www.gbcjls.org dents, and the dance with a Japanese After the dead line, $150 registration fishing song were all enjoyable. We fee will be charged for it is treated thank parents, GBC board members as a new registration. Please read the and PTC officers detailed information letter that has who came and been distributed in each class. supported the event.

Have You Forgotten to Sign-Up Your APRIL-2019 Madoka I. Hull, Children in Students get Principal FREE Summer School T-shirts! NEWSLETTER APR- 2019 Program? Appreciation PTC Spring Sale Let’s make good use of summer We received a monetary donation vacation by learning Japanese. The PTC had a success- from Dr. & Mrs. Tamotsu Ikeda for program includes Japanese learning, ful Spring Sale the Speech Contest. arts and crafts with summer themes, on March 8th Thank you very much! exercise, cooking, making shaved – 9th. Cookie Arigato gozaimasu!! ice, a field trip, Nagashi-somen tai- sale (Cookie kai, “Fun Day” and many more fun and Stationary activities. It is an enriching program sale for pre-school) on Friday and and the best chance for your chil- Chicken Teriyaki sale / Cookie sale 2019-2020 New dren to review, learn new things and / Fishing game on Saturday were School Year catch up. The registration forms are supported by many volunteers. The Enrollment available at the office. Chicken ticket sales started low this [Summer School] year, but thanks to the strong push Registration for the 2019 - 2020 l by class reps, we sold out at the school year will start. The notice Daily Class: end! We even had a few donors who and the re-registration form will be June 24 (Mon) - Aug 2 (Fri) donated money without getting the distributed in the classes very soon. (2wks extension) tickets. Thank you very much for Please submit the re-registration Aug 5 (Mon) - Aug 16 (Fri) your support for the PTC fundrais- form to your class teacher, A.S.A.P. l Saturday Class: ing. The dead-line for the enrollment: July 6 (Sat) - July 27 (Sat) Yoko Godinez, (7/6, 13, 20, 27) PTC President n JLS Daily division: Friday, May 31 n JLS Sat. division: Saturday, June 1 Campaign for Summer ＊ After these dates, $20 late fee % Gakushu Happyo-kai, 50 School will be charged. OFF Class Presentations Enrollment

On March 30th, the Daily and Sat- To Preschool 4-year-old parents: For new enrollees, the enrollment urday combined Class Presentations Please note that for preschoolers fee for the Summer were held successfully. Each class who are entering JLS kindergar- School is 50% off practiced hard and did a great pre- ten from this fall, the dead line is during the month of sentation. All the programs, singing different. April. Please let your and skits by lower grade students, n Deadline - Saturday, May 11 friends and relatives presentations by high school stu- know. APRIL 2019 Page-2 FUJI-MATSURI BAZAAR - May 4th Standing in front of assembled reporters, Chief Cabinet Secretary held up a placard with callig- Date: Saturday, May 4th, 11 AM - 6 PM raphy of the two characters that make up the new 令和 Place: Gardena Buddhist Church name: Reiwa, written in Japanese as . Entrance fee: Free Emperor is set to abdicate his position at the Many booths will be at the Bazaar: vegetable and end of the month, the first time for a Japanese emperor to do so flower plants, various food booths (sushi, udon noodles, in more than 200 years. That moment will also mark the end of teriyaki chicken, hot dogs, shish kebabs, Okinawa-dan- the period, which began when Akihito became emperor in go and so on), used goods, crafts, and games for chil- 1989. 令 dren. Shows will be held for entertainment The first of the two kanji in Reiwa, , means “order,” in the 和 as well. It will be a fun day for everyone. sense of “orderly calm.” The second , means “peace” or “har- mony” and is also commonly used to refer to itself (stem- The language school and Nakayoshi ming from Yamato, written 大和 , one of the name’s used for preschool will be closed on May 4th. Japan long ago). As such, the meaning of Reiwa could be inter- preted as “Orderly Peace” or “Orderly Harmony,” or, in a larger sense, “an orderly, peaceful Japan.”

Graduation Field Trip Following the unveiling of the new era name, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose cabinet selected Reiwa from among proposals Thanks to PTC for their fundraisers in fall and spring to offered by a panel of scholars, spoke about the choice. While all support our graduation trip. We are able to implement previous era names, such as the current Heisei, have often been a field trip again this year for our upper grade students. based on auspicious phrases from Chinese literature, Reiwa is the We appreciate the PTC board members, JLS parents first to come from a Japanese source, and is taken from a poem who supported the events and GBC for providing trans- about plum blossoms in the Manyoshu, the oldest printed collec- portation. I hope everyone will have a safe and fun ex- tion of Japanese poetry, which was compiled in the 8th century. perience with their peers. In his address, Abe said that the idea that “Culture is born through the beauty of people caring for one another” is included in the For: 6th to 12th grade cabinet’s interpretation of the new era’s name. He also spoke on Destination: Disneyland how the Manyoshu was read not just by nobles and aristocrats, but Date: Saturday, April 27th also by the common people, and that the name Reiwa represents a Chaperons: Ms Uehara, Mr. Yashiro, Ms Nelson desire to carry Japan’s traditions into the new age. “After a cold winter, spring comes. Like beautiful plum blos- For the detailed information, please read the notice and soms, the Japanese people, with hope for tomorrow in their instructions distributed in each class. hearts, can each make flowers bloom,” Abe said. The Reiwa era officially begins at the stroke of midnight on May Japan’s New Era Name, Reiwa 1, the same moment in which Emperor Akihito officially abdi- cates and his son Crown Prince becomes Japan’s new (A part omitted) emperor. After more than a year of intense speculation and anticipation, Sora News24(https://soranews24.com/2019/04/01/japan-announces-new-era- name-reiwa-but-what-does-it-mean-and-why-was-it-chosen/) the name of Japan’s new imperial era was announced on April 1. Sources: Yahoo! Japan News/Oricon News, YouTube/ 首相官邸

SCHOOL CALENDAR May 15th Sat (Sat. Div.) 3rd Trimester Ends 4th Sat School Closed (Fujimatsuri ) (Sat. Daily.) Graduation Ceremony (9am) 27th Mon School Closed (Memorial Day ) Summer Session June 6/24th Mon (Daily Div) Summer School Begins 14th Fri (Daily Div.) 3rd Trimester Ends 7/4th Thus School Closed (Independence Day) PTC Pizza Party for JLS 7/6th Sat (Sat. Div.) Summer School Begins PTC Pizza Party for JLS (7/6, 13, 20, 27)