Ronn Patton
ALT 1990-91, Saitama-ken |
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 My
name is Ronn Patton, and I was selected to participate on the 1990-91
JET Program. After the program, I stayed in my Japanese city of Kumagaya-shi,
Saitama-ken and continued to teach at a private language school, until
my return to the Bay Area in the summer of 1993.
 The
JET Program has influenced my life in so many ways. It helped me to choose
education as my career. It led me to stay involved in the Program through
JETAA and become co-president. It helped me to better understand the Japan
that I had only visited before, by letting me live and work with the Japanese
people and experience the ups and downs of daily life. It gave me lifelong
friends both on and off the program, in Japan and around the world. And
most importantly, it allowed me to meet my wife Reiko, and to establish
a second life and family in Japan. I am very fortunate to be able to continue
this connection to the Japan that I grew to love as a JET.
To try and cite one particularly memorable episode is quite difficult
to do. Making friends with a local restaurant owner and becoming the godparent
to his two daughters, Kaori and Ayaka, comes to mind.
 I
remember my first week in Kumagaya consisted of meeting everyone at City
Hall, the Board of Education, my schools and so on. But in the evening,
I was free to explore my new home by bicycle. As I set out to find something
to eat, I noticed a small ramen shop with the traditional orange lantern
hanging in the doorway. I stopped and entered, and was greeted by a young
Japanese man who introduced himself, in somewhat broken English, as Ken
Sekine. I introduced myself as well, and explained my purpose for being
in Kumagaya. After eating the best gyoza in Saitama, we exchanged phone
numbers, with his earnest promise to call on his day off. And he did!
Since that day, Ken and his family have treated me as a part of their
family, and I always visit them each year when I go home.  My
eldest goddaughter Kaori is now studying English in high school, and loves
to practice everytime she sees me or talks to me on the phone. Meeting
and learning to accept each other as friends and family, and knowing that
it will never change, no matter how much time passes or how far apart
we are, is truly one of my most memorable, most "human" episodes.
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