What It Feels Like to Return to Japan as a Japanese American: S10E4

Ken Hirano was born in Japan but his family moved to the U.S. before he started school. He returned to Japan to live a few times in his life, and now is one of them. He moved back to Tokyo about a year ago and recently (wrote a post on LinkedIn) on this geographic anniversary about his cultural and language identity. And that is what we are digging into today. 

This identity path took us through how he feels in different languages, why he feels more simple and defenseless in Japanese than English, how Japanese locals versus expats in Japan treat his Japanese & Americanness and where he is the most comfortable. Spoiler: none of these issues have a clearly defined answer and that is what made this nuanced discussion with Ken so interesting to have.  

Original publication date: September 28, 2020

More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If I could visualize the Japanese part of my brain, it's really two parts. It's a childhood kind of uh sort of a semi-native kind of part, and there's another part that I learned as an adult, which is which is not. So it's extremely awkward for me, sort of, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_05 0:21

Hey there, this is Stephanie from Stefffuccio.com, where we have Globally Minded Podcasts and Podcast Services. I am pleased to share another episode of Geopad's Language, where we explore our relationship to the languages that touch our lives, through conversations with our global guests. In this episode, we are headed over to Tokyo, Japan to talk to Ken Hirano. Ken is a friend of mine that I met in a book club while we both lived in Shanghai, China, I want to say about two years ago. He was born in Japan, but his family moved to the US before he started school. He has returned to Japan a few times in his life to live there, and now is actually one of those times. He moved back to Tokyo about a year ago, and recently on LinkedIn, he wrote a post about this uh geographic anniversary and the cultural and language identity issues that popped into his head. And this is exactly what we're digging into in this episode, in this conversation. This identity path took us through some very interesting things like how he feels in different languages, why he feels more simple and defenseless in Japanese than in English, how Japanese locals versus uh expats in Japan treat his Japanese and Americanness and where he is the most comfortable. Quick spoiler, none of these issues have a clear and defined answer, and that is what made this nuanced discussion with Ken so interesting to have. You can find the full show notes, links, etc., to this episode at deffuccio.com forward slash geopaths language forward slash 32. Oh yeah. Thank you so much, Ken, for joining us on Geopaths Language.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, it's my pleasure. Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_05 2:13

Ken, where are you right now?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I'm in Tokyo, Japan. Full name's Ken Hirano. I'm uh I'm working as a as a mental health uh therapist here in Tokyo. Been here for well, it's been about a year and a half almost since I arrived here. I came back here from Shanghai, where we met, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

I was in Shanghai for about three years and I was a school counselor there. And before that, I was back in California doing counseling kind of work.

unknown 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Okay. So are Japan and China the two places that you've lived outside of the US?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Uh yeah.

unknown 2:44

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I mean Canada's a well, Canada, I don't really live there.

SPEAKER_05 2:48

So the reason why we're chatting is because last week, I think it was last week, you posted something on LinkedIn that I found really, really interesting. And I asked you if we could chat about it. And I think probably the best way to set this up is to have you read it.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So I posted oh two weeks. Sorry, not last week.

SPEAKER_05 3:08

Ah, time during COVID.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, COVID time. COVID time, yeah. So I wrote down, it's now been over a year since I moved to Tokyo from Shanghai. Among the things I miss about China is the spontaneous openness of the people. One story I like to uh uh talk about, uh my time there involves an experience at a Japanese restaurant in Shanghai I used to go to, where some of the Chinese employees spoke really excellent Japanese. So on my first visit, I began this conversation in Japanese with the waitress there, who after a couple minutes, you know, after you can kind of see the facial expressions actually, realize that you know I'm not a not a totally native Japanese speaker. Then after a few minutes, she says in a really loud voice in Japanese to another waitress across the room. She points her finger at me and says, This guy's Japanese, but his Japanese isn't that good. Kind of kind of in that tone of voice, kind of this surprise, kind of amusement. You know, not without no malice or anything. And um I loved it. I felt uh kind of seen and validated. Um yeah, who I am on the inside, not just on the outside. So then we went on to a quick discussion about uh Asian Americans, among whom are millions of Chinese Americans who speak English natively and speak Chinese kind of imperfectly or excellently or not at all. It depends on the individual. And she mentioned that uh she had heard of those overseas Chinese, but she didn't know there were Japanese equivalents. Then I went on to say that you know life is made up of these uh little micro moments where we feel seen and validated, or the opposite, unseen, unseen and invalidated. So I try to keep this in mind when I uh in all my interactions with people. And that's it.

