Something that has caught me totally off-guard is how genuinely nice people my age are here. They are unguarded, open, and pro-actively friendly. I am not used to it at all, and don’t know how to react sometimes. I like it though.

Here is a short “Best of Japan” list I’ve started:

Movies:

“Kurenai no Buta” (directed by Hayao Miyazaki): I have a zero-tolerance policy for giving anything away about good movies, so I’m not going to comment much on this, but it’s a Japanese anime movie I watched last weekend and loved. My only commentary is that I highly recommend it, and I suggest watching it in Japanese with English subtitles. I watched the first 5 minutes in both English and Japanese, and they were noticeably different.

Food:

Odango: These are small, sticky spheres of compressed rice – they come on little trays with maybe 12 balls. Different sauces are put onto them (soy, sesame, and pressed red beans), and you eat them by spearing the balls with toothpicks. I consider it to be a very domestic form of hunting. I imagine a lot of cool things could be done with this concept – the balls are like a benign template for tasting the flavors of different sauces, so they could be used to make tasting samples of a really wide variety of sauces or toppings. I think they could be popular as an appetizer in the US if used in a creative way. The toothpick part is also fairly entertaining for at least the first 5 balls of each tray.

Music:

Capsule: Capsule is awesome. It’s a Japanese electronic artist I’ve been listening to a lot. I am pretty sure it is one man (producer, music-writer) and one woman (singer), and it’s one of my new favorites. Some good songs to preview on iTunes: Jumper, E.D.I.T., and Flash Back. These three are among many others.

Miscellaneous things without an obvious category title:

Haircuts: The haircuts in Japan should be used as a model for the rest of the world. I have been to a barber once here. My hair was cut well, but that’s not what is important – it came with an hour’s worth of extra add-ons that I didn’t know I’ve been missing my whole life. For example: head massage, hot towel on the face, straight edge razor shave (which is difficult to find near Concord, MA because the barbers are afraid of the liabilities of using straight edges), and an ear-cleaning. Ben (Nanae’s ALT) apparently gets more elaborate massages where he goes, so I will be exploring this more in the near future. My favorite part was the straight edge razor – I got a slight adrenaline rush out of it, and I left feeling like I survived something dangerous. I’m curious how many casualties there are annually from straight edge razor shaving when earthquakes hit (it requires a steady hand). I probably won’t research this. The ear-cleaning was terrifying – the tools were metal, and no warning was given beforehand. I’m still not sure how I feel about that part. I need more time to reflect.

Sensible things the US should import or recreate:

Heated toilet-seats: At first I didn’t like mine. I was worried it would make my day so easy and comforting that I might lose perspective on my life. My opinion changed very quickly. It has never been unplugged.

-Nick

it has now been a little over a month since I arrived in Nanae. In that time, I have home-stayed for two weeks, moved into my apartment, explored the town by foot, been upgraded to a bicycle and eventually a car, learned to play shogi (the original form of modern European chess), lost in shogi, won in shogi, eaten pig-heart, attempted to eat dried squid (similar to beef jerky… but squid), joined a basketball team, broken my apartment’s Japanese toilet by dropping a bleach-puck into the water tank, had my boss come over to fix my broken Japanese toilet on a Saturday night because I thought my apartment was flooding (toilet’s instruction manual is in Japanese), and renounced all candy from my diet out of fear of getting diabetes from the overwhelming amount of office-snacks.

The adjustment here has been difficult for me at times. I am giving a short speech tomorrow night at my office’s welcome dinner for me, and in it I describe the adjustment from American culture to Japanese culture as similar to being in a river and feeling the current change directions entirely. This has never happened to me in a river, but I imagine these two things to be similar. My instincts, mentality, and habits are all designed for an American environment. In some parts of my life here, it feels as though I am restarting at the first, most basic steps of day-to-day life. It can be very frustrating for me sometimes.

I have put a significant effort into reorganizing the apartment here. For me, the environment I am in affects my state of mind heavily, so it is an important part of my adjustment process to redesign my “home-base” to integrate well with how I live. The most interesting part of this process so far was when I put pictures of my family on the wall. These are the first decorations I have hung; they are about 20 photographs my parents gave me before I left – photos of my nephews, niece, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, mom, and dad (many being of me with them). The effect they had on me was immediate once hung. In college, some of my friends were from other countries, and I couldn’t relate to why they often hung flags of their home-countries on their walls. I wondered why people want physical symbols of their home when abroad – why the mental and emotional bridges to home that people carry within themselves aren’t enough. I now have an understanding of why it is important to people after feeling the impact of the pictures on my wall. When immersed in a new culture 24/7, the external presence of something familiar brings my state of mind to a place that feels like home in a way that I can’t capture in my imagination alone, and it feels revitalizing for me to have that connection. I didn’t expect the impact to be so dramatic.

Following the elections in the US from Nanae was also very interesting. I stay very up-to-date on the news at home, and I have CNN set up on my iPad here so I can watch it when I have time (and when my internet works). Maintaining a sense for what is going on politically and economically in the US is much harder to do from here. I expected it would be, but it is very apparent to me that a big part of keeping an awareness of topics like those stems from actually existing within the environment where they are taking place – from being able to gather information from news, conversations, personal experience, and a variety of sources all around. Just reading articles and watching the news here really doesn’t suffice to get the same understanding of what is going on at home as I can get when I am actually there. I think this concept says a lot about having an understanding of international events – namely, how inadequate international news must be for really capturing the substance of what’s going on around the world. The information is one or more steps removed from life experience.

