Jizō
Recently our family and some visiting relatives made a trip up to Hokoji Temple in Okuyama, known by locals for the relaxing zen atmosphere and hundreds of Jizō statues.
Traditionally in Japan the Jizō statues are seen as guardians of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Many times they are carved with child-like faces or depicted holding a child in their arms. Often they are seen adorned with bibs, bonnets, or beads.
In Buddhism, the Jizō is also the saviour of souls who have to suffer in the underworld and his statues are common in cemeteries.
The Jizō are also believed to be one of the protective deities of travelers, the dōsojin, and roadside statues of Jizō are a common sight in Japan. Firefighters are also believed to be under the protection of Jizō. Quite a responsibility for such a small statue!
The Jizō in Okuyama are scattered about the mountainside as you walk up to the temple grounds. There is something mysterious and alluring about the Jizō statues here. I was particularly impressed with some of the lifelike expressions on their faces and gestures they make.
In my opinion, this temple experience rivals some of the more popular sites in Kyoto. I am glad it is our little local secret.
Traditionally in Japan the Jizō statues are seen as guardians of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Many times they are carved with child-like faces or depicted holding a child in their arms. Often they are seen adorned with bibs, bonnets, or beads.
In Buddhism, the Jizō is also the saviour of souls who have to suffer in the underworld and his statues are common in cemeteries.
The Jizō are also believed to be one of the protective deities of travelers, the dōsojin, and roadside statues of Jizō are a common sight in Japan. Firefighters are also believed to be under the protection of Jizō. Quite a responsibility for such a small statue!
The Jizō in Okuyama are scattered about the mountainside as you walk up to the temple grounds. There is something mysterious and alluring about the Jizō statues here. I was particularly impressed with some of the lifelike expressions on their faces and gestures they make.
In my opinion, this temple experience rivals some of the more popular sites in Kyoto. I am glad it is our little local secret.
講師の紹介 Chris Farnham
Joining our kindergarten teaching crew from this spring is Vermont, U.S.A. native Chris Farnham. Chris recently became a father and loves interacting with young children. Perhaps that is because Chris is still a child at heart himself. Let's meet Chris...
Q. なぜ日本に来たのですか？
A. 合気道や居合道などの武道をしていたので、いつも日本に興味を持っていました。大学を卒業してからJETプログラムに入り、浜松に派遣されました。プラグラム終了後も日本に残り、今は結婚もして家族を養っています。
Q. 日本では何年間教えていますか？
A. ３年半日本にいます。最初の３年はJETプログラムを通して中学校と小学校で教えていました。 今は幼稚園児から大人まで全ての年齢層に教えています。
Q. 子どもに英語を教える際に一番大きなチャレンジはなんですか？
A. 生徒に常に興味を持たせ、レッスンに集中し続けてもらうことがチャレンジングだと思います。私は楽しくてクリエイティブな学習環境を心掛けています。子供にとって良い方法のひとつは、ゲームや遊びを通して学ぶことです。生徒がリラックスして学ぶことが楽しければ、継続しやすくなります。
Q. 子どもの英語の上達のために保護者ができることはなんでしょうか？
A. 保護者は応援して励ます必要があります。英語の練習ができて慣れさせるためには、「英語の環境」をできるだけ整える必要もあると思います。本を読んだり、英語のテレビ番組やDVDを見たり、そしてもちろん会話を英語でするのも良いです。プラスになる英語との触れ合いの機会を保護者が増やしてあげることであれば何でも良いでしょう。
Q．幼い娘さんがいらっしゃいますが、英語の上達のためには何をしていますか？
A. 毎日本を読んだり、話しかけています。私の母国語は英語なので、娘が私とコミュニケーションをとるときは英語になります。私の妻も少し話します。彼女はネイティブではないので限りがありますが、両親ともに娘から英語で話しかけることができることは大事です。
一問一答
Hobbies: cycling, aikido, playing bass
Favorite movies: “The Big Lebowski”
Favorite food: Anything Mexican
Favorite season: Spring. It is a time of openness and rebirth. My birthday is also in the spring.
