kittens. The
vet will tell you the approximate age of the kitten and its gender, and also what and how much to feed it. Fleas, ticks, and intestinal worms can be treated on the spot by your vet (though a follow up treatment is sometimes needed a few weeks later). Expect to pay about 3,000 to 6,000 yen for the visit, depending on what medicines are needed. If the kitten is feral and prone to struggling, put it into a zip-up laundry net before you bring it in to the vet. The vet will appreciate it, and it will keep the kitten from hurting itself. You might think it’s sad, but actually it can be calming for a stressed cat to be encased in a net. It gives the kitty the illusion of protection.
Step five: Taming
Hopefully you have a healthy little kitten in your care now. If the kitten is already friendly towards people, you can skip to the next step.
After the kitten is eating near you readily, you can start hand-feeding her. If she attempts to knock the food from your hand and accidentally claws you, please don’t scold her. Once she realizes your hands aren’t dangerous, she’ll be less and less likely to scratch you. This takes patience. When the kitten is eating from your hand, try to lure her onto your lap with food. Once the kitten sits on your lap readily, you can start trying to gently touch her. I recommend touching her with one of her toys that she’s familiar with. If at any point she reacts fearfully, then go back to the previous step for a day. Play with the kitten every day. As long as you don’t rush her, she will get used to you and start associating you with food and play. It takes a lot of time, but eventually you’ll be able to touch her.
Many kittens will make a little progress If your kitten is skittish or even feral, day by day. But in my experience, sometimes don’t lose hope! Feral kittens can still be tamed, weeks will pass with seemingly no progress especially if they’re 8 weeks or younger. There at all. There is a kitty “tipping point” pheare a lot of helpful articles and Youtube videos nomena, where after no detectable progress, about how to tame feral cats, but I’ll just give without any warning, the kitten will approach you the basics. This process takes a lot of payou purring and affectionate. So don’t lose tience, but when a previously feral kitten curls hope. up in your lap, it will all feel worth it. First you want to make a safe place for your kittens. Give them somewhere to hide and feel safe, like a box. Kittens love boxes, and some studies show that giving boxes to shelter cats reduces their stress significantly. For the first day or so, leave the kittens alone while they adapt to their new environment. After a day and a half, you can start spending some time with them. Talk to them gently, but avoid eye contact with them. By the third day, as long as the kittens are a healthy weight and nourished, you can withhold a little bit of food. When it’s time to feed them, put the food near you. Depending on the kittens’ personality, age, and experience with people, some might immediately take the food, and some might refuse to come closer. Scoot the food closer until the kitty finally accepts.
Step Six: Re-Homing
When the kitten is finally socialized, assuming you can’t keep her, it’s time to rehome her. First, ask around. Ask your friends, co-workers, and neighbors- you’d be surprised how willingly friends will open their homes to a kitten once they’re holding the little one in their hands. Next, reach out to the animal shelter. They have adoption events every couple of weeks. They’ll allow you to bring your kitten to adoption events to show to potential adopters. I don’t recommend surrendering your kitten to the shelter though. Shelters in Japan are crowded, and animals will be euthanized once space becomes limited.
You can also make posters with the kitten’s gender, age, and picture to the vet. The vet will usually hang it in the office for you. If you’re confident in your Japanese, you can even take some posters down to the station with your phone number on it. Personally, I’ve had a lot of luck with the site www.satoya-boshu.net. It’s a website for finding homes for cats and dogs. I’ve also heard good things about www.pet-home.jp, though I haven’t personally used it. Both sites are in all Japanese, so you may need a friend to help you post. Finally, be sure to screen potential adopters to make sure she goes to a safe and responsible home. “Have you had cats before?” “Will you get her spayed and vaccinated?” and “If you live in an urban area, will she be indoors?” are all important questions to ask.
Thank you for helping a kitten in need. Wasn’t that rewarding?
