What is your Japan?

We have received more than 30 excellent videos from a wide range of people since the start of this campaign.

Shared Videos (New)

Please help us out by sharing a video of Your Japan with us, following the guidelines below:

How to share Your Japan

• Take a one minute video with your phone/video camera.

• Show something that is a symbol of your Japan, or of your memory related to your story.

• Within one minute, tell your story in English.

• Conclude the video saying “This is My Japan”.

• Send your video to us!

• Take a video with your friends and say “This is My Japan!” all together at the end.

• See the example, below.

The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles will post your video on our Facebook and Instagram.

We look forward to seeing Your Japan!

Contact us: [email protected]

See All Videos

Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art  celebrates one of the most distinctive and compelling aspects of Japanese art: the depiction of animals. Underpinned by Japan's unique spiritual heritage of Shintō and Buddhism, the Japanese reverence for nature—and the place of animals within that realm—is expressed in sculpture, painting, lacquer-work, ceramics, metalwork, cloisonné, and woodblock prints.

 

This exhibition is co-organized by the Japan Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington with special cooperation from the Tokyo National Museum. This exhibition is part of Japan 2019, a series of events highlighting Japanese arts and culture in the U.S. throughout 2019.

 

For more information, please visit the  LACMA’s website .

Mid-week fatigue is a familiar foe to many of us. Why not maximize your relaxation and join us for a Sound Bath at Lunchtime!

The singing bowl used for this program harmoniously combines the healing qualities of the Tibetan singing bowl and its Japanese traditional singing bowl. Relax and feel your stress dissipate into thin air as the sounds of the singing bowl lead you into a meditative state.

There is no charge and no reservation required. All are welcome to come, sit, listen, and refresh!

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A Chinese Singaporean chef, formerly working in Tokyo, finds himself in Okinawa begging a disgruntled old chef to teach him traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on an eye opening discovery of SEA cuisine .

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Wellness Wednesdays: We offer Wellness programs on Wednesday at lunchtime!

December 18 is Yoga day! In this program, no need to change clothes or use a yoga mat; you will be seated in a chair receiving relaxing instruction from a bilingual (English and Japanese) instructor. Learn simple Japanese phrases during the instruction and stretch your mind as well as your body.

There will be two free sessions beginning at 12:30pm and 1:00pm. No reservation necessary, all are welcome .

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Study Japanese this winter! Our JF Nihongo Winter 2020 term will start on January 25.

People interested in learning Japanese at JFLA will have three beginner-level Japanese-language courses. In each class, students will learn concepts and communication skills which are essential to having a well-rounded understanding of everyday Japanese. Don't miss the early bird discount

Look who’s taking our course!

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For the current fiscal year, we have the Japanese Language Education Project Grant available with an application deadline of two months prior to the project start date. Grants for the next school year will be available in late January, 2020 so please check back then for more information.

Our Japan Foundation Headquarters’ website has just launched a new J-LEAP Movie Page!

Click around and see previous and current participants talk openly about their day-to-day experiences in this exciting program.

Is this program right for your school?

The initial Lead Teacher (LT)/Host Organization application period for the Japanese Language Education Assistant Program (J-LEAP) has ended, and now the Laurasian Institution and the Japan Foundation will now select the best candidates from those who applied to move forward.

In the meantime, JF Headquarters has begun its Assistant Teacher (AT) application period which will end on Thursday, January 16th, 2020.

There will be a J-LEAP information session at our Tokyo Headquarters office on Saturday, November 30th, so please share this information with any Japanese language teachers in Japan that you think might be interested (perhaps a young teacher you know through your Japanese sister school, for instance)!

This month, we would like to welcome Madoka Tsuchiya who is currently at Kearny High School in Kearny, NJ, and Nao Yokoyama who is currently at Cranford High School in Cranford, NJ !

We took part in American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) conference in Washington DC from Friday, November 22 ^nd to Sunday, November 25 ^th , 2019, and had the pleasure to not only reconnect with teachers from the Leadership Training, but also meet other teachers as well as visit other language booths such as German, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish! At the JFLA booth, we were able to distribute goody bags with hiragana charts, sushi (number counter) charts, grant information, badges, and other advocacy goods! The booth was shared with the Embassy of Japan and they also provided useful information regarding Japan such as 2020 Tokyo Olympics. We also had Japan-America Society from Washington D.C. helping us out with the booth and providing information about the Japan Bowl. This convention was one of the biggest turnouts with over 8000 language educators gathering in Washington D.C. for this wonderful event! It’s great to see many language educators from other languages visiting our booths and showing interest in Japanese.

Our JFLA booth was surrounded by other Japanese booths such as Kinokuniya, Kintetsu International, JPT America, AATJ (American Association of Teachers of Japanese), JNTO (Japan National Tourist Organization), and many others. The Japanese section was the second biggest section compared to other languages, which shows our strength and organization within the many languages that were present at ACTFL. It was great to connect with various booths related to Japanese as places such as JNTO were able to provide information regarding travels to Japan as well as booths such as JPT America and Kinokuniya that were able to provide Japanese language education resources.

Not only there were resources, there were panels in regards to Japanese language teaching from Friday through Sunday. The panels had J-LEAP participants and they talked about working with their lead teachers and there were also AATJ Advocacy Sessions where our Director Hideki Hara made a quick speech and our Advocacy Coordinator had an opportunity to talk about resources and information about advocacy as well as the Japanese Language Education Survey. There were teachers from other languages curious about the results and we hope to provide finalized information by upcoming spring. We enjoyed this year's ACTFL conference and look forward to attending next year!