Happy New Year from the Japan America Society

あけましておめでとうございます！

It's the Year of the Dog in Japan and a special time to celebrate for all who were born in the 'Dog Years' -- 1982, 1970, 1958, 1946, 1934, 1922, and 1910. People born in the year of the Dog have all the fine qualities of human nature. They have a sense of duty and loyalty, they are extremely honest and they always do their best in their relationships with other people. Dog people inspire confidence in others and know how to keep secrets.

That's what they say, anyhow....

From all of us at the Japan-America Society of Washington DC, we wish you a very Happy New Year!

Bill Breer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees

Amb. John Malott, President and CEO

Yukiko Hino, Associate Director

Aki Watanuki, Membership Coordinator and Office Manager

Language School Starts on January 23

Spring semester at the Society's popular Language School begins on January 23 and ends on April 6. The deadline for registration is January 13.

Classes meet once a week and are available for students at 11 different levels of fluency, from beginning to advanced. Tuition is $180 for JASW members and $240 for non-members. Textbooks and workbooks may be purchased before or on the first day of class.

Click here for the list of classes offered (PDF document). For further information on our program and for the registration form, please see our website at www.us-japan.org/dc/language/lsfall.html.

Amb. John Malott Elected President

The Board of Trustees has elected Ambassador John Malott as President and CEO of the Society, to take effect from January 1, 2006.

Amb. Malott most recently has been the Managing Director (Asia Pacific) of ManattJones Global Strategies, an international business consulting firm based in Washington DC.

Amb. Malott is a former Foreign Service Office and a specialist in Japan and Asian affairs. He served as both Director and Deputy Director of the State Department's Japan desk, US Consul General in Osaka, American Consul in Kobe, and Economic-Commercial officer at the US Embassy in Tokyo. He held such senior positions as US Ambassador to Malaysia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, and Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.

After retiring from the State Department in 1999, he was the President of the World Affairs Council of Orange County, California.

Society to Expand School Programs

One of the recommendations of the Society's "Vision Committee" (see below) was to expand the Society's outreach programs into the local schools.

The Society's most popular program, Japan in a Suitcase, exposes elementary schools students in grades 1-3 to Japanese culture. The Society's goal is to expand this program to more area schools on a more systematic basis. To do this, the Society has recruited a new educational coordinator, Cheryl Ames.

The success of the program depends on our volunteers. If you are Japanese or an American with a knowledge of Japanese culture -- and you love young children and would love to brighten their lives by introducing them to Japanese culture -- we would love to have you as one of our volunteers.

For further information, please call the Society at 202-833-2210 and ask for Cheryl, or email her at jisdc@us-japan.org.

New Years Calligraphy Exhibit

The Japan Information and Culture Center of the Embassy of Japan is presenting a New Years calligraphy and art exhibit American students of Japanese.

The collected works present local children’s unique perspective on New Years and Japan.

The exhibition will continue through January 24, 2007. The JICC is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m and is located at Lafayette Center III, 1155 21st NW.

Society Announces Japan Bowl Date, Format Change

The 2006 National Japan Bowl™ Competition, sponsored and organized by our Society, will be held in Washington, DC on Saturday and Sunday, March 25-26, 2006 at the University of the District of Columbia on Van Ness Avenue, NW. Over 800 students from across the United States are expected to attend this 14th annual competition, which tests teams of high school students on their knowledge of Japanese language and culture.

In recent years teams competed across the country to become a regional representative and travel to Washington for the annual National Japan Bowl™. Now, responding to the requests of many schools and students, we have expanded the competition so that more students across the USA can come to the Nation's Capital to participate in a single location, open competition of teams.

The application deadline is January 27, 2006. Complete information is available in the Competition Guide and Forms which may be downloaded from the Society’s homepage at www.us-japan.org/dc. Our website also has a short video of the 2005 Competition.

Society's "Vision Committee" Looks to the Future

In early 2005 the Board of Trustees established a "Vision Committee" to outline future directions for the Society. The Committee's report, submitted to the Board in October, included 30 recommendations.

Among them:

--That the Society should strengthen its corporate programs in order to attract more American company members

--That the Society should hire a part-time educational coordinator to expand its "Japan in a Suitcase" program in our local schools

--That the Society should survey its members to learn more about their interests, what they think of our programs, and what they would like us to do in the future

-- That the Society should organize more public affairs and cultural affairs programs

-- That the Society should examine its many categories of membership (now 11) and rationalize them, with a clearer description of the benefits that it will provide

Do You Sudoku?

The latest Japanese craze to hit the States and Washington DC is sudoku, a sort of crossword puzzle that is based on numbers rather than words. Simply put, a sudoku puzzle is a square grid of nine boxes, arranged 3 x 3. Each box in turn is a 3 x 3 grid. All you have to do is fill in the larger grid so that every row, every column, and every 3 x 3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Think it's simple? Just try it! You'll get addicted, too!

