The Administration and Alumni of Saint Maur International School, the hosting school, would like to cordially invite alumni from all international schools, their families and friends to the IACJapan Natsumatsuri 2012. This is a great networking opportunity for everyone; reminiscing with old friends and meeting new friends while enjoying live entertainment, sports events in the gym, games for the children but also all the various food stalls and beverages.

Date:

Saturday, June 16, 2012 (rain or shine)

Time:

10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Venue:

Saint Maur International School
(In scenic Yamate area of Yokohama. Motomachi Chukagai Station on Minato Mirai line or Ishikawa-cho Station on JR Keihin Tohoku line.)

Established in 1872, Saint Maur International School is celebrating its 140th year providing quality education in a family environment.

Saint Maur website www.stmaur.ac.jp
IACJapan website www.iacjapan.com/iacjWP/

Hosted by Nishimachi International School & the Nishimachi-Kai

On Saturday, June 18, 2011, Nishimachi International School and the Nishimachi-Kai opened its doors once again to host the IACJapan Natsumatsuri event.

Although the weather wasn’t perfect, we had over 400 paying guests who signed up at the door and then helped us through cases of beer, wine and soft drinks, hamburgers & hotdogs, falafel and roast chicken.

As usual, we had the stage and basically all areas covered by tents to protect people from either the hot sun or rain, and luckily for all of us the rain didn’t start until around 3 p.m., just as the raffle drawings were held and the final band of the day had set up on stage.

The booths for the day began with registration, a massage tent, the ennichi area for kids to play games and do face painting, the Children’s Heartwork Project where kids could draw paintings to be sent to the kids in Tohoku, and then the food and beverage booths.

The entertainment for the day began from 10 a.m. with:

• Noli Bravo and the Kaiona Project (Hawaiian & jazz);
• Flatline, a heavy metal band with all alumni of St. Joseph’s International School from the classes of ’86 through ’89;
• Mid-Life Crisis, with alumni (maybe a bit older?) from Yokohama International School and St. Joseph’s;
• John Ken Nuzzo (St. Mary’s class of ’84) and his accompanist on piano, Mr. Go Nakajima, performing some wonderful opera and contemporary songs;
• Vintage Mojo Groove with Paul Guilfoile (St. Mary’s class of ’73);
• and Terry Christian and the Cool Hand Band, Nishimachi’s own, closing the show for the day!
• The performers were really wonderful and kindly donated their time to help us entertain the crowd for the entire day. Hats off to all of you!

A big thanks to Nishimachi International School, to the Nishimachi-Kai and to the hardworking team of IACJapan members from Sacred Heart, St. Maur International School, St. Mary’s, American School in Japan, YIS, St. Joseph’s and Nishimachi.

Click here to see photos from the day. All photos courtesy of the IACJapan official photographer, Mr. Unryu Haku!

Paul Guilfoile
Chief Soulman
IACJapan

With the support of our generous alumni donors, the IACJapan group has begun a Tohoku donation program, "Give a Gift of Warmth," to deliver kotatsu sets to the temporary homes that are being built in hundreds of townships throughout the Tohoku region.

This donation program was initiated by the St. Mary’s Alumni Association via a generous donation of ¥2 million from Mr. George Tsai, St. Mary’s class of ’73.

The ¥2 million has been used to purchase 250 kotatsu sets with futon and shiki futon. We plan to purchase 350 more in September when the kotatsu season begins, with pledges for 250 more from George Tsai and another 100 kotatsu sets pledged by Mr. Jim Reed, St. Mary’s class of ’69.

The first 250 sets were delivered on July 2, 2011, to the temporary homes that have been built in the towns of Takahashi (38 kasetsu), Jonan (54 kasetsu) and Tsurugaya (158 kasetsu), Tagajoshi, all located close together northeast of Sendai. Many townships are building these homes, and so far there are 10,000 ready with more to come. We will deliver 350 more kotatsu in the fall, and we would like to invite people to donate to the cause to increase this number and help the survivors prepare for the harsh winter of Tohoku. The IACJapan group, together with Nishimachi International School and the Nishimachi-Kai, will also be contributing a portion of the proceeds from the Natsumatsuri held on June 18, 2011, to support this cause.