Favorite amusement park ride: Rollercoasters. No doubt.
Favorite animation character: Homer Simpson
Favorite Place: My hometown, Washington Vermont.
A country you would like to visit before you are 50: Italy
Most listened to song: “Black Dog” by Led Zepplin
Color you wear the most: green
Mac or windows: Mac
Chrisからひとこと
I’m really looking forward to visiting kindergartens and teaching in that environment. I think it will be a lot of fun. Let’s enjoy learning and playing together in English!
Q. なぜ日本に来たのですか？
A. 合気道や居合道などの武道をしていたので、いつも日本に興味を持っていました。大学を卒業してからJETプログラムに入り、浜松に派遣されました。プラグラム終了後も日本に残り、今は結婚もして家族を養っています。
Q. 日本では何年間教えていますか？
A. ３年半日本にいます。最初の３年はJETプログラムを通して中学校と小学校で教えていました。 今は幼稚園児から大人まで全ての年齢層に教えています。
Q. 子どもに英語を教える際に一番大きなチャレンジはなんですか？
A. 生徒に常に興味を持たせ、レッスンに集中し続けてもらうことがチャレンジングだと思います。私は楽しくてクリエイティブな学習環境を心掛けています。子供にとって良い方法のひとつは、ゲームや遊びを通して学ぶことです。生徒がリラックスして学ぶことが楽しければ、継続しやすくなります。
Q. 子どもの英語の上達のために保護者ができることはなんでしょうか？
A. 保護者は応援して励ます必要があります。英語の練習ができて慣れさせるためには、「英語の環境」をできるだけ整える必要もあると思います。本を読んだり、英語のテレビ番組やDVDを見たり、そしてもちろん会話を英語でするのも良いです。プラスになる英語との触れ合いの機会を保護者が増やしてあげることであれば何でも良いでしょう。
Q．幼い娘さんがいらっしゃいますが、英語の上達のためには何をしていますか？
A. 毎日本を読んだり、話しかけています。私の母国語は英語なので、娘が私とコミュニケーションをとるときは英語になります。私の妻も少し話します。彼女はネイティブではないので限りがありますが、両親ともに娘から英語で話しかけることができることは大事です。
一問一答
Hobbies: cycling, aikido, playing bass
Favorite movies: “The Big Lebowski”
Favorite food: Anything Mexican
Favorite season: Spring. It is a time of openness and rebirth. My birthday is also in the spring.
Favorite amusement park ride: Rollercoasters. No doubt.
Favorite animation character: Homer Simpson
Favorite Place: My hometown, Washington Vermont.
A country you would like to visit before you are 50: Italy
Most listened to song: “Black Dog” by Led Zepplin
Color you wear the most: green
Mac or windows: Mac
Chrisからひとこと
I’m really looking forward to visiting kindergartens and teaching in that environment. I think it will be a lot of fun. Let’s enjoy learning and playing together in English!
Sakura
Cherry blossom viewing season is upon us and millions of people across Japan take to the outdoors to have strolls, picnics, and festivities underneath the lovely pink "sakura"(桜). So popular are these parties, affectionately know as "hanami" (花見), attending them is a Japanese social right of passage. Having never attended one would garner looks of both pity and amazement from peers.
In recent years I have noticed that the cherry blossom-viewing phenomenon has spread beyond Japan’s boarders, in fact becoming the latest Japanese cultural export.
- Perhaps the most well known event outside of Japan celebrating cherry blossoms is the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. The annual festival began March 27, 1912, with a gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City to the city of Washington. Since that time, thousands pour into Washington each year during the springtime to enjoy the blossoms.
