MiteMite

For the Japanese it is very important to maintain and develop their cultural life. This is especially true when the live abroad. A lot of Japanese are sent to other countries as expatriates, working there for a certain period of time. Some of them are able to take their families with them, others can't. In any case it is important for them to get in touch with other Japanese and learn about the local facilities and habits.

Compared to other cities in Germany, the Japanese in and around Nuremberg are only poorly linked. There are huge Japanese communities in Düsseldorf or Munich, but that’s different here: There are only around 250 officially registered Japanese in the Metropolitan Region.

We wanted to change the bad state of networking, so we founded the “German-Japanese family and culture association of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region” together with a couple of like-minded people in late 2011. As a first project, my wife and I launched mitemite.de in October 2011. The site is mostly Japanese, so I can read only very little of it — my wife is doing all the editorial stuff. It features several community sections like a news board, private advertisements, tips and tricks, lists of recommendations, info about the Japanese children’s group and so on.

Unfortunately, our association has been pretty inactive so far, and also the community site urgently needs some updates. It is admittedly not very well optimized and should be way more mobile friendly. Originally I planned to take care of it around the end of this year — then came this personal site of mine ...