Tsunamis Flood Hakodate: The Immediate Aftermath (more live video)

By Ben Mirin, CIR

It has been roughly 35 hours since Japan suffered from a magnitude 8.9 earthquake, the largest in the country’s recorded geological history.  Looking at the fault lines, it seems as if things are not over yet.

Indeed, as I write this I can feel recurring tremors in my apartment building in Nanae.  My door is open, my gas is turned off, my shelves are bare, and in a horrible transgression against Japanese etiquette…I’m wearing outside shoes indoors.

After a night of driving through Hakodate’s back roads with a tsunami at my back, I returned to the front lines this afternoon to provide an eyewitness account of the damage and ongoing cleanup efforts underway in the city’s waterfront district.
Continue reading “Tsunamis Flood Hakodate: The Immediate Aftermath (more live video)”

Live Video on ConcordNanae.org

By Ben Mirin, CIR

Dear followers of ConcordNanae.org,

I wanted to call your attention to the live video feed on our website.  This feed uses a cellphone application called Qik, which allows me to upload a video in real time from anywhere in Japan.  The Qik video player here on the homepage will display the latest live video from this stream, but you can see more clips on our YouTube Channel or at http://qik.com/benmirin.

More up-to-date news is also available through our Twitter feeds.  Follow me, @benmirin, or the website, @Concordnanae.

I’m publishing this information now because Japan is currently struggling in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake that struck less than an hour ago.  Nanae only experienced a magnitude 4 earthquake, but northeastern Honshu suffered one that registered 7.9 on the Richter scale. Tsunamis are currently overtaking dozens of towns in and around the city of Sendai, but more news is always on the way. I will be using my Qik channel to post more updates.

Here is my first live video about the earthquake:
http://qik.com/video/38313466

Stay tuned for more updates through the various channels on ConcordNanae.org.
Continue reading “Live Video on ConcordNanae.org”

A Visit to Ohnakayama Common

By Ben Mirin, CIR

Camera Operator: Emi Kimura

Last week I made a special visit to Ohnakayama Common, Nanae’s beloved community center. I wanted to learn more about this important gathering place and its role in Nanae daily life, and to provide prospective visitors from Concord and beyond with an inside look at the rich variety of activities it can offer.

The clubs featured in this video are Ball-Tennis and Choir, respectively. The Common is also host to many clubs dedicated to traditional Japanese arts, including flower arrangement (Ikebana), tea ceremony, and Japanese martial arts. Finally, it is the site for the majority of the eikaiwa (pronounced “Ay kai wah,” meaning English conversation) classes that I teach every week.

Continue reading “A Visit to Ohnakayama Common”

Lost in Translation: Lessons from a Japanese Business Letter

by Ben Mirin, CIR

If I had to summarize one of the letters I recently translated from Japanese to English, it would boil down to this: Thanks, but no thanks.

Nearly every week at my job I am handed one kind of official document or another, with an original copy in Japanese and my coworker’s increasingly excellent attempts at a first translation.  With each letter my job becomes easier, not simply because I have more experience with Japanese, but, perhaps more noticeably, because my coworker’s written English is improving dramatically with each passing day.

Most of these documents have a direct connection to my work.  I know the addressee and the signatory, and have been briefed on the topic of their exchange.  Every now and then, though, a letter ends up on my desk for which I have no context at all.

My first translation job dealt with just such a letter.

The note informed its recipient, a foreign resident of Hakodate, that after careful consideration she did not qualify for a position as an English teacher in a local community program.  In my eyes, everything about the letter seemed fine until it elaborated that her spouse was vastly more qualified for the job.

Apparently, from the start of the practice classes–in which the applicant was essentially ‘interviewed’–her husband was present.  Far more confident in his command of English, he ended up leading the conversations and answering students’ questions single-handedly.  With a couple exceptions, our prospective teacher remained silent the entire time.

Why this gentleman took control of his wife’s interview is a question I cannot answer, but he was understandably popular with the students in these practice classes.

“They liked him a lot,” the letter explained, and “could see that you [the applicant] were very nice and sincere, but they were concerned that you could not speak about topics that interested them, such as travel, news and politics. Many students would join the class if you and your husband would teach together, but we know this would be impossible.”

Following all this was a suggestion that the applicant teach cooking classes instead.

I’m familiar with the concept of a denial letter; I’ve received several of them.  What I couldn’t understand was why this one was cluttered with so many extraneous details that, from my perspective, seemed only to add insult to injury. Continue reading “Lost in Translation: Lessons from a Japanese Business Letter”

Apologies for this week

Dear followers of ConcordNanae.org,
I apologize for not posting this week’s video, a short feature about the Japanese holiday of Setsubun. We went through the proper steps to obtain permission to shoot this film, but have received concerned questions from parents of students featured therein and are temporarily obligated to take it down.

I hope to bring you this and more posts about Nanae very soon. Thank you for your patience and continued interest in the content on ConcordNanae.org.

Sincerely,
The CIR