SPEAKER_05 4:45

Yeah, I'm back to my There's a lot to unpack with that. It's always tricky to ask someone, well, how good is your Japanese? Because people are always like thinking they should, it should their language skills should be much better and so on and so on. So let me try to ask it a different way. Are you fluent in Japanese? Can you talk to someone without being totally confused on what they're saying?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually a good point about the the question about um, you know, when you want to find out about another person's uh language ability. I notice that people do ask these kinds of kind of general kind of questions, and that's normal, you know, like you know, how is your Spanish or whatever? Usually we don't we don't get useful or accurate answers typically. You know, they're kind of general, a general question like that elicits kind of general answers that are not that helpful. So it's better to ask uh more specific kind of situational questions. For example, let's say I knew I thought that you studied some Spanish or something, and maybe you study in Mexico or whatever. I might ask you something like if you heard us, if you were in a college in Mexico, University of Mexico, sitting through a uh economics one-on-one lecture in Spanish, how much of it do you think you can understand?

SPEAKER_05 5:54

You know, there's that's a high bar.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yeah, very situational, very probing question, right? Right. Maybe somebody might say something like, oh, I'll be totally lost. I might get like 10 or 20 percent. Then I'll I'll reduce it down. Then I might say something like, uh, well, can you order a uh pizza uh over the phone? Yeah, maybe let's make it a complicated order. Over the phone. Three three large pizzas, two of them are half vegetarian and half Hawaiian or something like that. You know, can you do that? And let's get the other person kind of replies, yeah, I think I can, kind of in that way. They can automatically order Spanish.

SPEAKER_05 6:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

So can you have a situational probing question? Well, wait, do that for me. We're Japanese.

SPEAKER_05 6:34

Yeah, exactly. Can you order uh a half this, half that pizza in Japan? In Japanese.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

That's easy, no problem.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

100%. So they will do half orders.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

So raise a bar.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

Raise the bar, okay. Can you can you do your therapy sessions in Japanese?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_05 6:51

I think I went too high, didn't I?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yes, that's kind of high. So with adults, I always say it's kind of I always struggle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

Okay, okay. So a little bit lower.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Therapy, it's important that I reflect back really accurately.

SPEAKER_05 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

If it happened, I think every 10 minutes I'd have to ask. I'm sorry, I don't know that word, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_05 7:08

Yeah, nothing.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

They're not paying me to be their Japanese teacher.

unknown 7:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 7:15

Can you watch a movie with someone in Japanese and then discuss it in Japanese?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yes, but uh I did watch a uh uh Japanese movie recently and there were no English subtitles. And it it was a modern drama. Now it was kind of complicated. It was uh it's a kind of a political kind of drama. And I I I basically got it, but I want to say it was about 50 to 70 percent, maybe. You know, it's kind of like that. Okay. They do have these uh these uh these dramas that take place back in the old days, you know. Yeah, those are hard.

