No Home Town?

[Rising_Sunshine]

So I have been immersing myself in you tube videos about the JET program in order to pass the time until the interviews announced and I noticed that most people are asked to represent there home town and sometimes teach lessons about where they grew up (especially the self introduction) as a military brat I cant really say that I have a home town. There is the place I was born (which I only lived until I was about 7) or the various places I lives for a short time (Texas, California, Italy, Alabama, Georgia, ect.) where I graduated school and where my parents live( Mississippi) or where I live now (DC) but I wonder how it is looked upon by the people making decisions.

I had this question when I was filling out my application back in November since it asked point blank "what is the hometown you will be representing?" but I sort of panicked and put down where I graduated from since my parents still live there even though I only lived there for 2 years myself. At first I thought being a military brat and moving around a lot would be a plus because it means I can handle stress and living overseas (culture-shock ect.) but now I worry if I might be missing that "hometown American" experience JET is looking for.

So, thoughts?

p.s. I know there is nothing I can do about it so I'm not really worried but its something to occupy some time at least

[randomguy]

It's just the place you feel most comfortable representing. For example, I ended up not putting down my current city of residence, but somewhere quite different. If it comes up during the potential interview, I could also use it to talk about the different cities I've been to, and get to show my enthusiasm for them, so I don't really see it as a bad thing. As for the "hometown experience," moving around is your experience as an American, which is just as real, so I'm sure it won't count against you.

From the US Questions Thread:

7. Basically, it just means which town do you want to represent as a JET? If you moved a lot, which feels the most like a "hometown?" Or is there a nearby city that you think you'd rather be representative of compared with the suburb you actually live in? Or perhaps you want to claim you're from the place where you went to college or university? Sometimes this question can influence placement, as occasionally contracting organizations specifically request JETs from a sister city or a sister state. It also gives your future coworkers a little bit more information to get ready to research about you (for example, your mailing address may currently be in Los Angeles, but if you actually grew up in Boston your whole life, you may want to say that you're from Boston; there can be a big difference between someone from LA and someone from Boston).

[SakuraHoshi]

Maybe you can use this to your advantage. You've lived in lots of different places, therefore have experienced a wider variety of life in the US. You can talk about the similarities/differences of the places in your self-intro to show that the US is diverse (and thus start to break down your students' possible preconceptions about everywhere being the same). If you want to focus on a particular place and represent it in detail, you could just choose the place you felt most at home in, or the place that would be the most interesting to talk about.

[Cytrix]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you have to say somewhere, choose somewhere that has felt more like home for you than anything else. For me, my home town consists of 10 farming families in a village that consists of paddocks and a garage...and that's it. Not exactly exciting...so when I represent my 'home town' I talk about New Zealand as a whole and all the places within it.

[AVN]

As many people have said just pick a city you feel or felt comfortable in.
For me I grew up in the middle of nowhere went to school in a small town where my family were in a way outsiders, high school was in a different town and my parents worked in the big city. So I refer to the province as my home or if need be the big city as I went to uni there.
In Japanese the word for hometown has a very flexible meaning, country, state/province, city, town etc.

[nicklar]

Agree with all the above. It certainly something that you can use to your advantage. More than likely you will be posted somewhere where all the kids have grown up in the same place with very few of their peers moving in or out. So the life you've lived will be something they will be interested to hear about. You can even make games like 'Find the towns where Sunshine-sensei has lived'

[Rising_Sunshine]

Agree with all the above. It certainly something that you can use to your advantage. More than likely you will be posted somewhere where all the kids have grown up in the same place with very few of their peers moving in or out. So the life you've lived will be something they will be interested to hear about. You can even make games like 'Find the towns where Sunshine-sensei has lived'

I like it

[Crowbeak]

Speaking as a fellow military brat, the adaptability that develops from moving around all the time is a huge plus for this job. You have a certain flexibility that will help you daily, in addition to being able to settle in to life in a strange place more easily. Another thing to keep in mind is that ALTs are regarded, to an extent, as harbingers of diversity. The first English class I stepped into as an ALT, my JTE asked me what I knew about New Zealand. "o_O Er... it's where they filmed The Lord of the Rings?"

[Rising_Sunshine]

Speaking as a fellow military brat, the adaptability that develops from moving around all the time is a huge plus for this job. You have a certain flexibility that will help you daily, in addition to being able to settle in to life in a strange place more easily. Another thing to keep in mind is that ALTs are regarded, to an extent, as harbingers of diversity. The first English class I stepped into as an ALT, my JTE asked me what I knew about New Zealand. "o_O Er... it's where they filmed The Lord of the Rings?"