Climbing Fuji:
A Non-Hiker’s Perspective By Nikkole Martin
Eight years prior to coming to Japan on the JET Program, I took a vacation here and toured around Honshu. Despite getting fairly close, bad visibility prevented me from ever catching even a glimpse of Mt. Fuji back then, and it was one of my biggest regrets of that trip. So when I learned about FJET’s annual Mt. Fuji climb, it seemed to be the perfect way to erase that regret. There was only one problem: I don’t hike. In fact, I’m not a terribly physically active person in general. I’d certainly never climbed a mountain before. Ultimately though, I decided to do it. I was nervous, but I knew I wanted to try and I decided that I didn’t want to start my life in Japan with any regrets or “what-ifs.” I can honestly say that climbing Mt. Fuji was the most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life. Make no mistake: it is a true climb. Yes, there are well-used paths that even the Japanese elderly traverse, but those paths will have you climbing over boulders and slipping on loose rocks. Buy that walking stick because you will be using it. Not everyone in our group made it either; some had to turn around and others succumbed to altitude sickness. I will say it again: this is a true climb. The ascent taught me a lot about myself. I didn’t reach the summit by sunrise. I watched the sun beautifully illuminate a fog bank over a lake far below from station 8.5, and as I took in that view, I had to make a decision. You can reach the downward path from station 8.5 and I knew I didn’t have much time; our bus would be waiting to pick us up at the designated time and I still had to take into account how long it would take to get down. I had two options: give up and start heading down or sprint to the top. I’d been climbing all night. I was exhausted. But I knew that if I gave up then, when my goal was literally within sight, I’d regret it forever. So I let my stubbornness take over. I dug deep, I found an extra reserve I didn’t know I had, and I all but ran from 8.5 to the summit, only slowing when the crowds near the top forced me to. I made it. I was the last person in the group to reach the summit, and I only had about 15 minutes to take in the view, get my last stamp for my walking stick, grab a quick souvenir and take a few pictures before I had to head over and begin a very quick descent down. Still, those 15 minutes are something that I will always cherish because of how hard I fought for them. As a non-hiker with zero mountain climbing experience, climbing Mt. Fuji was definitely difficult. I needed to push myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself physically before. But in doing so, I discovered an inner strength and determination I didn’t know I had. For that alone, the journey was worthwhile. And you know what? The view was pretty good too.
Micro-Stories
By Karim Mohanna
MY New Situation in Japan
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The start of my second year on board the JET Programme has been filled with excitement and novelty. The big change I experienced was being transferred to a new school. I finished teaching at Koshi High School and started teaching at two new schools: Kagaku Gijutsu (Kagiko) and Michimori HS. Both these schools are very different from my previous one. I go to Michimori HS, which is a part-time school for special needs students on Mondays, The students there don’t wear uniforms and have more freedom at school, like sleeping if they are tired or even listening to music. The teaching context is very different, but I have welcomed it and enjoyed this new challenge. I am using a different approach with my PowerPoint presentations and do more practical activities to engage the students. The size of classes is also very different, where sometimes there are only five students. One of the advantages I have is to get to know the students better. They are great students with an overall high level of participation and enthusiasm. I find them courageous to be studying as well, since many of them have a part-time job. I had previously met one of my students at a 7-Eleven. Kagiko, my other school, is somewhat more like my previous school, but the level of English of the students is not as high. I have an interesting teaching situation as I have my own classroom and I use electronic accessories to teach, such as TV monitors to present my PowerPoint presentations and a sound system to include music and sound effects. One of the games I got to play was a Super Mario PowerPoint presentation that the students all enjoyed participating in. Also, at this new school, I now have new activities such as an English board; special ESS activities such as making a movie, which we did for Halloween; and hosting a radio show where I speak English and play English songs to the students for about twenty minutes once a week at lunch time. All and all, I am very happy with my new situation and I continue growing personally and professionally in Japan!
