Finishing Our Duties as Ninterns

So today, the day is slow on the last day of the week. We just finished our video project and turned it into a dvd for other to see, all thanks to Lina Hoshino for this opportunity. Then there is John Henry who sponsors us NJAHS for events and thanks to him , we wouldn't have experience any of this. So NJAHS show our thanks and appreciation to all those who supported and worked with NJAHS. We finished our tours with the college interns that was with Ken and Allison, which made it easy for a first tour, then there would be our 2nd one with the Aim High kids where Alvin is also from. We even finished our youtube video of the event/concert we did with the 300 kids about Japanese culture. That was fun. After all our efforts at NJAHS, there was a pizza party for us. How lovely. So now we're trying to make posters and fliers to advertise for the next tour. Following up there is going to be an event on Aug. 14 at New People known as the J-Pop center. As our day ends, our time at NJAHS is slowly ending. All the fun and experience here, hope to finish our duties as NJAHS's ninterns.

- Eric

The Time We Combine Our Work Force

Written at 7/27/2011 6:35PM

Today we got a lot done. We finally finish the video of us preforming to Mo Magic, made awesome fliers to attract tourists, and receive a pizza party. Remember the times when we ninterns had given this tour to Aim High.Well, Rachael gave us a pizza party today for that. While we were eating, Max grandfather came in, his name was Ken Nihei. So we also invited him to join us. Ken suddenly pop out a question asking does he have any stories during his time at war. We all got surprised when Ken Nihei told us what happen during his fight in European land digging foxholes. Mr. Nihei also mention how he used to collect pistols back then and he had like 10, but he can only keep one when the war was over. So he gave the rest to other veterans. Mr. Nihei talked about how he like to hunt ducks during his life in Wyoming. I like hearing these stories and I also like to collect pistols of my own.

- Luis Diego Lin-Xiao (NJAHS Nintern)

The Time We Present Our Tour to Aim High

Written at 7/22/2011 5:48PM

Today was the time when our group's finally ready to present our Japanese Cultural Heritage Walking Tour. Too bad Alvin wasn't here today due to his Aim High program. The tour went smoothly but our plan to line people up were a mess. Now we learn to make people line up or stay away from doors and other passengers way. Also the leader of Aim High got everyone some Manju and Rosalyn's daughter was passing out fortune cookies to the group.Here are some pictures of everyone getting lectured from the tour. You can look at them above since I took these photos. I learned how to be more clam and relief during our tour.

- Luis Diego Lin-Xiao (NJAHS Nintern)

San Jose Community

Yesterday, me and the Nikkei Community interns went down to San Jose Japantown to meet with the community. We first went to NBC 11 to talk to Mike Inouye. He was the weather man. He was nice and gave us tips like jump on opportunities and it helps to know people when you go out into the work force. After meeting with Mike, we went to the San Jose Japantown community center. There we ate sandwiches with some of the interns and staff. After lunch we went to get shaved ice and talked with Tamiko Rast at Roys Station. Roy's Station is a cafe that was started recently. It was originally a two pump gas station but during redevelopment, it was a necessity to upgrade to having more gas pumps. The day was pretty busy, and we were moving a lot but in the end, I felt like I learned a lot.

Ken Matsueda (Intern)

World Perspectives.

Today was a normal day. We worked on a video to put on Youtube, made some fliers, and wrote thank yous to our sponsers. Last Friday, July 22nd we gave a tour for some middle school students. Because it went so well, we were given a pizza party. We thought the pizza party was going to be the only surprise of the day but then somebody special marched in.

Max Nihei's grandfather Ken Nihei came in to visit Max. He sat down and drank tea while we sat around him. I bluntly asked him "Hey Mr. Nihei, do you have any war stories that you may want to share with us?" I expected some heroic story about how he fought a long battle against the Nazis. What he said was a little different. He told us a story about how he was in a forest in Europe and he had to dig a trench. There was a bunch of new guys who were added to the unit. They were told to dig a trench. When the Nazi soldiers began shelling, one of the new guys got hit. The guy was screaming and he tried to tie up his leg but the bandages kept falling off. In the morning, the guy was dead. Hearing the story made me very sad. Mr. Nihei said that they did not even know his name. It was sad but Mr. Nihei talked about going hunting when he was living in Wyoming and teaching Max how to shoot. In the end it was a good talking to a man from an intense time in history.

Video Making

Making a personal video in 3 days only was very stressful. It was so rushed because we only got one chance to record voices and take pictures. The most difficult thing was thinking of the script and then editing it. It took more than 7 hours a day and we were all focused on the computers. It got tiring and boring just sitting down on my seat and eyes on the computer. When I was finished, it felt great because it was finally over and I just made my first ever own video! After completing the video, we all shared our videos with each other. Everybody did a great job on their video, but we aren't finished just yet because now, we have to put them together.

alvin

The Time We Have Three Days To Create a Flim

Written at 7/20/2011 8:25PM

The day was bright and shine, it was 3 days of handwork that us ninterns have to go through to bring out ourselves to our video. I truly wanted to express myself in a digital story telling and Lina manage to help us do so. She guided us step by step on the process of creating a perfect documentary of ourselves. On the first day we saw examples of Lina Hoshino's work and the people she taught. Then we got some time to create our scripts and voice over for day two.Day three went really quick with editing work and finally we proudly got to show our videos to our co workers and supervisors. The day went great even thought we took longer than we thought.I learned about myself and try to uncover what I done with my friends in Japantown during the past. I cant wait to show my video at Aug. 14 at the theater of New People.

- Luis Diego Lin-Xiao (NJAHS Nintern)