TsukuBlog

Alien Times was featured in an article in the Ibaraki edition of Asahi Shimbun.

英字情報誌２０年・つくば (in Japanese)

The article briefly discusses the history of the Alien Times from its conception in 1987 to the present day situation. The Alien Times website is also mentioned. Perhaps this article will help to raise the profile of the newsletter so that we can continue to receive funding from the Expo Foundation and increase our revenues from advertising.

The article is going to be deleted from the Asahi Shimbun site in two weeks, so here is the text.

英字情報誌２０年・つくば

2007年09月26日

つくば市で発行している月刊の英字情報誌「エイリアン・タイムズ」（Ｔｈｅ　ＡＬＩＥＮ　ＴＩＭＥＳ）が、創刊２０年を迎えた。留学生や外国人研究者らが多く住む地域で、生活情報を得る手段として重宝されてきた。編集長で米国人宣教師ティモシー・ボイルさん（６０）は兵庫県へ移ることになり、今月を最後にバトンタッチする。

ティモシーさんが教会の仕事で同市に移り住んだのは８６年。「当時から万博の影響もあり外国人は多かったが、生活情報を得る手段は『口コミ』くらいだった」。翌年６月、生活に役立つ情報を英語で発信しようと米国人の友人ら４人で情報誌を手作りした。しばらくは作成費用は自腹と寄付。その後は財団法人「つくば科学万博記念財団」がスポンサーとなり、地元企業の広告料と合わせて印刷代などをまかなっている。スタッフは全員ボランティアだ。

同誌はＡ４判で８ページ。内容はイベント紹介や日本語の勉強など多岐にわたっている。寄稿者にはフランスやロシアの出身者がおり、英語以外の記事が載ったことも。千部がＴＸつくば駅構内や筑波大学など市内外の約３０カ所で無料配布されている。今月号のトップでは、飲酒運転への厳罰化が取り上げられている。

２０年で同誌も大きく変わった。０２年には、カナダ人のシェイニー・クロフォードさん（３６）が同誌ホームページを作成。過去の記事も閲覧できるほか、誌面に載らない情報も掲載している。

ティモシーさんは「（読者から）感謝してもらったことが何よりの思い出。優秀なスタッフがいるので何の心配もしていません」。次期編集長の小野三枝子さん（３２）は「ささいな情報でも、不安をもって来日する人たちのために続けていきたい」と話している。

同市によると、市内の外国人登録者は１３１カ国の７０８４人（８月３１日現在）。県内で最も多く、人口の３・４％を占めている。

同誌ウェブサイトはwww.alientimes.orgへ。

The Alien Times site is experiencing some difficulties. I am looking into the problem and hope to have it solved soon. Apologies for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: The site is now back online.

The Alien Times and TsukuBlog websites will be down for scheduled maintenance on Saturday, September 27 from 10am to 2pm.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

As Shaney has mentioned on TAIRA a while ago, Alien Times is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Wow!

Did you know that the back issues of Alien Times were handed out during the Tsukuba International Exchange Fair last month? I had a chance to talk to quite a lot of people during the fair, and I was thrilled to find out that almost all non-Japanese speakers I’ve talked to were either Alien Times readers or someone who at least knew Alien Times. That was great considering that some of those people don’t even work or live in Tsukuba! I’ve also met several non-Japanese speaking people who came to the festival to get the information on Tsukuba because they were thinking of moving here, so they were delighted to see a free English-language publication!

A lot of Japanese college, high school and even junior high school kids were also excited to see “free English-language study materials,” so they took the back issues without any hesitation. Quite a lot of them told me that they hardly understand the contents of Alien Times but would still love to read the articles with dictionaries in their hands :)

Some adults, on the other hand, reacted completely different. A couple of Japanese men in their late 40s or in their 50s came to talk to me after staring at a pile of Alien Times for a while. No, they didn’t come at the same time, but they both started the “argument” the same way.