SPEAKER_05 7:50

Yeah, well, they're using different language, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yes, yes, it is, it's different, yeah. Yeah, so for those, I mean literally, I I I don't know what they're saying most of the time.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

Yeah, so you're definitely fluent, but it's yeah, I I'm conversationally fluent, yeah. Right, right, right. Okay. Did you grow up speaking Japanese?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Uh some, but it's more listening. I grew up in this immigrant family where uh my father kind of dominated the family household, and he was an English teacher.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Here in Japan. He was one of those immigrants where there are all different kinds of immigrants, but some some are where you know they would really want to retain all the old country stuff, you know, the ways and all that. And that's the image I think a lot of people have. That is not true for everyone. It was not true for my father, he was not big on that. So he kind of dominated my mother. If she had her way, she I think it would have been more Japanese. But she did speak to me Japanese, so I can hear it fine. If it's household Japanese, that's but if we're talking about, say, politics or economics or counseling theories or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

Oh, there's uh yeah, I do, I do. I was trying to think of a book that I read. Oh, it was this woman that went back to um to Iran to kind of you know a heritage trip of sorts and reconnect with all of her relatives and and really refine her farsi and that kind of thing. And she had hit that wall where she realized she had she called it like kitchen uh farsi, where she could talk to all of her relatives. Yeah, but she's like other conversations were were more difficult. And that was the first time that I really made that distinction. Yeah, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I'm gonna put hard time understanding that, I think, but yeah, yeah, please.

SPEAKER_05 9:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are both of your parents Japanese from from Japan?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

Okay, and they they moved to the US.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

My father was was actually he was born in colonial Korea. He grew up mostly in Japan, yeah. And he didn't speak in the Korean.

SPEAKER_05 9:41

And did you were you born in Japan?

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Uh I was, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

Okay, and then you moved to the US when you were how old?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah, so my entire schooling, it was before it was before kindergarten. So um I went to kindergarten through two graduate schools in San Francisco, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:55

Very early. Okay. Do you remember Japan when you were a child?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

You know, I don't know if there are real memories. Yeah, sometimes when you're three years old, you know, when you're seven, they tell you what you how you behave when you were three. Yep. You don't know if it's what you remember as a seven-year-old hearing what you supposedly did when you're three, or they're real memories. I'm not sure. Foggy ideas, they might be real memories, memories, uh, maybe not. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Was it last year you moved back to Japan with your wife, and now you're you're there?

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yes, yes, we are here now.

SPEAKER_05 10:26

You wrapped up your life in California and elsewhere, and you're in Japan.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Okay. I'm still stuck to California, my mother's still there.

SPEAKER_05 10:34

As someone who's never reached fluencing the second language yet, yet, who hasn't, hasn't reached fluencing a second language yet. I I love the question. What do you do you feel different when you are speaking Japanese versus speaking English? And the reason I ask is because that that relief when that woman in that the Chinese woman in the Japanese restaurant saw you and didn't expect you to sound natively Japanese, that relief sounds like it's a it's a there's a little bit of a tension there with the language.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Yes, uh, I do feel different. It is the language of my childhood, it's not the language of more sophisticated intellectual kinds of things. So when I speak Japanese, it's associated with you know childhood, you know? Like it's my experience with it growing up was very uh it's kind of limited to simple kinds of things in the house. That kind of stuff is no problem. That's not a problem, but uh this this huge contrast that I feel, which I think you know other people don't quite get, I think, between that kind of kitchen Japanese, you know, versus more like outer world job, politics, uh Japanese. That's the part that I'm not comfortable with. It's not a big part of me. I learned a lot of words because I first moved here when I was 32. That was that was like 20 years ago, and I learned a lot. But even then, you know, at that age, you know, you're 32, it's it doesn't sink in the way that you know a language would if you're 10 or 5 or even 15. So if I could visualize the Japanese part of my brain, it's really two parts. It's the childhood kind of uh sort of a semi-native kind of part, and there's the other part that I learned as an adult, which is which is not. So it's extremely awkward for me, sort of, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 12:23

So that it sounds like the childhood one might be the more warm and fuzzy one.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, of course. Warm and fuzzy. Okay. Fuzzy. Yeah, it's not it's kind of simple.

SPEAKER_05 12:31

When you were there at 32, did you formally study the language then?

SPEAKER_02 12:35

No, no, I learned on the fly.

