Today is the first day of school for most children in Japan. It has been a long, hot summer, but I hope that everybody enjoyed the vacation. Did you do anything fun? Did you go anywhere exciting? Did you see visit your grandparents? Are you happy or sad to go back to school today? Why? Japanese students have a lot of summer homework. Did you do your homework every day, or did you wait until the end of the vacation and do it all at once? Please send me your answers and I will make them into a Readers’ Corner story next Friday.  (103 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

I’ve been studying Korean for a long time, but I didn’t make my first presentation in Korean until last Saturday. Now I know how difficult it is to learn a speech in a foreign language! I needed to learn a lot of special words about the environment, and I had to work on my pronunciation so that the Korean group could understand me. I talked about Fujimae Tidal Flat. AI was a big help. I used it translate information about Fujimae into Korean. Then I wrote the speech and practiced reading it aloud with my Korean teacher. Korean grammar is not so difficult if you know Japanese grammar, but Korean pronunciation is much more difficult than Japanese. In any case, I did it! Everyone understood my Korean, and my presentation was a success!   (133 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

On the last night of the Japan-Korea exchange program, we took the Korean group to Osu, a popular shopping arcade in Nagoya. There were 12 people in our group. The junior high school students wanted to eat ramen, but the adults preferred something else, so we divided into two smaller groups. I took the adults to an “udon” noodle restaurant. The other leaders took the children to Sugakiya, a ramen chain store. They enjoyed the ramen, and they loved the spork, Sugakiya’s special spoon-fork. After dinner, the adults went shopping at a drugstore. The children found some toy vending machines and bought little stuffed animals. I was happy that we were able to satisfy both groups.  (116 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

I belong to an environmental group, and we have an exchange program with a Korean group. We go to Korea one year, and they come to Japan the next year. This year, they came to Nagoya and did a nature walk on Fujimae Tidal Flat. In the evening, we stayed at a temple. The teenagers in my group made a “sugoroku” board game on the floor using cushions. They put cards under each cushion, and one person from each team moved around the board. Everyone wanted their team to win, so they got very excited. They really enjoyed themselves and made friends with each other that night. We slept on those cushions, the girls on the first floor and the boys on the second floor. The priest and his family were wonderful, and we thanked them and Buddha for letting us stay at the temple.   (145 words) You can send me a comment