Their argument?

Well…, they both started the conversation with me by saying;
“Do you know the term ‘Alien’ isn’t a very nice way to call a foreigner(s)?”

I politely answered yes and politely told them that the word “alien” also means “foreigner,” so the name Alien Times isn’t inappropriate in a way. Again, those guys reacted to what I have said the same way. They asked me if I knew that the term ‘alien’ is no longer in use at Narita Airport….

(　｀Д´)ﾉ Arrrrrrgh!! you smarty pants!

I knew why both of them were telling me the identical stuff. Actually, I knew what they were going to say before even they opened their mouth because there was a quiz show on TV just a few days before the festival, and one of the quiz questions happened to be about this ‘alien’ issue at the airport. Narita Airport had been using “ALIEN” for the signs above its immigration counters, but had stopped using it after receiving numerous complaints from foreign travelers in 1980s.　Obviously, many people began associating the word “alien” with “space alien” since that popular movie came out in 1979.

I was channel-surfing, and happened to watch just that part of the quiz show, so I had expected that someone would come at me with that argument. Some other adults didn’t try to argue with me, but did ask me that question or give me other negative reaction.

One very important fact those people forgot about was that Alien Times was and is being published by the “aliens” themselves!

Excerpt from “About Us” page of Alien Times:

While some people find the name “Alien Times” to be a bit strange, especially now that we are not referred to as aliens very much anymore, we decided to keep the title of the newsletter as it was in 1987 so that we remember how it all started.

I must’ve caught those men off guard when I told them that the people who are involved in Alien Times are foreigners, but I had to show one guy the back page of Alien Times to show the names of the staff to prove it! Those guys weren’t convinced, that is, they still thought that “I” should change the name even when I told them the brief history of Alien Times, but what I should’ve done from the beginning was to just tell them that I, a Japanese, am not the one who makes Alien Times….

(　｀щ´)ﾉ Grrrrrr!!

In case you are wondering, Japan isn’t the only country that uses “alien” in its official documents. I was once an alien in the United States though I’m sure the usage of ‘alien’ varies from state to state.

I’d also like to clarify that the Japanese word we use for foreigners is 外国人(がいこくじん、gaikoku-jin). 外 means outside, 国 is country, 人 is person, so it simply means “a person from outside of the country.” The word for space alien is エイリアン(alien) or 宇宙人(うちゅうじん、uchuu-jin). 宇宙 means outer space, and since 人 is the letter for person, 宇宙人 means “a person from outer space.” So don’t get upset when you see “alien” written on your document because we don’t think you are an “alien.”

The December 2006 edition of Alien Times is now online.

• Main Page
• Articles Published in December 2006

Alien Times is an English newsletter that has been published in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan since 1987. It has been online at http://www.alientimes.org since 2002. All of our writers and staff are volunteers.

More about Alien Times

I have learned that there are some people who don’t pick up the printed version of the Alien Times because they didn’t know that it was free. There are also many who don’t pick up the printed version because they can read articles online.

Guess what?

We include articles, photographs or images that are exclusive to the printed version every month, and there is a very good reason to pick up this month’s issue!

Find out where you can pick up a copy:
http://www.alientimes.org/Info/Distribution (English)
http://www.alientimes.org/J/Distribution (Japanese)

Click to download the April 2008 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

Click to download the August 2006 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The December 2006 issue of Mind The Gap is out now!!

Go to the December 2006 issue on the Mind the Gap website for all the latest info for international students of Tsukuba University.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Kate
‘Mind The Gap’

Click to download the July 2006 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

Click to download the June 2006 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

Click to download the October 2006 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

Click to download the September 2006 issue of Mind the Gap.