My favorite part of this job so far is working in the nursery schools. I started this week and go once or twice per week. It is a ton of fun. As a 23-year-old who has to follow certain codes of conduct while I am here, the adjustment of living within new social boundaries is made much easier by having time to just screw around without any rules – which I think can really only be done hanging out with kids.

In other news, Japanese curry is incredible, and we need it in the US. Someone please take care of this before I get back.

Anyone who is curious about what it is like here or has any questions – feel free to ask anything you like, and I’ll try to get more information to you about your area of interest.

-Nick

I am grateful to Nick and to all the members of the Concord-Nanae community for their continued investment in this website and their demonstrated interest in its content.  I hope it will serve all of you as a valuable tool for communication between our sister cities for many years to come.

For links to my information, please visit the Previous CIRs Page.  To keep up with my new adventures, visit my personal website, benmirin.com, or follow me on Twitter @benmirin.

As many of you know, Concord and Nanae are proud to have appointed Mr. Nick Ferbert as their new Coordinator of International Relations. After being officially sworn into office at the Concord Town House last Saturday, Nick will return to Nanae this afternoon with the members of the 2012 Sister City 15th Anniversary delegation. The delegates included Nanae Mayor Yasukazu Nakamiya, 5 members of the Nanae Town Assembly including Chair Yuichi Yokota, and Nanae’s Advisor to the CIR Ms. Emi Kimura. They are set to arrive in Nanae on Thursday morning Japan time.

It’s my pleasure to announce that Nick is planning to continue working on this website in addition to his other duties as CIR. Nick brings an excellent new set of skills, including a keen business sense, to the Concord-Nanae sister city relationship, and I’m very pleased to leave control of this website in his capable hands. It’s also worth noting that he’ll probably be much larger asset to the local basketball team than I was. Alongside 6’6″ Concord ALT Ben Haydock (CCHS ’07), Concord’s presence on the courts in Nanae will surely become a formidable force.

Dr. Nurenberg (middle) plays the taiko in Nanae

With all this in mind, please note that the appearance of Concordnanae.com may change in the coming weeks and months as we start accepting content from multiple authors. I’m particularly excited to welcome two new authors to the site: Dr. David Nurenberg, who is the faculty advisor to the Concord-Carlisle Sci-Fi Club, and Koji Matsuyama, who advises the Nanae High School English Club.

Dr. Nurenberg is Concord’s official Sister School Coordinator, and leads the CCHS Sci-Fi Club on official visits to Nanae almost every year.  Koji Matsuyama-sensei just finished his first visit to Concord this week, and his

Koji Matsuyama-sensei

strong background in media will undoubtedly become a great asset as we develop new paths for communication between Sci-Fi and English Club students and our communities at large.

I hope you all can share in my excitement for the future of this website, Nick’s work as CIR, and the development of the Concord-Nanae sister city relationship. It has been a pleasure helping it change and grow these last 2 years.

Ever forward,

Ben Mirin

CIR 2010-2012

-Former CIR Ben Mirin

The Live Video:

Ben Mirin Final Nanae Farewell Speech

Enjoy!

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To submit suggestions for future content, please email concordnanae@gmail.com. Thank you for visiting Concordnanae.com.

Last Friday, I showed this movie (in Japanese) to this year’s English Club at Nanae High School.  Produced by Nanae student delegates who visited Concord in 2010, the movie documents Japanese middle- and high-school student observations about Concord-Carlisle High School, where the delegates spent a week attending classes, touring the campus, and experiencing American high school life.

After showing the movie I asked our English Club students to identify differences they noticed in the video between CCHS and their own NHS.

If you’re a Concord student and you’ve been to Nanae, post some of your reactions after reading in the comment section below, or post them on our Facebook Page ! What was different about Nanae High School from CCHS?

Here’s what the Nanae students said:

Takanori Abe (2nd-year student, Class 2, 2011 Band Delegate to Concord):

It’s interesting that the bell at CCHS marks the end of class.  I was very surprised.  In Japan, the bell marks the start of class.

Chinami Takada (1st-year student), Akira Kimura (1st-year student, Class 3), & Shiori Wada (3rd-year student):

There is a big cafeteria in CCHS, but we have no cafeteria in our high school.  Students in Concord also have no school uniform, just like university students in Japan.

Ayu Kosugi (3rd-year student):

Students in Concord can use computers freely at any time.  We cannot.

Generally, I think CCHS is bigger than Nanae High School.

Chiaki Date (3rd-year student):

There are MANY lockers at CCHS.  We don’t use lockers at Nanae High School.

I think students in Concord feel free, but there are many school rules in my high school.

Kasumi Nakamura (2nd-year student, Class 1) and Mao Hosokawa (3rd-year student):

The library is huge at CCHS, and there are so many books.  The bookshelves aren’t very tall.

But there are many books!

Mirai Tamura (2nd-year student, 2011 Nanae Band Delegate to Concord):

The computer room is very wide.  Also, the fruit in the cafeteria is delicious!

Erina Hanada & Airi Osada (3rd-year students, Class 3):

I think the pizza in Concord is BIG! I’m very surprised by that.  In Japan, the pizza is very small.

Ai Kanamura (3rd-year student, English Club Student Leader):

At CCHS you may eat during class.  In Japan, you may not eat during class, ever! ♦

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This is part 1 of the final interview for the Sister City Series, with Azuma Miyata, Chief of Nanae Town’s General Affairs Section and the leader of the largest delegation ever to visit Concord. Enjoy, and stay tuned for part 2 next week!

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Here it is! Episode 8, featuring the lovely Michiru Sakurai. Enjoy.

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