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Greetings from afar

Posted by Jeff Oloizia on Oct. 2, 2009 | 11 comments

Hello Brookfieldians!  It's a pleasure, albeit a daunting one, to be able to add a new blog to this wonderful network of news and opinions.  I ask you, as you have quite evidently found your way here, only for your audience and also for your feedback, should you be so kind to give it.  First, an introduction.

My name is Jeff Oloizia, and for the first 18 years of my life I was fortunate enough to call Brookfield home.  I am now a 25-year-old English teacher living in Tokushima, a town of roughly 250,000 people on the small island of Shikoku in the south of Japan.  I have lived here for just over two years and enjoy both my work and leisure in Tokushima, though I find myself looking more and more these days back to the States and the life that may await me there before long.

In some ways, Brookfield and Tokushima are mildly similar.  Both are fairly conservative towns with strong support in their local schools.  Both are largely homogeneous, with Brookfield being 94% White and Tokushima almost wholly Japanese.  The two communities share many of the same virtues, as well as (in my opinion) common pitfalls.

Like their home countries, however, the two cities are also strikingly different.  Tokushima, with its gridwork of rivers and looming mountains, cuts a stark figure in contrast to the flat suburbs of Brookfield.  With an average of age of 42 years, the citizens of Brookfield are also much younger than their Far East counterparts, who share a median age of roughly 142 years.  Also, Brookfield's former mayor invented Shrinky Dinks; Tokushima's did not.  I say these things not to create a barrier between the two places, but rather to give some context for my writing to come.

What I hope to give you in subsequent entries is a view of local issues from my perspective - literally, from the East.  I can't pretend to be an expert on such issues, and admittedly by position as a liberal 20-something living on the other side of the world doesn't make me a prime candidate for commenting on the everyday happenings of Brookfield, but I expect with optimism that at least the view I can provide will be a unique one.  I hope you'll enjoy reading and interacting, and please check back soon.