Introduction

If you need textbooks to learn the Japanese language, there are hundreds and thousands of books, tapes, and CDs available out in the market for students. If you need knowledge on Japanese culture and history, information you can select from is abundant as well. I do not need to spend the rest of my life writing what is already out there. Thus, I have decided to write about something unique only to my background. Since I have lived almost equal amount of time in both countries, it may be interesting to observe and compare the two cultures through one person’s eyes. Of course, stereotyping can be dangerous; however, it is, after all, my observation, and you, the reader, have every right to disagree.

Author's Background

I was born, raised, and educated in Japan. After college, I was an English translator/interpreter and later an English teacher at a junior high school in Tokyo. I returned to the United States to get married to a man whom I met during the study abroad earlier. He himself just came back to Miami University, Oxford, Ohio from Okinawa after serving in the Vietnam War for four years as a Chinese linguist (language intelligence) in the US Air Force. While he was there, he had an opportunity of learning Japanese; thus, he became a Japanese expert as well.

For the next fourteen years, I stayed home and raised three daughters. During those years, I taught Japanese at a college in the evenings. When my youngest was five, I helped develop a Japanese language/culture curriculum for Toledo Public Schools in Ohio and taught in the program for the next ten years.

In 1998, my husband moved the family to Michigan due to his new job. Teaching positions in Japanese were hard to find in Detroit suburbs, contrary to my expectation. I took a job of Japanese Community Liaison at an elementary school where I assisted 120 Japanese students and their families for five years. It seemed that I was wasting my teaching certification since my position was a paraeducator, not a teacher. I decided to work on a master program called TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Madonna University so that I would be more marketable in finding teaching positions. It took me two and a half years of hard work to receive a master’s degree. I was teaching Japanese at a high school and ESL (English as a Second Language) at Madonna. I was in heaven.

In 2006, my husband took another job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we moved again. This time just two of us had to endure the moving. All of our girls now reside in Chicago and they are in fact happy about our relocation because it is only two-hour commute to our new home. I lost my job again and had to start all over again. This time I simply did not feel like running around taking state tests to be certified in Wisconsin and going through interviewing process. I am not getting any younger.

Thus, it will bring me to this NEW job: writing about Japan and America. I can stay home and sit in front of the computer. All I have to do is to write and write about what I have experienced in two very different countries for the last many years. Hopefully, I can make some interesting comparisons between the Japanese and the Americans whom I have encountered in my paths.