The Joy of performing
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Coming from a theatrical background, I have always enjoyed taking part in “performing” activities. JET ALTs who came to the Koshi Super Science Seminar in 2018 recall that I was dressed as a superhero from a famous Japanese anime from the seventies called Grendizer. I have enjoyed performing karaoke as well as with a live band called Asobi Gokoro, which performs at a local venue in Fukui called Bar Jake. Last year, I performed “Hey Jude” from the Beatles with them which was fun! Recently, on my trip to Tokyo for Christmas, I also got a chance to perform. This time was at a live karaoke show with two musicians. I performed four songs, including: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” from Band-Aid, “Livin’ On a Prayer” from Bon Jovi, “Don’t Cry” from Guns N’ Roses and “Glory of Love” from the Karate Kid Part II soundtrack by Peter Cetera. Finally, I went back to Bar Jake for New Year’s Eve again this year where I got to perform “21 Guns” from Green Day and “Hey Jude” from the Beatles due to popular demand. It’s been a great year of performances!
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Fun traveling in Japan
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Hello JETs! I’m happy to tell you about my travels last summer. I went to several places around the western Honshu area. First, I went to Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture where I tried the world-famous Kobe beef. I had found a restaurant not far from the station that was offering Kobe beef at a reasonable price. I was delighted to taste that high-quality meat. Then I went to Himeji Castle, the grandest of Japan’s 12 remaining feudal castles. It’s known as Shirasagi-jo, which means: “white egret (heron) castle” because of its plastered walls, which stretch out on either side of the main donjon. This supposedly resembles a bird taking flight. It is now designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. I was lucky enough to have a private guided tour with a nice lady who gave me the tour in English. On another trip, I went to Kyoto where I visited Fushimi Shrine, got to eat Kyoto-famous “fire ramen,” and saw the Nintendo building. I also went to Nara where I got to go to the Todai-ji
complex, the largest wooden structure in the world which consists of the Great Buddha (Daibutsuden) hall, subtemples, halls, pagodas and gates of an exceptional historical and architectural interest. I also enjoyed walking in Nara Park where deer, “the messengers of the gods,” walk freely. You can feed and pat them. Finally, no trip in western Honshu would be complete without going to Hiroshima. I went to the Peace Memorial Park and saw the A-bomb dome and the cenotaph that was erected in memory of the victims of the bombing. Being in Hiroshima made me reflect on the fragility of life and how much peace is important for our world perhaps now more than ever. I also got to Miyajima Island where I saw the famous floating torii and got to go up Mount Misen, where I had a nice view of the bay area.
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Going on these small trips was a great experience and I got to appreciate being, living and traveling in Japan even more than before!
Wanderlust
/ˈwɒndəlʌst/
(noun) a strong desire to travel. Amberly Rose Young is a former Fukui ALT with a taste for adventure and new places. She currently teaches English in Spain, and below are some of the photos of her travels she shared with JETFuel. Punto Umbría, Spain
Beach Frisbee Tournament
Switzerland
Málaga, Spain
Beach Volleyball Tournament
Pfeiffer State Beach, Big Sur, California
Image Credits A Guide To Rescuing Cats Cat Pics: umit ozbek and Hari Panicker Cafe Spotlight Layout design and photos are credited to Natasha Taliferro Climbing Fuji: A Non-Hiker’s Perspective Background: kjpargeter Photo: Nikkole Martin
Letter From The Editor Background: Freepik Heart: Smashicons Peace sign: Freepik Micro-Stories Photos: Karim Mohanna
Cover: Photo by Angela Hinck
Odélie’s Photos Photos: Odélie B. Labelle Camera: Freepik Background: Rawpixel
Eiheiji Photos Background: lyashenko Photos: Nikkole Martin
Saskia’s Interview Photos: Saskia DeLaurentis Background: Rawpixel
“Finding Yourself” In Japan Or Some Other Cliché And Yet Shockingly Accurate Statement Compass: Freepik Title Image: Freepik Photos: Garrett White
Table of Contents Background: Rawpixel Wanderlust Background: Rawpixel Photos: Amerbly Rose Young
Fukui Taisenkai Photos: Zack Urbano Title page background: Freepik Yellow background: davidzydd
Watercolors Background: denamorado Art: Chuy Pizana
Iggy’s Sketchbook Background: Freepik Art: Iggy Jeffery
Ximena’s Interview Background: BiZkettE1 Photos: Ximena Ramirez
JETFuel Logos: Designed by Natasha Taliferro