Where do JETs go next?

Where do JETs go next?

Tom Baker Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

“Internationalization” has been part of the job description for more than 46,000 people from 55 countries who have come to Japan on the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program, now in its 20th year. Most of them work toward this abstract goal by teaching a language, usually English, in the nation’s public schools for a year or more. It is hoped that impressionable young students will grow up to be broad-minded adults as a result of early interaction with foreigners.

With two decades to look back on, it is clear that the visiting foreigners themselves are also transformed by such encounters.

“The JET program really showed me who I am…I believe I can use that to live a more rounded life,” said Kate Young, who taught in Ehime Prefecture from 2004 to 2005. Young is now working toward a masters degree in Japanese Studies at Sheffield University in Britain.

“It really was a life-changing experience!” said Katy Schneider (Hyogo Prefecture, 2004-06), who is studying for an English teaching degree in Perth, Australia.

Young and Schneider were among dozens of respondents to an e-mailed questionnaire circulated via JET alumni mailing lists for this story. They were typical of the responding group in that their positive experiences inspired them to pursue careers related to Japan, education or both.

The program helped Shannon Quinn (Kagawa Prefecture, 2000-01) fine-tune her existing career plans: “When I joined the JET Program I was eyeing a career as a secondary school teacher. While on the JET Program, however, I realized I was most fond of my non-classroom duties…Consequently, I withdrew my application to teacher education graduate programs, and began a master’s degree in higher education administration.” Today, Quinn is an adviser at Temple University’s Japan Campus.

Elsie Chan (Hyogo Prefecture, 2002-03) said she experienced a more dramatic career shift. Having previously worked as a lawyer, she “had such a fantastic and fulfilling time” on the JET Program that she recently began a new job back home in Sydney–teaching high school.

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Drummers and diplomats

Chan said she had come to love aspects of Japanese culture such as ikebana and the tea ceremony. In this respect, Chan is like many former JET participants who have made Japanese culture part of their lives–although Matt Fogarty (Gifu Prefecture, 1995-97) admits, “I still flunk the ‘sushi test.'”

Fogarty did better on other tests, though, learning the Japanese language and taking literature courses alongside his own middle school students. Now a U.S. Army paratrooper, he says he gets “language pay” for his Japanese skills and hopes to be posted in this country some day.

Rona Conafray (Tokushima Prefecture, 1998-2000) joined a local taiko drumming group while on the program. Now living in Edinburgh, she attends classes given by Mugenkyo, which calls itself Britain’s “first and only professional touring taiko drum group.” A self-described amateur, Conafray relished the chance to “perform two pieces with the rest of the class at a Mugenkyo concert.”

Beyond cultural pursuits, numerous JET alumni have made international relations their careers, and are now working in Tokyo at the embassies of Australia, Britain and the United States.

In a more personal form of international relations, many participants have met their eventual spouses while living in Japan, and an untold number of JET babies have been born in this country and around the world.

New York-born Anthony Bianchi (Aichi Prefecture, 1989-92) has built a unique connection with Japan. Not only did he become a Japanese citizen, but he ran for a seat on the city council in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, in 2003–and won.

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A best-selling author

Because language skills are a big part of most JET participants’ jobs, it’s not surprising that many have gone on to other language-related careers, with more than a few writing books about Japan.

A standout in this category is Bruce Feiler (Tochigi Prefecture, 1987-88), who taught middle-school English in the program’s inaugural year. It was part of a three-year Japan sojourn for Feiler, who turned his school and social experiences into the nonfiction book Learning to Bow. Long after its initial 1991 publication, this informative book is still in print and is often recommended as a primer for foreigners about to make the move to Japan.

Oddly, Learning to Bow doesn’t identify the JET Program by name. Asked why, Feiler told The Daily Yomiuri: “I did JET in its first year…it wasn’t entirely clear it would survive, and I wanted my book to be as timeless as possible. [Also], it wasn’t entirely successful from the start and had negative connotations among many foreigners in Japan, and…absolutely no traction in the larger American community, so there was no upside and some remote possibility of a downside.”

Since then, however, the JET Program has thrived, and so has Feiler’s writing career. He has published six more books on various topics, three of which made The New York Times’ best-seller list. He recently hosted a three-hour U.S. television program based on Walking the Bible, one of his books on the Middle East.

More recent books by former JETs range from the humorous memoir My Mother is a Tractor by Nicholas Klar (Niigata Prefecture, 1995-97) to the academic studies The Rules of Play and Think Global, Fear Local by University of Wisconsin Prof. David Leheny (Chiba Prefecture, 1989-90).

Feiler also worked for a year as a Kyodo reporter, reflecting another kind of writing many JET alumni have gotten into: journalism. In fact, The Daily Yomiuri has three former JETs on its staff. (For one example, refer to the byline on this story and mentally add, “Chiba Prefecture, 1989-91.”)

You’ll find former JETs in the electronic media as well. Niccole Kunshek (Miyazaki Prefecture, 2002-04) is a reporter for WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Ind. She said that “being a JET probably was not the best career move as a broadcast journalist, but I don’t regret a single day I spent there.” Thanks to her classroom experience, she was assigned to her station’s education beat.

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International entrepreneurs

Some participants have found ways to make parts of their JET experience into the foundations of new businesses. “My two years in Japan have completely changed my career path,” said Sam Baldwin (Fukui Prefecture, 2004-06), who previously worked as a cancer research technician.

“As a keen snowboarder and cross-country skier, I loved exploring all of the small, out of the way ski areas in Fukui, and that gave me the idea to set up SnowSphere.com, an online travel magazine for skiers and snowboarders, featuring unusual, ‘off the beaten piste’ locations, from India to Iceland,” he said, adding that he also writes a column for the magazine Snowboard UK.

A fruitless search for a satisfactory Fukui souvenir T-shirt led Baldwin to create his own label, Baka Inaka. Its “somewhat controversial” logo features a cloud of steam shaped like the prefecture rising from a nuclear power plant’s cooling tower.

The shirt “was a huge hit with the other English teachers, and surprisingly, with the Japanese locals too.” Baldwin hopes to put more Baka Inaka merchandise on Fukui store shelves next year.

Of course, not all foreign JET participants are English teachers. Frank Bender (Toyama Prefecture, 1994-96) occupied the lesser-known post of SEA (sports exchange adviser), teaching swimming to local residents of all ages.

In a book of essays marking the program’s 20th year, Bender writes that he founded two related businesses in his hometown of Bad Soden, Germany. One is a swimming school called GENKI Aqua-Sport und Gesundheit, while the other is a swimming goods shop called Asobi. A Japanese influence is obvious in the names, and Bender says his customers include expat Japanese living in Germany, whom he instructs in their own language.

But even when the outward shape of a former JET’s life bears little resemblance to the one he or she led in Japan, invisible influences remain.

Rosie de Fremery (Shizuoka Prefecture, 1998-2001), who now works for an international development organization in New York, said, “My current career has no connection with my JET experience on paper as it does not involve Japan, but I feel that the JET experience has had a strong hand in shaping the person I have become.”

It’s an assessment with which many former JET Program participants clearly agree.
(Dec. 14, 2006)