About two months after I sent my application for the JET Program, I learned that I had advanced to the interview round. By this time, I had learned more about Japan, and was even taking a Japanese history class, although at the time of my interview, I had only learned about the aboriginal Jomon people, still hundreds and hundreds of years from the present day. In any case, I was more and more confident that joining the JET Program was the right thing for me to do after graduation. My concern about my lack of teaching experience and knowledge of Japanese culture was slowly being replaced by my confidence that the JET Program could provide me with a fabulous opportunity to learn both. The challenge was to convince my interviewers that I deserved that opportunity.

I am usually a bumbling, nervous mess during interviews, but I remember being reasonably calm on my interview day. I am writing this almost four years after the interview, however, so it’s possible that I was more nervous than I remember. The interview was held at a hotel, and I remember sitting quietly in front of the closed doors of the interview room, waiting for my name to be called. When the door creaked open and a Japanese woman called my name, I got up and went to shake her hand. Firm handshake, firm handshake, I thought to myself, but she seemed to shrivel and shrink as I reached for her hand, and only when she moved away from me and back towards the two other interviewers did I realize that this interview would be conducted differently than I had anticipated.

The interview room was a standard hotel conference room, and the three interviewers-the Japanese woman who greeted me at the door and two former JET participants-were seated side-by-side at the far end of the room. My seat was at the farthest possible point from them in the room, just a few steps from the door, and the arrangement of the room reminded me of some McCarthy-era congressional hearing.My JET interview was probably my first real observation of a Japanese cultural difference, and my concentration was slightly thrown off.

As it turned out, my interviewers were very friendly. The first thing they asked me to do was to give a self-introduction of myself as if I were talking to a large group of Japanese children with minimal English skills. I have heard that some interviewers play the role of naughty Japanese children during interviews, trying to test the patience of the applicant, but my interviewers were nothing but attentive. After my self-introduction, I was asked questions that I had expected, like why I was interested in the JET Program and what I how I would contribute as an assistant language teacher. I alluded to what I had wrote in my application essay-my enthusiasm for the prospect of learning at every moment Japanese language and culture, while acting as a cultural ambassador and sharing my personal experiences. I talked about being a minority in California, and having the opportunity to address the gap between the image of California as seen in Baywatch and closet Canadian Pamela Anderson, and the reality of California’s diversity. I had become comfortable in the interview, even a little preachy at times, and the fact that my interviewers were at the opposite end of the room ceased to distract me.

I left the interview confident that I had made a good impression on my interviewers. As you already know, I was a JET Program participant for three years, so apparently, the interviewers must have liked what I had to say.