Shameless Promoting

Alright Internet. Let's make sweet open-source love.
If I promise not to abuse you, will you help me promote a great program?
Most of my readers know me, and know I work for the Hiroshima Prefectural (State) Office, in the International Affairs Division. That's right. I am a JAPANESE Government employee. The only white guy in my building, actually. My point is, in case you stumbled upon this, my job is to promote international exchange and understanding in Hiroshima.

I'm in the middle somewhere...

I worked with a team of extremely skilled and experienced professionals at the Hiroshima International Plaza to develop a 2-week, summer program for intermediate-to-advanced level Japanese speakers to try out, and further develop their abilities here in Japan, while learning about the culture and history of Hiroshima.

Despite the short term of the program, it manages to include Japanese lessons, field trips, a weekend home stay, and even dinner parties and cultural activities. Other than the home-stay, participants stay at the gorgeous facility, which includes a dormitory with individual rooms, baths, toilets and internet connection; a rec center, full-sized, multi-purpose gymnasium, library, computer lab, classrooms, cafeteria serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and even free bicycle rentals.

Taken from the third floor veranda: Foreground is reflection of behind me, background is the city through the glass

 The program is open to basically anyone with a strong drive to improve their Japanese knowledge and understanding, and because it starts and ends at the facility, participants are free to plan their own personal trip around Japan before, after, or around the program dates. It really is just a pocket full of awesome.

Here's where I need your help: I've run into a few problems promoting it.
1) Universities aren't interested in helping.
Even though this is an incredible learning opportunity, we cannot offer college credit flat out, and even if we could, it would be up to each individual university, and I just can't contact every Japanese department, or study abroad office in the world. My own alma mater, the University of Arizona told me: We already offer enough programs to Japan.
2) It is hard to make people realize the full extent of the opportunity.
This is more than just two-weeks of study Japanese all day, every day. Besides the sight seeing field trips to Miyajima and the Hiroshima Peace Park (each home to a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site), participants also get to visit businesses and/or the University of Hiroshima, and ask questions about studying or working in Japan. We also want to invite participants from all over the world, giving them the added opportunity of creating bonds with people from Japan and other countries as well.     
3) People are scared of coming to Japan.
Sadly, as I've touched on in a previous post, the news has been working almost 24-7 to confuse and misinform the world on the state of affairs in Japan, and the consequences will be devastating and long lasting.
As if a giant earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor crises weren't enough, the unwarranted bad press has caused tourists, businesses, students, and even governments, to cancel plans, visits, deals, and opportunities all across Japan. That is their decision to make, and I can recognize the wisdom in erring on the side of caution, but HIROSHIMA IS FINE. No tainted water supplies, irradiated milk or vegetables; no damaged train lines or rolling blackouts: we are fine.

Better than fine, in fact. Hiroshima has an amazing effect on everyone who visits here. The same way those who come here are inevitably surprised by the level of revitalization and recovery Hiroshima City has achieved since the atomic bombing almost 67 years ago, we need people to participate in programs like this, not just for our economy, but to show the world that Japan is not the ruined picture of a country the mainstream media is so eager to portray.

Taken on my cell-phone camera, also made in Hiroshima, on the anniversary of the bombing, Aug. 6th 2010.

Finally, this program needs at least ten participants in order for the Hiroshima International Plaza, to make back the cost of holding it. Reversely, this means if you have or know of a group of 10 or more people who would like to study there, you can contact me and the HIP will help you set up your own, private, custom program for anything from a week to a month!
 
PLEASE feel free to share this with anyone you know who might be interested or know people who are interested. If you have ideas on how to help spread the word about my program or want more information, such as dates and prices, for yourself, please leave me a comment or message here, -OR- you can message me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/yogafire

Run for your life! *Updated*

Before I get started, lemme ask: Do YOU have a blog? If you do, please leave me a link in the comments section, or "follow" mine and I'll follow yours back. I like this means of keeping in touch!

You may or may not know, but Hiroshima City is the headquarters for MAZDA (zoom zoom).


Did you watch the whole video?!? I actually understand what they're saying, and I couldn't bring myself to. SO CORNY!
But seriously, Mazda and companies that supply them, make up 30% of Hiroshima City's job market (not an exact number). They have their own hospital, and enormous manufacturing plant, and they even sponsored the building of Hiroshima's spiffy new Ball park!