How to donate

If you would like to help, you may donate via bank transfer to:

Mitusubishi-Tokyo UFJ Bank
Meguro Ekimae Branch
Account No.: 1366973
Account Name: IAC Japan

三菱東京UFJ銀行
目黒駅前支店
口座番号: 1366973
口座名: ｱｲｴｲｼｰ ｼﾞｬﾊﾟﾝ

Donation amount: ¥8,000 per kotatsu set (includes shipping to Tohoku)

Stay tuned for more from the IACJapan group and from your alumni association. We thank you for your kindness and generosity, and hope you can "Give a Gift of Warmth" to a family in Tohoku!

Paul Guilfoile
Chief Soulman

IACJapan

"Give a Gift of Warmth" in action

Letters from junior high students who volunteered to help deliver the kotatsu.

Paul Guilfoile, president and founder of the marketing consulting company Guilfoile Connections, has a firm, no-nonsense handshake and a broad smile that puts you at ease. In conversations, he switches fluidly between English and flawlessly unaccented Japanese, gesturing at times with the practiced formality of a Kabuki actor before punctuating his stories with a throaty chuckle. The son of an Italian-Irish father and a Scottish-Japanese mother, he’s both thoroughly Japanese and quintessentially American, and he prides himself on the bicultural heritage that has been one of the keys to his success.

Guilfoile started his own company after a long and accomplished career in advertising, where he spearheaded campaigns for major multinational brands such as IBM, Coca-Cola, and Uni-Lever. Ironically, he’d never planned on becoming a businessman. After growing up in Japan and graduating from St. Mary’s High School, he moved to Colorado and began studying to be a forest ranger but left school to join the army. Three years later, he spent six months building houses in New Jersey before returning to Japan to finish his degree at Sophia University.

“I was an ojin-gakusei,” he jokes, “an old-fogey student.”

His late start, however, did little to hinder his career. At the age of 29, he landed a job with esteemed marketing firm J. Walter Thompson, and was immediately assigned to one of the company’s most prestigious accounts — handling communications for the global diamond giant De Beers. Although he lacked the work experience of many of his colleagues, he possessed a far more valuable skill: the ability to understand and connect both Japanese and foreign cultures.

“The client was really happy because, for the first time, there was a guy who was not just bilingual, but bicultural,” he explains. “During my time at J. Walter Thompson, I learned the true value of having two cultures and being able to bridge the gap in understanding.”

It’s a skill that many bicultural kids don’t realize they have, one that Guilfoile tries to encourage them to cultivate. As the Alumni Chairman of St. Mary’s and the “Soulman” of the IACJ, he also acts as a student counselor and regularly emphasizes the importance of cultural insight.

While handling the account for Unilever with the advertising agency Hakuhodo, Guilfoile traveled to France to deliver a presentation on how to break into the Japanese market. Easily overlooked details, he notes, shed light on the ways that people live and what matters to them.

“In Europe, I showed them pictures of my own apartment — pictures of the genkan and slippers — because I wanted to bring them into the culture. You can’t just take products from overseas and stuff them into this market. They have to be culturally relevant,” he observes.

Guilfoile also knows that truly effective marketing relies on a thorough understanding of the product. When he signed on with the joint venture company Kirin-Tropicana, the firm had recently been taken over by PepsiCo, a company with a long history of success in the cola world but little knowledge of juice. Taking the initiative, Guilfoile collaborated with associates in the US and Hong Kong to develop a comprehensive corporate education program that covered every aspect of orange juice production — from the history of oranges and the varieties used, to resolving quality issues — and flew around the world teaching PepsiCo executives about what they were selling.

He also showed the company the value of local input. At that time, the product line was very limited, and all of the development was being done in the United States. Guilfoile pointed out the need to find creative ways to compete with the plethora of new beverages that appear on the shelves of Japanese convenience stores every season. He came up with the simple but ingenious idea of adding fruit pulp to the juice to give the product a freshness that others didn’t have, and then tweaked the Japanese text to illustrate this idea. The changes helped make the Homemade Style line one of the best-selling juice products in Japan. Thanks in part to Guilfoile’s efforts, PepsiCo eventually set up labs all over the world to develop products specifically for local markets.

After years of training companies on how to effectively adapt their products to the tastes of Japanese consumers, Guilfoile finally had the opportunity to create new products himself. During his tenure as president and chairman of Kirin-Tropicana, he and his team developed a seasonally changing line of blended juices that reflected the Japanese respect for seasonality. The idea was a hit, and Guilfoile discovered that he had a knack for coming up with innovative product concepts.

