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When we were planning on RV'ing full time as a Family, there was limited information out there. Most seemed to be doing it as a couple or singles during retirement. Greg followed Gefke.com for about a year that chronicled the Gefke Family adventure and primarily was described from the Mom's perspective in her journal that ended up going on a pretty heavy Christian conversion mission. Jenn and Greg both were looking hard at the mobile marketing industry and applied for some positions learning that they primarily bought and outfitted their own vehicles and hired young single people to man their events. Some traveled, some were hired out of the local market as needed. We also pursued Dell and Microsoft contacts trying to convince them that a Family on the road could inspire others while sharing and demonstrating their products. We got pretty close to a Microsoft effort that was going into peoples home to document how they used Microsoft products but they set out wanting single people with anthropology backgrounds. We followed workersonwheels.com and learned that they seemed to primarily help people find camp hosting, construction security, and medical field type jobs. We also joined the forum at familiesontheroad.com which has a wealth of information archived from forum discussions and a great community that will discuss anything with you. We also found lots of worthless information from RV manufacturers and those in the industry.
During Jenn's discussions in the forum on familiesontheroad.com, she stumbled on some posts from a Japanese TV station requesting participants that live or are getting ready to live in an RV. Jenn let the producer know we'd be interested and soon after we had four Japanese strangers following us around for about a month as we began the lifestyle. They all became close friends despite only one of them knowing good English. We all got along fantastic and the documentary aired to over 10 million Japanese viewers. NHK TV was described to us as the Japanese BBC or American PBS. It has continued airing on international stations. The Nodlands were the other family with children in the documentary and have some of the letters sent from Japanese viewers on their website. Our website was not up at the time but we hope to hear from any viewers out there!
The process started with a few emails with Kenshi (right, but not Kes or Austin). Kenshi set up a meeting with Hide (Hi-Dee) who came in from Japan to meet with us. The picture above was from our first meeting with just the two producers in our Issaquah home. This was before we sold any stuff. We goofed and sold most our stuff before they came back with the crew, they wanted to have pictures of the stuff and us selling it, so we just sold more of our stuff. We also ended up borrowing a friends dining room table to have a last meal in the house then we broke it up and burned it in the woodstove for our last fire and warmth in the comforts of a 'real' home (didn't have to see those guys with the table again anyway).
The first crew of four came weeks later. These guys followed us around for approximately two weeks at two different times. In between the first and last time they followed us - they spent time traveling with the Nodland family who has done a great site on their experience. We have since become great friends and nationwide neighbors with the Nodland family.
Hide wanted to stay and go to school at Issaquah Elementary but there's something weird about an older male from a foreign country being allowed to stay with children in a suburban American school. That's too bad.
Jenn and Sunny had spent a LOT of time in Kesley's kindergarten class and they chose to lead the discussion about why these Japanese guys were following us around with cameras and microphones and couldn't understand a word they were saying. (because they didn't stay in school and listen to their teachers and they suffer from the curse of broken tongue).
Most of the pictures we took were from the kids school on the day we were taking them out to go on the road. Above Kosi shows Sunny the Hi-definition camera used to film.
Despite the language barrier, we became great friends with all of them. Above is Kosi and Austin.
It was incredible how much could be heard from the boom mic. Katz was helping Austin listen in...
Kosi, Katz, Hide, and Kenshi. Sunny wanted to go home with them to Japan and we might've let her if the Nazi's hadn't invaded Germany.
Call me sometime!
NHK gave us a copy of the video that was all in Japanese. During the filming they were really interested in how we were going to stay 'connected' on the internet and where would we work on the computers and all. At the time we were so ready to not even turn on a computer or have email. We had briefly looked into staying connected, but in May '01 our choices were very limited. Two way consumer satellites for internet connectivity were just hitting the market and the equipment was upwards of $8,000 plus over $100/month for speeds just slightly better than dial up. Wireless technology was just taking hold so there was no (or very few) coffee houses and libraries where we could go connect. The internet through a mobile phone was extremely expensive and horrifically slow. So we just got a dial up account and connected when we could.
After discussing all this with NHK, they were still dumbfounded that we would consider being disconnected. Turns out the documentary was named 'Cyber Cowboys' (translation). The Japanese were really blown away that we could leave connectivity and a job like we had ~ from their culture it was simply unheard of. What's really ironic is that the Japanese live in tiny places and Dad goes off to work and stays overnight in hotels that are little more than a morgue drawer and meanwhile typical Americans can't believe a Family of five with two dogs and a cat can live in a 37' RV full time.
We watched the video and could understand most of it despite it being in Japanese. They dubbed Greg and Jenn's voices with younger Japanese voices and Ed and Cheryl Nodlands with more mature Japanese voices. (he he...). We think they did a really great job capturing the emotion and passion of what we were embarking upon. We got the closing shot driving over Seattle's floating bridge. A friend of ours that knows Japanese later viewed the documentary and let us know that it was very powerful and portrayed us well.
Thanks NHK! Now bring us over to Japan for a follow up and tour!
>> In the meantime, we got some stuff we gotta do ~ See ya Washington!...