Mind the Gap is a newsletter for students of Tsukuba University. It is an extra source of important information about living and studying in Japan, catering especially to the students of Tsukuba! We are here to make your life easier and make sure that you enjoy this unique opportunity to study abroad. We will keep you up-to-date monthly with important notices and deadlines for visas/documents/entrance exams/dormitories, and don’t miss the monthly comic ‘Yougakusei’ and ‘Views from the Shokudou’! Please check this website every month for the latest issue, which is also posted in the lounge at the International Student Center (ISC). Also, print-outs of the latest issues are available in the ISC office to take home.

Comments or Questions?
mindthegaptsukuba[a]yahoo.co.jp

I wrote about the Nagano’s first English-language free magazine earlier this month:
“NAGAKNOW, the Nagano’s first English magazine”

Now you can read the inaugural issue of this magazine online!
“What’s New BLOG on NAGAKNOW”

Those who love to go hiking and climbing in the mountains (yes, you, TWMC!) will surely enjoy reading it, so please take a look!

Those who live in or near Tokyo, you’ve either read or have heard of free English-language magazines like Metropolis , Weekender and Tokyo Notice Board. Those are great source of information for non-Japanese speakers or those who are learning English. Though Metropolis has awesome forums for people from various parts of Japan to exchange information, those magazines are Tokyo(Kanto region) -based and they look like the tourist books if people who live outside of the Kanto Region get a chance to pick up some copies (They are great magazines and I love them!).

Well, I have a very exciting news to share with you; a new English magazine just came out in Nagano Prefecture! The name of the magazine is NAGAKNOW, and this is the first-ever free English-language magazine in Nagano!!

(The cover of April 27 - May 25 issue. This image was kindly provided by the representative of NAGAKNOW.)

I was afraid that there wouldn’t be any copies left for me to pick up since their very first issue came out on April 27th and the launch of this new magazine was in several newspapers in Nagano. Despite my concerns, I was able to pick up copies from the tourist information office in JR Matsumoto Station and also from the Matsumoto Tourist Information Center near the Matsumoto Castle during the “Golden Week” holidays.

NAGAKNOW is a full-color magazine about half the size of The Alien Times and is somewhat like The Alien Times (obviously, with more funding). There are articles submitted by local residents, list of events, information on local tourist’s spot and restaurant info.

OK, sounds a lot like The Alien Times, but NAGAKNOW is also a bilingual magazine! They place the English and Japanese articles side by side for those who are learning Japanese and vice versa.

NAGAKNOW also goes out to the streets and interview local residents, Japanese and non-Japanese. In their first issue, they went to Matsumoto Castle for their “Street Talk” section of the magazine. In “Local Flavor,” they interviewed the local ramen shop owner. The ads placed by local restaurants, accommodations and other businesses are also interesting to look at. We definitely don’t see an ad for a lodge located near the peak of 3080 meter mountain around here!

As you can see, their website is still in the making and they are still working on their contents, but if you have friends and families living in Nagano Prefecture, please tell them about this exciting new magazine.

Nagano is already a very popular destination for those who enjoy winter sports and mountaineering, but there are more reasons to visit Nagano this year! Did you know the City of Matsumoto in Nagano is celebrating its 100th year this year? If you are planning a visit to Matsumoto City, please also plan to pick up a copy of NAGAKNOW. You’ll love it!

Related website:
Matsumoto Welcomes You! - Official Tourist Information of Matsumoto City in Nagano, Japan

The Alien Times has launched a new website that can be accessed from your mobile phone. The site is called “The Portable Alien” and it is designed to let you find out information about Tsukuba while you are on-the-go. The address is http://k.alientimes.org. (The “k” stands for “keitai”, which means “portable” in Japanese and is often used to refer to mobile phones.)

