-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Posted on March 31, 2011 4 Comments
I have met dozens of interesting people on train rides around the world. On a train ride to Howth, a seaside town northeast of Dublin, an American couple told me I was crazy for moving to the Emerald Isle alone. I laughed and clutched my copy of Nuala O’Faolain’s My Dream of You and told them about […]
Posted on March 24, 2011 1 Comment
I grew up just outside of Chicago, the third largest city in America, so life in a small Japanese town is very different from anything I am accustomed to. Although the tiny south suburb I was raised in often felt like a small town to me, the sense of community that is fostered in Namerikawa […]
Posted on March 23, 2011 1 Comment
As I study more Japanese, I am trying to read old Japanese folk tales for children. Although English stories such as Peter Rabbit are popular here, so are several famous Japanese stories that I had never heard of prior to coming to Japan. The first story I picked up was 鶴の恩返し (tsuru no ongaeshi), which […]
Posted on March 16, 2011 3 Comments
I am writing this from my school desk on the second floor of Hayatsuki Junior High School in Namerikawa. Our graduation ceremony for the san-nenseis (third-year students) just finished. To my left, outside the windows, I see thousands of grey clouds, covering the sky in my seaside town like an oversized cotton blanket. Behind the clouds, the […]
Posted on March 14, 2011 2 Comments
Dear readers, My town, Namerikawa, was thankfully not affected by Friday’s devastating earthquake. We are a coastal town but on the west side of Japan, off the Sea of Japan. I felt the earthquake while at school, but my co-workers and I did not know the magnitude of it until turning on the TV and […]
Sheila Burt 