Guilfoile brings those talents to bear in his latest venture, a line of smoothies that are designed for the Japanese consumer with a pipeline of seasonal innovation in place for his new B2B business, BerrySnow. He has also been working on a line of pastas incorporating healthy Japanese ingredients such as adzuki beans and soybeans and will be announcing this product next year. The project is still in its infancy and it’s a lot of work; he’s already spent countless hours testing, tasting, and strategizing. But Guilfoile has big plans for the company and sees this new project as another way of bringing his unique skills together with his bicultural identity.

“It’s a crazy dream,” he says. “But if you have the desire to live a certain way and achieve certain goals, you have to stretch yourself. You have to believe in your dreams.”

Award-winning creative director Koichi Hama has developed campaigns for internationally renowned companies and designed distinctive logos and websites for a host of Japanese clients. Before starting his own boutique ad agency, Koichi Hama & Company, in Tokyo, the Kobe native served as chief creative officer for the Japan operations of several multinational corporations. But when asked how he first got into the advertising industry, he gives a shrug and laughs, “After art school, I had to support myself somehow, and it’s what happened to come along.”

Sipping a cappuccino in the Shirokanedai studio he shares with his associates (and, on some days, his dogs Buzz and Daisy), Hama speaks in measured tones, with the candor and precision of an East-Coast academic. Like all successful entrepreneurs, he believes in taking advantage of the opportunities that life brings his way.

His family moved from Saitama to New York City when he was two years old, and he spent much of his early childhood absorbed in drawing cars, planes, and a paper army of giant robots. Seven years later, Hama moved once again — this time to Montreal, where he lived until he was a teenager, picking up a little French and adjusting to another new cultural environment. Although it was challenging, he confesses that his most profound experience of culture shock occurred after he returned to Japan for high school.

To mitigate the difficulties of fitting into the rigid atmosphere of a typical Japanese high school, Hama’s parents opted to enroll him in Canadian Academy in Kobe.

“I feel very fortunate to have had that experience,” he says. “Attending international school gives you a different perspective on the world and makes you aware of so many possibilities.”

After graduating from high school in 1969, Hama felt drawn back to North America and, in particular, the urban intensity of 1970s New York.

“New York City at that time had a reputation as being a very dangerous, rough place, and I was fascinated by what was going on. It was the craziness of the place that attracted me,” he recalls.

The opportunity to return arose when he was accepted into the prestigious Pratt Institute, located in the then-gritty borough of Brooklyn. At Pratt, he pursued his passion for drawing and painting and received his degree in art.

With his background in the visual arts, he landed a job at a small advertising agency doing paste-ups and layouts. He soon discovered a taste for the variety that the business afforded. Working in advertising, he says, is a way to dip into different worlds without being limited to one industry.

Hama eventually made his way to Tokyo and started his own business at the age of 29.

“For boutique ad agencies and design agencies, all you need is your own abilities,” he explains. “In those days, you didn’t even need a computer, just some markers, an Exacto knife, and a sharp eye.”

These days, starting up is just as easy, but competition has become fiercer. For Hama, the secret to success lies in finding the right niche. Most of his projects have involved marketing directed toward the Japanese market for non-Japanese clients, or vice-versa. But, he warns, the industry has evolved greatly and, for those looking to get into the advertising business today, a completely new set of skills is necessary.

“So much of advertising and marketing is internet-based that the value of standalone ideas for ad executions has fallen precipitously,” he says.

Young people interested in getting into marketing should first and foremost be a student of media and technology, with specialized knowledge of the social sciences: fields such as ethnography, sociology, and psychology. Competitiveness in the industry has become a much more intellectual and strategic exercise, less about an instinctive sense of how to communicate visually and more about understanding how to best leverage various media.

Unsurprisingly, Hama is thinking about how to branch out in this new era and has been turning his attention to the HR side of companies.

“Marketing isn’t going to go away,” he says. “But it’s becoming increasingly important that the people who are planning the marketing campaigns understand what the brand is about, and that gets you into the realm of human resources and organizational development.”

Strategy, as they say, is everything.

I have returned safely from Miyagi (Ishinomaki, Higashi Matsushima).