- Vancouver, Canada has long-standing ties with Japan and a thriving Japanese Nikkei community. In April each year thousands of Japanese cherry trees come into blossom all around the city and people celebrate in much the same way as they do in Japan. there is even a website dedicated to the Vancouver Cherry Blossom festival.
- Every spring in Hamburg, Germany the German-Japanese society organizes the largest cherry blossom viewing fesital in Germany, complete with Japanese-style fireworks (usually associated with summer months in Japan)．
- The cherry blossom viewing craze has even come to South Africa. In 2010, marking 100 years of official relations between South Africa and Japan, Princess Takamado planted 100 cherry tree seedlings in Johannesburg that will surely bring the masses out each spring.
“Hana wa sakura gi, hito wa Bushi” – “the (best) flower the sakura, the (best) man the Samurai”.
Happy cherry blossom viewing!
Bilinguals are smarter?
We have blogged about the benefits of bilingualism time and time again. It should now come as no surprise to our readers that we have found yet another article praising the benefits of bilingualism...
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
NEW YORK TIMES, March 17, 2012
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins ― one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function ― a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind ― like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often ― you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism ― measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language ― were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Now imagine the benefits of being a polyglot! Can’t imagine speaking several languages? Check out this Irish guy’s attempts to speak new languages within 3 months. He gives advice and documents his own language learning strategies, very interesting.
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
NEW YORK TIMES, March 17, 2012
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins ― one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function ― a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind ― like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often ― you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism ― measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language ― were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Now imagine the benefits of being a polyglot! Can’t imagine speaking several languages? Check out this Irish guy’s attempts to speak new languages within 3 months. He gives advice and documents his own language learning strategies, very interesting.
Movie to see
SUADADE – A Portuguese words that loosely translates into “a nostalgia for something lost, a yearning to go back to something that can never be retrieved”.
SUADADE (the movie), directed by Katsuya Tomita, is a story of modern Japan, an emerging multicultural Japan with the growing pains of past and present churning up a new generation. Here is an introduction about the movie from the website...
"Immigrants, 3D (dirty, dangerous and demeaning) labors and hip-hop...
Witness what's going on in the underbelly of a small city, Japan!
For some time Recession and Urban decay have become the somber reality for many small cites of Japan. They're the ghost towns of depopulation and deindustrialization, with rows of local businesses with shutters closed for good. With the fabled economic miracle long past, it's a common view of any cities outside metropolitan area in Japan, once the most prosperous nation in Asia. Many fled to suburbs but the city central is still populated and alive...with immigrants attracted to the fast deteriorating construction industry for wage labor. They come from other Asian countries like Thailand. Also many of them are the Japanese-Brazilians. Under the harsh circumstances they thrive for survival.
The film's star is the decaying city itself, featuring the actual locals. Rarely depicted in the Japanese cinema history, the film shows you the lives of immigrants. The ever growing communities of the Japanese-Brazilians--the descendents of the Japanese who migrated to Brazil 100 years ago--can no longer be ignored. It's a global issue in the time of the globalization. And the inherent problems of racial, socio-economical and cultural clash are inevitable."
The movie will be playing from April 7th – April 20th in Hamamatsu at cinema-ra
I have my ticket, how about you?
SUADADE (the movie), directed by Katsuya Tomita, is a story of modern Japan, an emerging multicultural Japan with the growing pains of past and present churning up a new generation. Here is an introduction about the movie from the website...
"Immigrants, 3D (dirty, dangerous and demeaning) labors and hip-hop...
Witness what's going on in the underbelly of a small city, Japan!
For some time Recession and Urban decay have become the somber reality for many small cites of Japan. They're the ghost towns of depopulation and deindustrialization, with rows of local businesses with shutters closed for good. With the fabled economic miracle long past, it's a common view of any cities outside metropolitan area in Japan, once the most prosperous nation in Asia. Many fled to suburbs but the city central is still populated and alive...with immigrants attracted to the fast deteriorating construction industry for wage labor. They come from other Asian countries like Thailand. Also many of them are the Japanese-Brazilians. Under the harsh circumstances they thrive for survival.
