Blogger Sarah Marchildon is doing something I've always wanted to do: teach English in a small Japanese town. She's an entertaining write–here's a snippet about her profound fear of volleyball:
I was told to stand in the middle of the court where I prayed for the ball to not to come my way. Every time it did, my heart sank. Instinctively, I ducked whenever it came near me. Or I stood frozen in one spot hoping that someone else would go for it.
This went on for about five minutes until one of the guys started yelling at me in Japanese. I assumed he was trying to tell me hit the ball if it came my way. And so I did. But every time my burning forearms made contact with the ball, it went wildly out of bounds or hit the net.
I always think that the women of my generation are at a disadvantage when it comes to adult, recreational team sports. Many of them spent their youth practicing individual sports, and didn't get the essential training in "what to do when a ball flies at your face".
I know, lots of women played team sports growing up. I'm just saying that lots didn't, too.
By the way, what’s your opinion on how ‘Small Town Japan’ should be punctuated? ‘Small-town Japan’ or as is?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
“Small-town” is a one-word adjective, and should be hyphenated. “Small town” suggests an adjective and a noun, as in “I grew up in the small town Hicksville”.
Does it count if you’re a girl who, while she did grow up playing recreational sports, was always really bad at them? Practice doesn’t always make perfect.
Yup. Small-town Japan is correct.
And I’m with ‘nee here. Grew up playing recreational sports but was always the last one picked for the team, which is why I turned to individual sports like swimming.
Ah phooey to those who think it needs to be hyphenated. I’ve been a professional proofreader for 25 years. There’s no grammatical structure to Small Town Japan, so there’s no need to consider “Small Town” an adjective.
If you’re going to be such a stickler about it, then you’d also have to use only one capital, i.e., Small-town Japan, since the hyphen fuses the two words. Therefore for aesthetic reasons, I would not hyphenate.