The site is divided into a number of directories. The top level directories are:

• Accommodations Directory
• City Hall Directory
• Education Directory
• Emergency Directory
• Food Directory
• Health Directory
• Media Directory
• Miscellaneous Directory
• Recreation Directory
• Research Directory
• Transportation Directory
• Travel Directory

Inside these directories, you will find links to information about various organizations and companies that may be difficult to find when you are not at your computer. For example, in the recreation directory, you can find information about sports facilities and tourist attractions in Tsukuba. In the health directory, you can find lists of clinics divided into their specializations (skin, pediatrics, eyes, etc.). The transportation section currently includes schedules for the Tsukuba-Narita and Tsukuba-Tokyo buses. We eventually hope to include other schedules such as Tsukuba Express, Joban Line, and TsukuBus.

The site is not yet complete, but we decided to make it public so people in the Tsukuba community can test it out and let us know what they think. If there is any information that you would like to see on the site, please let us know. Also, if there is any information that is outdated or needs to be improved, please contact us so we can keep the site up-to-date.

There are two ways to access the site with your cellphone.

1. Open your web browsing software in your mobile phone and enter the address “k.alientimes.org” directly.
2. Use your barcode reader in your cellphone (usually in with the camera settings) to read the following code.

After you have accessed the site once, put it in your list of favourites so you can get to it quickly when you need it in the future.

You can also access the site with your computer. The mobile site is directly accessible by computer, or you can use the interface that has been integrated into the Alien Times website. (The interface was integrated so that searches that are performed on the Alien Times site will now include results from the Portable Alien directories.)

We hope you find this new site useful and we are looking forward to getting your feedback on our efforts!

Metropolis is a weekly English magazine about events and activities in Tokyo. It also includes restaurant and bar reviews and a lead story that gives a good sense of what Tokyo and Japan are all about. You can get copies of Metropolis for free at Tsukuba Information Center, but if you aren’t likely to stop by the Information Center on a regular basis, you might want to consider subscribing instead.

There is a subscription form available on the Metropolis website. You can also subscribe by fax if you print out the form on the same page. You can choose three different subscription terms.

• 12 Issues - ¥4,000
• 24 Issues - ¥7,500
• 48 Issues - ¥14,000

Your subscription will be complete when you send your money (by furikomi) to the Crosscross bank account. (Crisscross is the company that owns Metropolis.) Their account is with the Kojimachi Branch of Mizuho Bank. To help you with the furikomi, here are the kanji you need.

Bank: みずほ銀行
Branch 麹町支店

If you like to keep up with what is happening in Tokyo and Japan, I highly recommend getting a subscription to this magazine.

When you are living in Japan, but you cannot read Japanese very fluently, it may seem like it is impossible to find out about things that are going on. To be honest, even if you can read Japanese, it can be hard to find things out — like the schedule for the events at Tsukuba Capio and Nova Hall. These events used to be listed in the city hall newsletter, but for some reason, the city government decided to stop publishing the information when they went to once-per month distribution of the newsletter. (It used to be published twice per month.)

I don’t always have time to translate the information that I find around Tsukuba, but I think that it is important to at least let people know about it so they can find out more if they are interested. The latest Tsukuba City Hall Newsletter was published today, so I made a list of some of the topics you might be interested in finding more about. The links below all go to pages in the latest newsletter, so the information is all in Japanese. However, if you want to find out more about a particular topic, print out the relevant page or get a copy of the newsletter from somewhere around Tsukuba and find someone to translate the information for you. (Or, you could use it as a reading exercise if you are studying kanji!)

Tsukuba Industrial Fair
October 10-12, 2008
See: Page 1

Tsukuba Culture Festival
November 1-9, 2008
See: Page 2 and Page 3

Rabies Shots for Dogs
See: Page 6

Tsukuba Citizen’s Day
November 30, 2008
See: Page 7

Health Checkup for Students who will Enter Elementary School in 2009
(Children born between April 2, 2002 and April 1, 2003)
See: Page 8

How to Start Receiving Digital Broadcasting
See: Page 8

City-run Kindergartens Accepting Students for 2009
See: Page 9

Nursery Schools Accepting Students for 2009
See: Page 9

October is Ibaraki Tree Month
See: Page 9