The film's star is the decaying city itself, featuring the actual locals. Rarely depicted in the Japanese cinema history, the film shows you the lives of immigrants. The ever growing communities of the Japanese-Brazilians--the descendents of the Japanese who migrated to Brazil 100 years ago--can no longer be ignored. It's a global issue in the time of the globalization. And the inherent problems of racial, socio-economical and cultural clash are inevitable."
The movie will be playing from April 7th – April 20th in Hamamatsu at cinema-ra
I have my ticket, how about you?
Ice Skating 2012
Our most recent school event was an afternoon of ice skating at the Hamamatsu Sports Center ice rink. Both adults and children attending this event, making it a very fun family outing.
スクールのイベントで、「ファミリースケート」を行いました。
今回が初めての子から上級者までたくさんの方にご参加いただいました。
Some of the beginner skaters struggled at first...
...but after a while (and a few falls) everyone was able to balance and enjoy a game of 'caterpillar tag'.
滑るのに慣れてきたころ、「あおむし鬼ごっご」(あおむしを持った子が鬼のおにごっこ)をしたり、思いっきり体を動かし、汗をかいた日曜の午後となりました。
Even the littlest of the group could enjoy a few laps around the rink.
最年少参加者、ウチの娘も「トライアングル」を使って、なんとかスケートすることができました。
Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon in February, but my legs are sore today!
みなさん、今日明日は、筋肉痛のことでしょう。
お疲れ様でしたぁ！
スクールのイベントで、「ファミリースケート」を行いました。
今回が初めての子から上級者までたくさんの方にご参加いただいました。
Some of the beginner skaters struggled at first...
...but after a while (and a few falls) everyone was able to balance and enjoy a game of 'caterpillar tag'.
滑るのに慣れてきたころ、「あおむし鬼ごっご」(あおむしを持った子が鬼のおにごっこ)をしたり、思いっきり体を動かし、汗をかいた日曜の午後となりました。
Even the littlest of the group could enjoy a few laps around the rink.
最年少参加者、ウチの娘も「トライアングル」を使って、なんとかスケートすることができました。
Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon in February, but my legs are sore today!
みなさん、今日明日は、筋肉痛のことでしょう。
お疲れ様でしたぁ！
Is lteter oderr ipmortnat for radeing wrods?
Do you think spelling is important? When reading, do the letters in the words need to be in the correct order for us to understand the meaning?
Here is a little reading exercise to try that may make you feel different...
Amazing isn't it? Well maybe not. One keen observer noted:
“There are many factors that allow you to be able to read the above paragraph. 27 of 74 words above have not been scrambled because they are 1, 2, or 3 letter words. This helps to maintain the grammatical structure of the sentence. 20 of the 74 words are four-letter words, which means that only two letters have been transposed. It’s very simple for a person to decode a 4 letter words. Basically this means that 63% of this sentence is not even scrambled. 15 of the words are 5-6 letters long, which are only moderately difficult to decode. This leaves 20% of the words in the above paragraph, which are difficult to unscramble. Also when words are in context they're much easier to figure out what word goes there based on the letters available.”
Still pretty darn cool.
Hvae a geart day!
Here is a little reading exercise to try that may make you feel different...
Amazing isn't it? Well maybe not. One keen observer noted:
“There are many factors that allow you to be able to read the above paragraph. 27 of 74 words above have not been scrambled because they are 1, 2, or 3 letter words. This helps to maintain the grammatical structure of the sentence. 20 of the 74 words are four-letter words, which means that only two letters have been transposed. It’s very simple for a person to decode a 4 letter words. Basically this means that 63% of this sentence is not even scrambled. 15 of the words are 5-6 letters long, which are only moderately difficult to decode. This leaves 20% of the words in the above paragraph, which are difficult to unscramble. Also when words are in context they're much easier to figure out what word goes there based on the letters available.”