The Washington Post now has a daily sudoku puzzle in its Style section, near the crossword puzzle. And area bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders are filled with sudoku books, from Sudoku for Dummies to a series edited by Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times.

Try it now -- just go to the Washington Post website and try their on-line sudoku puzzle:
http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/wpdoc/

The Post has gone one step further, and is now organizing the First Washington Post Sudoku Tournament, which will be held at Union Station on February 2. To become of the 200 participants, check the Style section of the Post on January 9 and complete the entry sudoku puzzle, one each day from January 9 to 13.

The winnner gets to attend the World Sudoku Championship in London.

Japan at the Freer and Sackler

The Freer and Sackler Galleries are featuring two exhibits of Japanese art. Don't miss them !

From November 19, 2005 to May 29, 2006, the Freer is showcasing Artists of Edo 1800–1850. This exhibition presents approximately 30 paintings and prints representing the distinctive styles of early nineteenth-century artists active in the large metropolis of Edo.

Following its establishment as the site of the Tokugawa shoguns' administrative government in the early 17th century, Edo developed a cultural and artistic identity distinct from that of Kyoto, where the emperor and nobles continued to reside. Edo artists of the Kano and Sumiyoshi schools worked on commission for the shoguns and high-ranking patrons of the warrior and aristocratic class, while artists belonging to other schools such as the Rimpa school, which began in Kyoto in the early 17th century, perfected simplified compositions and distinctive techniques.

Among the works on view are paintings by artists such as Tani Buncho, who studied a variety of Chinese painting styles and incorporated them into their art. Hokusai (1760–1849), the most famous Japanese painter internationally, was a native of Edo whose original style in both paintings and prints was emulated by his many talented students. The exhibition includes the work of several of Hokusai's followers. For more information, see http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/future.htm

The second exhibit focuses on the paintings created during a career of more than 70 years of the great Japanese artist Hokusai, whose print Great Wave Off Kanagawa is one of most widely recognized images ever produced. It will open next year at the Sackler, so mark your calendars for March 4–May 14, 2006.

This unprecedented Sackler Gallery exhibition—co-organized with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in cooperation with the Tokyo National Museum—will present an extraordinarily large variety of Hokusai's works, ranging from large, colorful folding screens and scrolls and fans to small drawings and sketches, prints, and printed books.

Paintings such as the famous "Boy Viewing Mount Fuji," from the Freer Gallery's outstanding collection of Hokusai's original paintings, will be displayed for the first time together with important works from public and private museums and collections in Japan, Europe, and the United States. A fully illustrated catalogue written by an international team of scholars accompanies the exhibition.

Further information is available at http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/future.htm

The Society will organize special tours of both exhibits for its members. Details will be forthcoming.

Society Elects 3 New Trustees; Re-elects 5

At the Annual General Meeting on November 28, the members of the Society affirmed the recommendation of the Board of Trustees and elected Ambassador Rust M. Deming (Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies) , William Duncan (Japan Automobile Manufactuers Asociation), and Matthew Goodman (Stonebridge International) as new Trustees of the Society.

The membership also re-elected to second terms Satohiro Akimoto (Mitsubishi International Corporation), Peter Bass (Goldman, Sachs & Co.), Kay Ikawa (Continental Airlines), Takuji Motooka (Itochu International Inc.), and William Piez.

The terms of these eight trustees will expire in 2008.

The Board of Trustees has expressed its grateful appreciation to departing Trustees Kay Enokido of the Hay-Adams Hotel, who has completed two full terms as Trustee, and Akio Tanii of Panasonic, who has returned to Japan to serve in the Tokyo offices of Matsushita Electric.

Society Honors Ambassador Howard Baker

The Japan America Society honored Ambassador Howard Baker at its annual Public Affairs Dinner on November 30. Nearly 400 people filled the ballroom of the JW Marriott Hotel to salute the former US Ambassador to Japan, who also served as Senate Majority Leader and Chief of State to the President of the United States.

The Society was also pleased to welcome the Ambassador's spouse, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, and the Governor of Tennessee, the Hon. Phil Bredesen.

Special thanks for the evening's success go to Peter Bass of Goldman Sachs and Shin Goto of Toyota USA, who served as co-chairs of the Dinner.

Mark Your Calendar for the Sakura Matsuri

Sakura Matsuri - The Japanese Street Festival will be held on Saturday, April 8, 2006 following the annual Cherry Blossom Parade. The Japan-America Society has organized this annual festival since 1961.

Last year's festival attracted over 100,000 visitors, and this year's Sakura Matsuri promises to be even bigger. We are adding on two more streets in downtown DC, and the 2006 Matsuri will stretch over eight square blocks in our Nation's Capital -- east to west from 10th to 14th Streets, and north to south from E Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Society is now looking for Japanese food vendors, arts and crafts sellers, purveyors of Japanese merchandise, and Japanese performing artists to participate in the event. For more information, please see our website at http://www.us-japan.org/dc/ .