Good to know, I guess I should try to work that into the interview (should I get one) lol at the LOTR comment.

[ume no hana]

Your flexibility and ability to adapt to different and multiple environment will serve you well in the JET program, I think.
If I were you, I would emphasize that in the interview.

[wiensama]

I seem to have found this thread a little late, but I, too, am in the same situation.

I'm also a military brat. I chose to represent a small town where I spent the most time in. Its odd really because when people here in California ask where I am from I say Minnesota, yet when I go anywhere else in the world or even the United States I say I am from California. I adore California and am not exactly fond of my small town, however, if the students wish to compare school related topics, or what I did around their age, I would only be able to talk about Minnesota's school system. So that is why I chose to represent Minnesota. I will probably talk about California as well, just not as extensively; I'm sure the students would love to hear about the differences between a town and a city across the United States. (Does anyone else plan on doing this?)

Otherwise all my other places I will probably only mention, or talk about outside of class, since my time there was about 3 year or less. While I know their cultural differences and daily life routines, I dont feel like I can represent them as strongly.

[Yiuel]

I was born in small town in the northern part of Ontario, Canada. And while some parts of me come from my having lived in English Ontario for the first 6 years of my life, I cannot say that I feel comfortable representing anything from Ontario. I've lived far too long in the neighbouring (French-speaking) province that I felt more comfortable representing Montreal, (Quebec, Canada) where I live now.

[trout501]

The short and long answer is that it doesn't matter. If Japanese people ask you where you're from, the only answer 99% of them are going to understand (and want to hear) is really just "America." Some of them know the difference between New York and Washington - or at least that there is a difference, and it mainly has to do with where Ichiro plays baseball; but let's face it, when you're talking about a country on the other side of the world, that's about as detailed as it gets outside of geography class. I don't mean to say that Japanese people are especially unworldly. If a Chinese person told me their hometown, I think I'd be in the same situation! I know where Hong Kong is, that it was once ruled by the British, and I know that Beijing is somewhere to the northeast of it and had the Olympics. Not much else. God help me if a Chinese person is from an interior province.

The difference here is that you can at least educate, or entertain, with pictures, clothing, foods, music, and other things that represent where you are from - note I don't say "where you were born" or "where you grew up." If it feels like a lie, then ask yourself who is going to know (or care)? I used a picture in my self-introduction lesson of a family friend and called him my uncle, just because the JTE asked for a picture of my family and I wanted to show a picture of an American barbeque (it was the only picture I had of somebody grilling).

Some of these pictures will come in handy for your self-introduction lesson, others may just come in handy in talking with other teachers about where you're from. I'm from a small Midwest suburb, but I spent a lot of time living in the Rocky Mountains, in various cities for college and work. In any case, most of my pictures are from hiking trips I've taken in the Rockies, so when I tell other teachers where I'm from and use pictures to show, it usually ends up being a photo collage of places from all over the Rocky Mountain region.

[whateverman]

I'm in a pretty similar boat. I'm originally from Ontario, having lived there at two different periods but I've lived in a few cities in British Columbia, and I've also lived in Washington State as my dad was in the Canadian military. I have that same panicky feeling when doing the application and just put down the town I live in now. While you may not be able to represent the current town you live in thoroughly, you actually have the opportunity to expose your students to the wide variety of areas that you have lived in. This isn't better/worse than someone who's only lived in one or maybe two cities, it just gives a different story that the students might not have even heard before. For instance, students might find the differences between living in Texas and living in Italy (on a US base I'm guessing?) to be fairly interesting. What may have seemed boring to you might be fascinating to them because it may be different from what they're use to. You would also have likely experienced cultural events at each of the different places that you have lived that could be incorporated into a variety of lessons (parades, folk festivals, community events, whatever). You still have all the necessary anecdotes to talk about, but on top of that you also have the ability to talk about quite a few different cities that you have lived in.

tl;dr It might be something different from your predecessor that would be fascinating to the kids, but basically it doesn't make any major difference.

[greengoo]

Like everyone else on JET you grew up in gaikoku. Nobody will ever know or care which town you grew up in. Do what I do, make up interesting lies and tell a different one every time you're asked.

-GG in Tijuana.