We had a great time at the Purim Carnival. Meital read the story of Purim and the audience responded with rattling sounds when she mentioned the name of the evil Haman. We ate cookies called Haman’s ears (Hamantashen).
There was a good turnout of Japanese and foreign guests.
第九回プーリム・カーニバル の写真
13 Photos
今年も八百津町で、イスラエルのお祭り「プーリム・カーニバル」を行います。
このお祭りが何を意味しているのか知っていますか？ハマンという悪い大臣がペルシャ
のユダヤ人を絶滅する計画を立てました。しかし、ペルシャのユダヤ人は王妃エステル( エスター) によって救われたのです。それを記念するお祭りです。プーリムの物語は、ユダヤ人の運命が悩みから喜びに変わった日なのです。今日では人々は毎年、一日だけ変身するのです。
日時：３月４日（日）午後１時３０分～午後３時３０分（受付は午後１時から）
場所：八百津町福祉センター「夢広場ゆうゆう」１階
参加料：前売り券２００円 役場産業課・役場各出張所にてご購入ください
当日券３００円 八百津町福祉センター（夢広場ゆうゆう）のみ販売
内容：プーリムのお話、仮装パーレド、仮装コンテスト、マジックショー、ゲーム大会などなど
参加者全員に記念写真・おかしのプレゼントもありますよ！
お問い合わせ：八百津町役場 産業課 地域振興係 ０５７４－４３－２１１１（内線２２５２）
みんなさんのご参加を心よりお待ちしております。
It has become a tradition to celebrate in Yaotsu Town the most enjoyable Jewish festival “Purim“. Please join us this year, on March 4th, Sunday, and enjoy the holiday spirit!!!
So, what is it all about? During Purim we celebrate the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman. Since the Jewish people luck had changed for the better the most famous custom of the holiday is to dress up as you like! we also get a chance to change ourselves for one day…
On March 4th we are holding in Yaotsu a costume party and a costume parade. You can also enjoy a magic show, games, taste traditional holiday cookies, listen to Purim traditional story and much more!
Date and Time: March 4th, Sunday, 13:30-15:30. Reception begins at 13:00.
Place: Yaotsu Town Welfare Center, first floor.
Fee: advance selling: 200yen -tickets are on sale in Yaotsu City Hall Industry division, and the Industry divison branches around Yaotsu.
On the same day: 300yen- in Yaotsu Welfare Center.
For more information call the Industry division: 0574-43-2111(extention 2252).
See you on March 4th, Yaotsu Purim Carnival!!! Let`s have fun together!
The Yaotsu International Club met at Jindo no Oka on February 5th. We discussed plans to advertise the Purim Carnival, which will be held on Sunday March 4th.
As a foreigner living in Yaotsu, I wish there was more information – on the Internet, in my language – that would help me on a continual basis.
Yaotsu Town’s website is mostly in Japanese but it has pretty much all the information I need – a calendar of events, bus schedules, emergency services… The Yaotsu Town website is already partially translated to English and Hebrew, particularly sections of the site dealing with Chiune Sugihara and the Hill of Humanity.
Other parts of the Yaotsu Town website can be automatically translated into other languages using machine translation. I use Google Chrome as my browser; if I right click on a web page I call up a menu which includes a translate-to-English function. It works very well. Visitors using other browsers can translate Yaotsu’s website (or any website) by going to http://translate.google.com/ and typing in the web address of the page you want to read.
Machine translation technology is improving. While it is far from perfect it is much better than nothing!
Unfortunately machine translation does not work well for pdf pages. And a lot of the content I need from the Yaotsu Town site is only available in pdf format. For example the access guide page links to Toutetsu Bus and Yao Bus services in and out of Yaotsu, but those pages are all in Japanese pdf formats. Bus schedules contain a lot of place names, and these are particularly difficult for foreigners to read. Toutestu Bus schedules are external links and not really Yaotsu Town’s responsibility. The Yao Bus schedule is Yaotsu’s responsibility. Either way, none of this information is available in other languages and I think it should be.
Another example is the Town’s calendar of events, which includes festivals, health information, garbage collection, etc. Here is the November 2011 calendar. It contains essential information for November, but this page is only in Japanese and as a pdf cannot easily be translated by machine.
The Yaotsu International Club and Yaotsu Town should discuss romanizing the bus schedules (ie. publishing a version of the bus schedules with the bus stops written in roman letters). We should discuss reformatting the calendar of events so machine translation can be used: or perhaps we could write an English version.
Nous recherchons un volontaire pour traduire cette page en français.
Pour l’instant, lire cette page en anglais ou en japonais s’il vous plaît.
Here are some points which I hope the Kokusaikoryukai will discuss at the next meeting:
1. Let’s decide the domain name and site name. Let’s all brainstorm some names at the next meeting and choose. I hope this will only take 15 minutes.
2. Let’s decide who will be the site’s chief editor. The person should be comfortable using a computer. I hope this will only take 15 minutes, and hopefully somebody will volunteer: but what will we do if nobody volunteers??
3. Let’s talk about content… What do foreigners want on the site? What would be interesting for Japanese people in Yaotsu? Let’s discuss ideas for 30 minutes or so!
The typhoon is raging!
Today I have received 8 email notices from Yaotsu Yakuba with important information regarding the typhoon. They were all in Japanese, and all were important to protecting the health and welfare of people in our town. I believe it would be a good idea to have these messages translated to other languages for foreigners here.
Nagoya has an info site in English, published through the Nagoya International Center.
http://www.nic-nagoya.or.jp/saigai/?p=132
Let’s follow Nagoya’s example and have this kind of information available in Yaotsu as soon as possible!!
This is my tenth year in Yaotsu but I fell in love with the town long before that, maybe 17 years ago..
I first came here with my wife (at that time she was my girlfriend) on a date. We got lost that day, drove around and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. After we married we lived for a while in Kani; we regularly came for hiking, for Yaotsu’s festivals, to visit Jindo-no-oka, and just to relax in the parks.
Then I had several opportunities to do volunteer work at Yaotsu elementary school. It shocked me that such a pretty, quiet, small town could be so international! When my son was born we decided Yaotsu would be a wonderful place for him to grow up and we built our house in Kitayama.
I thank Yaotsu for all it has given me and hope that I may give something back.
this month on the 25th there will be a concert at jindoniooka.
please register at the yakuba.