Still pretty darn cool.
Hvae a geart day!
More ways to stay connected.
-NOTICE FOR OUR BLOG FOLLOWERS-
We will continue to blog on this site as we have been in the past, with information about our school, life in Japan, education, culture, and other interesting tidbits. In addition we have opened up a facebook page and a second blog. The second blog will be dedicated more to information about our school and life in Japan. It will also be entirely in Japanese. We hope that you will continue to visit us here, but also check out our other information sites as well! Thanks for reading!
Imagination Ink on facebook- login and search "Imagination Ink Hamamatsu" - you should find us easily.
Or visit our new blog dedicated to local events and people at Hamazo blog 浜松市英会話 イマジネーションインク
Two great new ways to stay connected with us at Imagination Ink !
We will continue to blog on this site as we have been in the past, with information about our school, life in Japan, education, culture, and other interesting tidbits. In addition we have opened up a facebook page and a second blog. The second blog will be dedicated more to information about our school and life in Japan. It will also be entirely in Japanese. We hope that you will continue to visit us here, but also check out our other information sites as well! Thanks for reading!
Imagination Ink on facebook- login and search "Imagination Ink Hamamatsu" - you should find us easily.
Or visit our new blog dedicated to local events and people at Hamazo blog 浜松市英会話 イマジネーションインク
Two great new ways to stay connected with us at Imagination Ink !
Pot-sticker Capital
Hamamatsu has long been famous for an annual kite festival (May 3rd – 5th ), unagi (うなぎ) eel from Lake Hamana, and good kimono fabric.
Honda Motors was founded here and Hamamatsu hosts the headquarters of Suzuki motors, Yamaha Corp., Roland and Kawai companies.
Now we can add one more feather in our cap. Hamamatsu recently became the gyoza (pot stickers) capital of Japan, to the dismay of Utsunomiya, Tochigi prefecture (previous leader).
ギョーザ日本一の浜松,「手放しで喜べない…」
総務省が３１日に公表した世帯当たりの支出額調査で、浜松市が２０１１年のギョーザ支出額で宇都宮市を抜き、年間首位になった。
浜松ギョーザのＰＲに取り組む「浜松餃子(ぎょうざ)学会」の斎藤公誉(きみたか)会長（４５）は「１位になったのは、東日本大震災の影響で宇都宮市の支出額が落ち込んだ結果。手放しでは喜べない」と複雑な心境を語った。
宇都宮市は総務省の調査を基に１９９０年から「ギョーザ日本一」を宣言してきたが、調査は政令市と県庁所在市が対象で、２００８年まで浜松市は対 象外だった。そこで同学会は０７年、「市の独自調査では消費量で宇都宮市を上回った」として「餃子消費量日本一」を宣言し、宇都宮市に“宣戦布告”。政令 市移行に伴い浜松市も家計調査の対象になった０８年からは、同じ土俵で首位争いを繰り広げてきたが、浜松市は２位に甘んじ続けていた。
斎藤会長は「宇都宮市の支出額は、３月以降にがくっと落ち込んでいる。東日本大震災の影響ではないか」と分析。浜松、宇都宮両市は支出額の首位争いをすることで、全国から注目を集めてきたことから、斎藤会長は「一日も早く宇都宮市が元気を取り戻し、改めて切磋琢磨(せっさたくま)したい」とエールを送った。
（2012年2月1日11時22分 読売新聞）
Japan Times - Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012
Hamamatsu new 'gyoza' capital By HIROKO NAKATA
Boasting dozens of restaurants and shops and the highest household consumption rate of "gyoza," Utsunomiya, the capital of Tochigi Prefecture, has long been regarded as the capital of the Chinese dumpling as well. But no longer.