Their compound is amazing and huge and no outsider is allowed in, Chocolate Factory style...EXCEPT for the first Sunday of March every year. What happens on that day? The MAZDA 駅伝 (Ekiden). Translated as "Relay Race" this is a short race (less than a half marathon) and divided into 6 legs that are run by different team members, who pass off a sash (not a baton) to the next person at the end of each leg.

A river runs through it...

There are two divisions: Mazda employees, and everybody else. Anyone can register a team, or just come watch, and my workplace, the Hiroshima International Center, has entered a team every year, partly because 3 of our members are dispatched FROM Mazda. In fact one of those three, the president of the International Center, is the CEO of Mazda himself! But his title as President of the HIC is in name only, as far as I can tell.

 Since coming here I have been volun-told, as my brother Bill says, to join the team, and both times I've run as anchor. It's only 2.2km, but it definitely comes with a lot of pressure, since everyone who passes me is guaranteed to directly affect our final score, and everyone I manage to pass improves it!

The Full Course (I run the highlighter-yellow portion)

My first year i was pretty nervous. I had never run competitively for any distance, and had no idea what was expected of me. I asked what our team's score was the year before and when they said 100-something-eth I was a little relieved.

We ended up coming in 67th! I think mostly because we had a marathon runner on our team doing the longest portion, but we have also had a 70-something man named Mr. Tanimura doing the shortest bit (1.2km) every year, but I did manage to pass about 6 more people myself, and was only passed by one person who I made sprint for it at the end! I felt even better about our score when we went in the auditorium for the closing ceremony and it turned out the winners were the Yamaguchi University track team. I remember thinking "Are they even allowed?!?" It seemed unfair at the time. But last year, even though I personally only got to pass 3 people during the final leg, we came in 39th place! (Out of 160+ teams)

Click to enlarge

Afterwards, we always go to yakiniku - grill-it-yourself indoor bbq restaurants made popular by Korea, but loved by all Japanese people - and undo what little health benefits we might have gotten from it, but last year, while we ate, the table next ours' smoke-intake lit on fire (it was also covered in grease after all), everyone had to leave the restaurant, and we wound up walking 30 minutes before we found a new place to start over! This year, we went to a Hiroshima-teppanyaki restaurant, which was fine with me, because I just ate yakiniku with my friends Kelly, Joe, and his father visiting Japan, last Thursday!

Joe and dad and glorious, glorious yakiniku

So I showed up at 8:45am on the dot, even though the race didn't start until 10:30, and waking up early was easily the biggest struggle of the day for me! :P I did have a good breakfast though (Bananas and some pork and potatoes). We got dressed out, and put on our blue Happi; the runners pinned numbers to them, and after the opening ceremony in the auditorium, we walked to our positions.

Notice I am rocking my Vibrams this year! ↑

Judging by our fastest runner (a marathoner we had run the 5km portion first) and our 5th runner, my higher-up Mr. Maekawa, who passed the sash to me for the final leg, we were around 60th place (out of 160 non-Mazda teams) for the entire race.
Greg time.
By the time I got the sash it had started drizzling. I had no idea how that would affect me since I've NEVER run in the rain EVER, but once I got the sash, and saw people with yellow tags in front of me, I started running hard. Harder than I thought I would be able to keep up actually. I kept second-guessing my breathing. Was I breathing too hard to keep up for the full 2.2km (That is almost 1.5 miles btw)? I didn't want to pass a bunch of people just to have them all pass me at the finish line, but I couldn't help myself. My competitiveness had kicked in, and I started reeling them in. In the first few minutes I had passed four people easily. Then a high school boy blew past me and I thought "that's okay, you're still up by 3" and kept my eyes on the next group of "marks" further down the road. They were clearly only ahead because their teammates before were faster than mine, but my team was better balanced. I passed them around the halfway point of my leg, and could see a few more ahead of them, so I pressed on. I had become oblivious to the rain, and as I passed the next two, I saw three more in the distance. I first thought that I they were too far to catch up with, but I could see the incline on the way to the bridge over the river was slowing them down, so I decided to run faster up the incline. I was on their heels as we reached the final straightaway, so I hit my final burners, charged all the way to finish line and improved my team's score by 11 positions to finish at....

49th

I was gasping for breath as one of my bosses (one of those who was actually dispatched to work at the HIC from Mazda) found me at the finish line, congratulated me and we went back in the auditorium to change and wait for the closing ceremony. That was my day yesterday. March, 6th, 2011.

This year's runners and support team (All Hiroshima International Center employees)