"One life to live" - Hip-Hop in Nagai

One day, we were driving through Oguni - though only a town, its area is the largest in all of Yamagata. It's a small town though, so I assume most of the land is occupied by giant mountains. From Nanyo it takes about 40/50 minutes to reach the centre of the town. It's out there - so, to recap - we were driving through Oguni. We stop at a convenience store and notice a poster stuck up on the wall. It was advertising a Hip-Hop 2 day festival....in Nagai of all places. Nagai is a city of 32,000 - 2 thousand less than Nanyo, but it doesn't really have anything memorable about it - no major train station running through it (its not a bad place though don't get me wrong) - so when I saw the poster for this festival, I knew it would be hilarious.

We made a big effort to make sure we would attend one of the nights. When we arrived there, it surpassed all my expectations. Beforehand, I was expecting at least a stage, and maybe at least 100 people, perhaps being a bit generous. However, at the ski-resort it was held at, there were a big set of speakers arranged on either side of a few steps leading up to the main-building of the resort. On the steps were some DJ decks...and hovering around this were about 30-40 people enjoying the festival!

The reason I expected no less than this, is because Yamagata lacks any music scene. It's the back waters of the country and its people are lovely but innocent and simple at heart. It also has an aging population, with most young people getting out of the place and leaving for Tokyo. It's a big problem in reality. However, I was happy that something was being put on for the young people who stick it out in the countryside. A few people had come over from the nearest big city, Sendai. But I met quite a few other people from places like 'Oguni' and 'Nagai' (didn't meet anyone from Nanyo!)

Me and my JET friends decided to dress up in a hip-hop fashion, and at one point me and Rebecca, after having chatted to some guys we didn't realise were DJing later, we took the opportunity to jump up on stage with them and DJ too!!

Me and Rebecca are on the right hand side (I'm the hooded one in red, she's the cool chick in the glasses) - getting the (small) crowd hyped up!

Oh and somebody told me I looked like white rapper, Eminem hahahahah!

From Kouhai後輩 to Senpai先輩

The middle of August was officially the beginning of my deja vue in this country. We had the New JET Orientation, in which I was a CCM there. What is CCM you ask? It means Commitee Council Member and its a unique part of Yamagata whereby 7 or 8 2nd year or more JETS apply, and are selected to take part in organising the seminar for new 1st year JETS, as well as organising the Mid-Year Seminar in November for all JETS. I wanted to do the CCM because at last years meetings, there was little to no advice or support on 'One-Shot' ALT situations - the very situation I'm in, whereby you visit a number of different schools. It turns out to be quite a lot of work, but it means that I can keep busy during down-time at my schools, and its also a good way of keeping your face known by all the other JETs in the prefecture.

So there we were, a year into my own experience, often being encouraged to act like an authority on various things! Perhaps I am, it was quite a nice experience to consider how much you know now compared to a year ago.

We had to do allsorts of things like workshops, discussion groups, skits, quiz shows (me and Chrissy did a fantastic quiz show routine involving Japanese puns, a theme tune, a little dance routine!)

Look at me doing some serious gesticulating!

The new Yamagata JET crew of 2008, and the CCM at the front.

Now we're planning for the big Mid-Year Seminar, with the aim of building relations between Japanese English Teachers and Assistant Language Teachers - and I have to work on a team-building excercise about trying to get off a desert island using only a few objects....any ideas?!