For the first time in 16 years, the city lost its No. 1 ranking in gyoza consumption, beaten out by Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, according to a recent survey of household spending released Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Last year, Utsunomiya households spent on average just \3,737 on the dumplings, down 40 percent from a record high \6,133 in 2010. Meanwhile, households in Hamamatsu spent \4,313, down 10 percent from \4,754 in 2010.
Honda Motors was founded here and Hamamatsu hosts the headquarters of Suzuki motors, Yamaha Corp., Roland and Kawai companies.
Now we can add one more feather in our cap. Hamamatsu recently became the gyoza (pot stickers) capital of Japan, to the dismay of Utsunomiya, Tochigi prefecture (previous leader).
ギョーザ日本一の浜松,「手放しで喜べない…」
総務省が３１日に公表した世帯当たりの支出額調査で、浜松市が２０１１年のギョーザ支出額で宇都宮市を抜き、年間首位になった。
浜松ギョーザのＰＲに取り組む「浜松餃子(ぎょうざ)学会」の斎藤公誉(きみたか)会長（４５）は「１位になったのは、東日本大震災の影響で宇都宮市の支出額が落ち込んだ結果。手放しでは喜べない」と複雑な心境を語った。
宇都宮市は総務省の調査を基に１９９０年から「ギョーザ日本一」を宣言してきたが、調査は政令市と県庁所在市が対象で、２００８年まで浜松市は対 象外だった。そこで同学会は０７年、「市の独自調査では消費量で宇都宮市を上回った」として「餃子消費量日本一」を宣言し、宇都宮市に“宣戦布告”。政令 市移行に伴い浜松市も家計調査の対象になった０８年からは、同じ土俵で首位争いを繰り広げてきたが、浜松市は２位に甘んじ続けていた。
斎藤会長は「宇都宮市の支出額は、３月以降にがくっと落ち込んでいる。東日本大震災の影響ではないか」と分析。浜松、宇都宮両市は支出額の首位争いをすることで、全国から注目を集めてきたことから、斎藤会長は「一日も早く宇都宮市が元気を取り戻し、改めて切磋琢磨(せっさたくま)したい」とエールを送った。
（2012年2月1日11時22分 読売新聞）
Japan Times - Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012
Hamamatsu new 'gyoza' capital By HIROKO NAKATA
Boasting dozens of restaurants and shops and the highest household consumption rate of "gyoza," Utsunomiya, the capital of Tochigi Prefecture, has long been regarded as the capital of the Chinese dumpling as well. But no longer.
For the first time in 16 years, the city lost its No. 1 ranking in gyoza consumption, beaten out by Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, according to a recent survey of household spending released Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Last year, Utsunomiya households spent on average just \3,737 on the dumplings, down 40 percent from a record high \6,133 in 2010. Meanwhile, households in Hamamatsu spent \4,313, down 10 percent from \4,754 in 2010.
生徒さん紹介 鈴木 千佳代さん
It is time for us to profile one of our students again, this time an adult student taking private lessons, Chikaiyo Suzuki...