I have joined the Tokyo Metropolitan/Disaster Volunteer Force from April 29th-May 6th,
and was posted up in Yoshihama/Ishinomaki, and Omagari/Higashi Matsushima.
I ended up being appointed as a leader of a 50 staff team, and our mission was to scoop tons of mud,
clean rubbles, clean fish factories, and more.

I have never gone through such tense, tough, and sad experience in my life,
and my whole perspective of life and values have completely changed.

One of our mission area was an elementary school in Ishinomaki region.
It was a 4 story concrete building, and the strongest building in town.
Many people came to the school to join their children, and to stay safe,
but the school stood right on the pass of the tsunami.
The whole school got washed away, and no one survived.

From watching numerous footage on television, I thought I knew what to expect,
but being there and in the front line was something completely different.

In example, we had to clean a fish processing factory that was totally wiped out.
There were fish and clams all over the area.
The smell of dead and rotten fish together with broken sewage and missing bodies were just horrible.
Could not wash away the smell from my body, clothes, and vehicle for at least few days.
This is the sort of thing that you just cannot tell from TV screens.

Our location were in front of the ocean coast,
and we were under constant fear of what would happen if another tsunami struck.
The scary part is that there were no hills nor tall buildings around our mission area in Higashi Matsushima.
The tsunami siren was also washed away, and thus there were no source of alarm.
I was surprised to find the risk management so poor. We had to defend ourselves…but how…
As the leader of the group, my responsibility was to protect our staffs.
I have never been in the army, but I felt as if so.
I felt as if I was the commander of a troop, responsible of the lives of our staffs.

We had to wear a suit which were waterproof but had no ventilation.
We had to wear dust proof masks and goggles and helmets,
and through our long hard labor, it felt like working in a sauna suit.
I thought I would faint from the heat, and then freeze from the cold wind blowing against my wet undershirt.
The mud that we scooped had sea water inside and we put them into bags that eventually weighed 30kg per bag.
We worked from 6am, and our evening meetings lasted till 2am.
We all slept in sleeping bags with only 2-3 hours sleep…and then back to the battlefield again…

Horrible environment, super hard labor, dangerous mission, the whole thing was like being in war or hell.
Everyone was tired and worried, and there were constant arguements, disagreements,
and fights among staffs that I had to stop and settle.

By being there, I have learned that the situation up there is far beyond our imagination.
It was hard to believe that it actually is reality.

The survivors up there need as much hands as possible, and there is so much to do.
I have spoken with many victims, and it is so sad to know that they are living in such cruel environment.
Water and electricity are still cut. Bugs that sting is all over, and I encountered snake when I
was carrying out matsuri drums from the kominkan…
Every discomfort that you can imagine is the situation up there.

We dug out the muds from the waterway, for the muds blocked the way.
We need to clean the waterway before the rainy season so to avoid floodings.
We were told to be careful when digging mud, for we might find bodies.
We did not find any this time, but we were told to report to the national guard once we find one.
I have never felt so close to life and death situation.

I could keep on going and write a whole book about my experience, but I will stop here.

My message is, the survivors will need helping hands and funds for a very very long time.
We need to do whatever we can, and sustain it for years to come. We just cannot let it fade away.

I wondered if I should share my very sad experience with you all,
but we believe that it is important for us to speak of what we saw and experienced, and to pass the words.
We believe that it is important to let as many people know that such crucial condition is still continuing.
Towns and villages with similar situation lies all over the coastline.
There will never be too many hands. It seemed to me as if it will take forever to bring back the normal life.

I have begun planning my next volunteer activities. I feel strongly the need to go back there again soon.

I have attached some photos that I took of where our mission took place.

Fumitaka John Torio

Date: April 3, 2011

Support Groups:

IACJapan – International Alumni Council of Japan (website being rebuilt)

The IACJapan group supports member alumni associations and their schools including St. Mary’s, the International School of the Sacred Heart, St. Maurs, Nishimachi International School, ASIJ, YIS, Marist Brothers (Kobe), the Canadian Academy (Kobe) and St. Josephs and regularly holds networking events for alumnus in Japan.

On June 18th, the IACJapan group will be holding its annual NATSUMATSURI at Nishimachi International School to help raise funds for the survivors in the Tohoku area.

