Life After JET After JET

J-Pop for some of us forms the sonic background to our lives in Japan - AKB48, Arashi, SMAP, Greeen (and just like that, you can already guess my vintage).

My guest Juvia Chua went further than belting out her favourite J-Pop tunes in karaoke - she worked as a coordinator in the Japanese music industry, travelling with anisong talent overseas. She gives us a look at the hard work behind the stage, what she had to learn and how she did it. If you're wondering what it's like, then this is the episode for you.

Music for this episode is 'Anime Opening' by Uncan, sourced from Free Music Archive.org and under license type CC BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical).

The After JET podcast is generously supported by CLAIR, the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, but is otherwise an independent personal project. All views expressed on this podcast are the independent opinions of podcast participants and do not represent any organisation that participants are connected with or work for.

My guest this episode is a maelstrom of talent, ideas and energy - one episode on this teeny tiny podcast is not enough to cover all the stories from one life well led. And storytelling is the work of Eirene Tran Donohue. As a screenwriter, she has worked in Hollywood for over a decade, with her most successful movie to date being Netflix's A Tourist Guide to Love.

We have a chat about the industry, creativity, Asian representation and the ongoing writers' strike.

Linky goodness
- See Eirene's other work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5149399/
- Eirene's single is out now on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1meji59RpgdqU8o0RdYZDu?si=Z4eM51zITx2rLw8L3Vk0vQ
-Mai Donohue (Eirene's mum) has a memoir called Crossing the Bamboo Bridge:https://www.amazon.com.au/Crossing-Bamboo-Bridge-Memoirs-Luck-ebook/dp/B01LBOZDE6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crossing+the+bamboo+bridge&qid=1688909338&sprefix=crossing+the+bam%2Caps%2C309&sr=8-1

Song used for this episode is called Greatest of All Time by Beat Mekanik, from Free Music Archive used under a Creative Commons license. (CC BY).

The After JET podcast is generously supported by CLAIR, the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, but is otherwise an independent personal project. All views expressed on this podcast are the independent opinions of podcast participants and do not represent any organisation that participants are connected with or work for.

In this episode, I speak to Alex Barnett. We get into the world of video (and film) editing - what the life of a freelance video editor looks like. Making art or making bank - how does one make a living, following your dream in an industry that's competitive and moves between boom and bust?

Fun fact: Alex won the first JET Programme Video Competition in 2016. That's right, Australia was #1. Sorry everyone that you're not us.

- Check out Alex's awesome work at https://www.alexbarnett.com.au which also has his winning entry.
- He's also on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/barnettalex/

Music for this episode is 'In the Cut' by Yona Marie, from the album Yona's Beats, downloaded from freemusicarchive.org, licensed under a cc0 1.0 universal license.

Cara Lam is probably one of my more popular guests I've had on this podcast. As a content creator, she vlogged about her JET experience and life and continued with writing blogs about her life after. So it's not surprising that she went into content design and strategy as a career.

This being an After JET podcast, we talk not just careers, but also our stories: about being foreigners-at-large in many places, including the cultures we're born into.

Footnotes:
Cara can be found on:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-lam/
- Wordpress: https://thecaradventures.wordpress.com/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Caradventures/videos
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecaradventures/

Music:
Dare to Belong by Independent Music Licensing Collective (IMLC) from the album Blue Sky Moon and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Downloaded from freemusicarchive.org

In 2011, I was a JET living in Fukushima. From that opening sentence, you can probably guess what this episode will be about. A decade on, my friends and I will be recounting our experiences during that time and after, in this special 2-parter that's meant to mark the 10th anniversary of the Tohoku disaster (yes I know I'm a couple of years late).

My thanks to John Auyeung, Cathy Hawker and Caitlin Lee for taking this trip down memory lane with me.

You can read Cathy's blogpost about her experiences during the Tohoku Earthquake: https://32andcounting.blog/2018/03/11/its-not-a-matter-of-if-its-a-case-of-when-japan-tribute/?fbclid=IwAR3_14uypfflnfA2MFqGR8OJXWEkqzJFhAjXzk5DLgkZOjXHo10EymnqnPs

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this episode are not representative of any organisation or company and are solely the views of the speakers in this episode.

Music used in this episode (from freemusicarchive.org, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License):
- "Lacquer Groove" by Blue Dot Sessions
- "Night Roses for Dario" by Lobo Loco
- "Cue 1 - Slow-Sad-Loss-Gentle-Piano and Cello (Once More Into The Fray)" by Soularflair

Continuing on from Part 1, this time we talk about coming back to Iwaki. In Part 2, we describe how our local communities were impacted, what we saw and what we did. And how it continues to leave its mark on our memories and lives, 10 years on.

My thanks to John Auyeung, Cathy Hawker and Caitlin Lee for taking this trip down memory lane with me.

You can read Cathy's blogpost about her experiences during the Tohoku Earthquake: https://32andcounting.blog/2018/03/11/its-not-a-matter-of-if-its-a-case-of-when-japan-tribute/?fbclid=IwAR3_14uypfflnfA2MFqGR8OJXWEkqzJFhAjXzk5DLgkZOjXHo10EymnqnPs

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this episode are not representative of any organisation or company and are solely the views of the speakers in this episode.

Music used in this episode (from freemusicarchive.org, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License):
- "Coming Home" by Stefano Vita
- "Our Quiet Company" by Blue Dot Sessions