今回は、海外に住むお孫さんとの会話を楽しむため、また海外にてリタイアメント生活を送るために英語学習に励んでいる千佳代さんです。それでは、インタビューです。
Q. 簡単な自己紹介をお願いします。
A. 主人と息子と磐田に住んでいます。娘は結婚をしてオーストラリア人の夫と2人の子どもたちとオーストラリアに住んでいます。将来、オーストラリアへの移住を計画しています。
Q. 英語の勉強を始めたのはいつですか？
A. 15年ほど前病気を患いました。その時、主人が気晴らしになにか楽しめることを始めたら？と提案してくれました。それから磐田の英語教室に通いました。その後、担当の先生が産休・育休に入るということで、新しい教室を探すことになりました。
Q. 現在はどんな学習方法で英語を勉強していますか？
A. 以前の英語の先生が産休に入る前に、イマジネーションインクを紹介してくれました。今はこちらでプライベートレッスンを受けています。自宅での主な勉強方法は、英語で日記を書く、教室から英語の本を借りて読む、あと時間があるときに英語のテレビ番組をみるようにしています。また、ジョン先生に無料のインターネット電話Skypeを教えてもらってからは、毎週孫たちと英語でお話しています。とっても楽しいです。
Q. 英語を学習するうえで、簡単だと思うこと、難しいと思うことは何ですか？
A. リーディングは比較的簡単ですね。自分好みのストーリーを選んでいるので、モチベーションも維持できています。また、日記を書くこともとても役立っていると思います。時々、大変だなと思うときもありますが頑張っています。スピーキングはまだ難しいですね。自分の表現にあった英語の言葉が思いつかないことがあります。状況にあったニュアンスの言葉を探すのは難しいですね。
Q. その他なにかコメントはありますか？
A. 孫たちと一緒にお話しが出来る事をとても幸せに思います。孫たちは私の先生です！娘が外国人と結婚したとこで、私自身の世界がこんなに広がるとは思ってもいませんでした。孫たちと話せる日曜日を毎週楽しみにしています。
Q. 英語を勉強したいと思っている方たちにメッセージはありますか？
A. まずは自信をもつことでしょうか。そして、海外へ行き世界を見る事ですね。人生が変わりますよ。
Thanks a lot Chikaiyo! We wish you all the best in your studies and your dreams, we are happy you have chosen to make us a part of them and we'll do all we can to help you achieve them!
今回は、海外に住むお孫さんとの会話を楽しむため、また海外にてリタイアメント生活を送るために英語学習に励んでいる千佳代さんです。それでは、インタビューです。
Q. 簡単な自己紹介をお願いします。
A. 主人と息子と磐田に住んでいます。娘は結婚をしてオーストラリア人の夫と2人の子どもたちとオーストラリアに住んでいます。将来、オーストラリアへの移住を計画しています。
Q. 英語の勉強を始めたのはいつですか？
A. 15年ほど前病気を患いました。その時、主人が気晴らしになにか楽しめることを始めたら？と提案してくれました。それから磐田の英語教室に通いました。その後、担当の先生が産休・育休に入るということで、新しい教室を探すことになりました。
Q. 現在はどんな学習方法で英語を勉強していますか？
A. 以前の英語の先生が産休に入る前に、イマジネーションインクを紹介してくれました。今はこちらでプライベートレッスンを受けています。自宅での主な勉強方法は、英語で日記を書く、教室から英語の本を借りて読む、あと時間があるときに英語のテレビ番組をみるようにしています。また、ジョン先生に無料のインターネット電話Skypeを教えてもらってからは、毎週孫たちと英語でお話しています。とっても楽しいです。
Q. 英語を学習するうえで、簡単だと思うこと、難しいと思うことは何ですか？
A. リーディングは比較的簡単ですね。自分好みのストーリーを選んでいるので、モチベーションも維持できています。また、日記を書くこともとても役立っていると思います。時々、大変だなと思うときもありますが頑張っています。スピーキングはまだ難しいですね。自分の表現にあった英語の言葉が思いつかないことがあります。状況にあったニュアンスの言葉を探すのは難しいですね。
Q. その他なにかコメントはありますか？
A. 孫たちと一緒にお話しが出来る事をとても幸せに思います。孫たちは私の先生です！娘が外国人と結婚したとこで、私自身の世界がこんなに広がるとは思ってもいませんでした。孫たちと話せる日曜日を毎週楽しみにしています。
Q. 英語を勉強したいと思っている方たちにメッセージはありますか？
A. まずは自信をもつことでしょうか。そして、海外へ行き世界を見る事ですね。人生が変わりますよ。
Thanks a lot Chikaiyo! We wish you all the best in your studies and your dreams, we are happy you have chosen to make us a part of them and we'll do all we can to help you achieve them!
