Report by Carol Saad, photos by Nicholas Jones
Chef Jamie Oliver says, “Good Food is a global thing.” The love of food crosses cultural barriers, and is a wonderful way to meet new people and make new friends. In July, several JET Alumni came together to continue an annual tradition: to teach outgoing JETs how to make some basic Japanese staples. This year, we made onigiri, pickled cucumbers, and tamagoyaki.
On Canada Day, JETAA Toronto went up to the JCCC’s Caledon Estate to help support and set up the annual Canada Day Japanese Canadian Community Picnic.
Report and photos by Nicholas Jones
Carl called it when we arrived at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre for P-DOT this year.
“This orientation is going to be the best one yet!” he told Marcia, our illustrious JET Programme Coordinator and fearless leader for the P-DOT weekend.
P-DOT, or Pre-Departure Orientation Toronto, as it’s called by the uninitiated, is the JET Alumni Association of Toronto’s single largest event each year. Some two dozen alumni volunteers step up to present seminars on various parts of Japanese life (from Konbinis to Kancho) in order to prepare the incoming JETs-to-be for their departure on the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme in August.
The 2016 JETAA Canada National Conference was hosted by JETAA British Columbia and Yukon this past June 10th-12th in Vancouver. Two executive members from each chapter across the country were invited to attend the event, as well as members of CLAIR New York, the JETAA Canada Representative, as well as the three JETAA Country Representatives from the US.
The conference, sometimes shortened to “CanCon”, serves as a great opportunity for the Canadian chapters to learn from each other, communicate important information directly with CLAIR, and also learn what chapters are doing in other countries.
This year I was honoured to be one of the two JETAA Toronto executive members sent to the conference, along with Carl Sachs, one of our Co-Chairs. It was my first experience at a JETAA Canada Conference, and a wonderful experience altogether.
By Geoffrey Greig
JETAA Toronto was proud to be a presenter for the Canadian premier of The Inerasable on June 10th at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre as part of their annual Toronto Japanese Film Festival. We at JETAA Toronto would like to thank all in attendance, and express our thanks for the continuing relationship with the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
By Sonomi Tanaka
On a lovely summer night, six excited JETAA and a mom gathered for some fine Japanese scrumptiousness at Imanishi Japanese Kitchen. They were not disappointed! Imanishi delivered well-crafted Japanese home cooking dishes like Katsu Kare and Saba Miso-ni. They even threw in some dishes with a twist like Corn Kakiage (deep fried, battered corn).
Even a distinct lack of cherry blossoms wasn’t going to stop JETAA from going to High Park to enjoy a sakura(-less) hanami picnic!
An up-and-down April put the deep freeze on cherry blossoms in 2016 (only about 5% of them bloomed in High Park this year!?!), but JETAA once again joined with the good folks at the Japan Canada Student Association at the University of Toronto for an afternoon of food, friends, family, and fun. The first spat of beautiful weather all year helped to bring more than 100 people out to enjoy spring vibes over the Victoria Day long weekend.
You’ve seen us rock climbing, curling, and even axe throwing, but did you know we also play a mean board game? That’s right. JETAA Toronto is into board games. Who would have guessed it, right?
Now, whether or not we’re actually any good at any of them is another story, but thanks to this past month’s JETAA board games event, we finally had a chance to put our skills to the test.