Marya Ireland
Marya Ireland, who was in Yachi city, Chiba, 1987-88, tells us that there were no internet or cell phones, of course…
Communicating with home was either expensive, over the cracking lines of KDD (a telecom provider, now known as KDDI) or slow, via the international postal service. Air mail letters were written on special thin blue air mail paper. Getting a return letter from home was always exciting. My one extravagance was an English translation function on my Japanese boom-box which synched with some TV programmes on NHK. I listened to American armed forces radio for news in those days. There were few English speakers and little signage in English so I learned a lot of place name kanji in my first year in Japan!
Upon the arrival of my cohort to Japan almost 40 years ago, we were told by the prefectural organiser, Mr. Suzuki, to think of ourselves as pioneers. I think in total, there were 800 JETs sent to far corners of the country where foreigners had never been seen before. When I met Japanese people in my daily life and at work, I remember hearing the term, 'kokusaiteki', which meant the person whom I met felt internationalised by my presence.
I travelled around various high schools in Yachi and sometimes took along my old high school yearbook to share with classes. These lessons were most enjoyable for the children and for me. Often I could entice normally English-shy teenagers who did not want to engage with me in a formal classroom setting to converse freely about the pictures in the book.
Having met and married another JET has made a huge impact on the course of my life post-JET (Derrick’s incredible art and JET story can be found here) . He is a Londoner and I am a Washingtonian. Since our marriage in 1993, we have lived in each other's countries and did a second Asian tour living in Singapore for 7.5 years where we raised our two children. Luckily we were able to travel back to Japan when the children were young to visit the people and places that made our JET years in such an amazing country special.
Are you a JET alum with a story to share? Get in touch to be featured in an upcoming Senpai Spotlight.