L&D NPO – (http://twitter.com/LDSendai) An NPO staffed by local Tohoku college students and headquartered within the Sendai Town Hall. This group is directed by a seasoned former business executive with direct contacts to politicians and the shelters and schools throughout the area.

The focus of L&D is to get food and other necessities to the right locations on a daily basis. They ensure that their contributions are appropriate supplements to what the government officials provide to the survivors and they also search for survivors who can’t get to the shelters and have no means of feeding their families.

Current Environment:

After 3 weeks, the roads in the Tsunami area of Ishinomaki have been cleared so that vehicles can move about. People have begun returning to their homes in some areas to sort out belongings. These areas are mostly about 4 to 5 kilometers inland. In the areas closer to where the tsunami came in, there is nothing but destruction. I saw that some people were able to move back into their homes, but these were very few. Within the first kilometer to the water, there is no electricity, gas or running water. The scale of the destruction is hard to describe as it just goes on for miles and miles.

Relief Delivery:

The beginning of this program started with Ted Skillman (former IACJ chairman) organizing an initial trip up with Tim Exley (IT specialist) and Tom Ward (ASIJ parent).  Their initial trip up was supported by the L&D NPO, in which the basic status of the devastation and necessary support measures were evaluated.

On Sunday, April 3rd, 2011, Ted Skillman (ASIJ ’73) and Paul Guilfoile (St. Mary’s ’73) took a load of food provided by the Second Harvest Group http://www.2hj.org/ and left at 6am from Tokyo arriving at 10:30am in Sendai city. The shipment included, bananas, apples, raisins, cup ramen, candy & cookies, adult diapers and bread rolls.

L&D in the meantime went to pick up one pallet of oranges that was delivered to a warehouse in Sendai and contributed by Chuck Olson, the president of the largest citrus importer in Japan, GOLD SPAN.

The initial delivery was to an area with survivors who had no access to the shelters (see photos) After one week, they have managed to settle in and clean up their homes. We dropped off a few boxes of oranges, apples, bananas and a few other items for their neighborhood.

Although we had plans to go to another hinanjo (shelter), this lady directed us to another one with 500 survivors and many kids.

With all of these hinanjo, we need to first go in and ask for permission to distribute product. When they heard we had fresh oranges, they immediately set up a few tables for us; we backed our trucks in and began to hand out oranges and much more to a steady stream of excited survivors.

We let them take as much as they wanted with some people carting away 20 – 30 oranges at once for their families. Many of the elderly thanked us profusely and had big smiles on their faces. The kids kept coming back for more and were curious about the two foreigners handing out the food. There’s a photo with a 13-year-old girl who asked to take some photos with us and her smile was amazing.

After unloading and distributing all of the product we had with us, we took off for a quick tour of the town. The devastation is incredible and extensive. There are some photos showing makeshift graves that number up to 10,000. These graves are rare as the crematoriums cannot operate yet. They have also run out of coffins in which most of the deceased have been buried with simple numbers above each grave.

In Summary:

Ted and I returned home at 3am after another long drive back. The cost of the trip worked out to close to roughly 30,000 yen with gas and tolls and the drive itself took a total of 10 hours round trip.

Next Trip:

After this, we are planning for the delivery of 200 computers which Symantec has offered to donate and set up. We are also planning to take a few 100 bicycles, which are being offered by a company in Nagoya. Tim has informed us that we now have a donation of 40,000 tons of rice and 100,000 bottles of water  and we are in discussions with L&D to deliver it to the survivors.

Separate from this, I am initiating a relief program via the St. Mary’s Alumni Association (SMAA)   http://alum.smis.ac.jp/  for the long term needs of the survivors. We will be delivering 1,000 kotatsu (donated by George Tsai St. Mary’s ’73) and futon (still negotiating with relevant companies) to Sendai and we will be setting up a fund to help keep this going for the Fall as well, so please stay tuned.

This is all for now. To view the photos from our trip, go to IACJapan Disaster Relief PhotoAlbum:

Thanks again to all who have contributed to the people of Tohoku!

Paul Guilfoile
SMAA Chairman & IACJapan Soulman

Ted Skillman
Former IACJapan Chairman

We CAN make a difference!

A portion of the fees collected at Natsumatsuri 2011 will go to relief activities for victims of 東日本大震災 (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) .