SPEAKER_05 12:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

I learned a lot. I learned a lot. I just oh my Japanese must have tripled in the first few months.

SPEAKER_05 12:42

How long were you there for then?

SPEAKER_02 12:43

First time was uh three years. It was hard. Just adapting and the whole deal, the whole ritual of uh business cards and all that. I think you yeah, I had a lot of fun, but it was hard.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

Yeah, and 20 years ago. I'm I don't know if Japan, I don't know. I'll ask you, has Japan gotten less formal since when you lived there 20 years ago? I don't think so. Or does it feel the same? Yeah, that that that was my instinct too. I was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

In fact, I want to say it hasn't changed much at all.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Walking around, I mean the businesses have changed, some of them, but just a few. Big companies have not, mostly the same. A lot of concrete, a lot of people walking around. People are pretty much well dressed and you know, well behaved, and yeah, it's kind of the same. Yeah. It takes a little while.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

It's Steph popping in. I have some previous episodes on the Geopets Podcasting Network that I want to share with you that are connected to Japan. I'm gonna start out with books and then we'll go into the language episodes. There's only five episodes. I'll give you episode numbers, and I, of course, will have the links in the show notes for you as well. Since you're listening to this uh episode on Japan and Japanese, that you might be curious about some other aspects of the culture and language. So, first of all, in this interview with Ken, I do talk about a conversation that Tachana, actually not me, but Tachana had with Yuki Tajima. He was talking about Banana Yoshimoto's book kitchen. Oh, it's funny, we were talking about kitchen language. Well, here is just the book kitchen, and that is episode nine on GiaPat's books. Now, going on to the language episode. So episode six is where we talk to Lucy, who grew up with Mandarin Chinese and learned English and Japanese along the way, and she talks quite a bit in episode six about her experience with those very, very different languages. Then we're moving on to episode four where I talked to Eric, who that's his English name. Lucy and Eric are both of their English names. He grew up with Mandarin Chinese as well, and then learned English, Japanese, and French. And in episode four, we dig into all of those. In episode 10 of Geopath's Knop Pod Pomo, which is National Podcast Posting Month, which is coming up again in November. I'm very excited. It's where we post one episode a day, every day for the month. It's crazy, but it's wonderful. So that's under the Geopath's Naupod Pomo podcast. That's episode 9 and 10, where we talk to Lisa about her experience with typing and reading Japanese. In that same Geopath's NAPOD Pomo month, we talked to Dakota from a Dakota abroad YouTube channel. And now the Language Learning Lounge podcast. We talk about Japanese calligraphy ASMR. Yep. I know you're gonna want to hear that. So it's under Geopats Napod Pomo episode 5. Again, I'll have all the links in the show notes for you. And I really hope that you enjoy all of these Geopaths Podcasting Network Japan related episodes. Let's get back to the conversation with Ken, who is in Japan.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

You could try and just forget it.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

If I may, I would describe Ken that speaks English as being very laid back, very friendly, very um very calm. I don't know if you agree with that or not. Do you agree with that version of your personality? Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:19

What else would you add to that?

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Well, I was hoping you say funny, but you know, if you don't think so, it's fine.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

Oh, you are funny too. I I was just okay. We'll add funny to that. So in uh current day Japanese, Ken, Ken speaking Japanese, how would you describe you in that language?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, so I so I definitely do come across differently, I'm pretty sure. I think I do come across as more simple. I can still make a lot of jokes, in fact. But um I can't always make complex sentences. So yeah, I I think I come across as more simple. I I also think I come across as more defenseless, I think.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

How some?

SPEAKER_02 17:01

I feel like in Japanese, I don't I'm not sure how I don't know how to fight back. I remember working in Japanese and it was kind of hard for me to like kind of hold my own. I feel like I can do that in English, you know. I can call you out on your shit. Uh I can do that, you know. But uh I can't quite do it in Japanese. There's this uh there's this insecurity about it because I I'm not I know it, but I don't.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

Is it done in Japanese? Do people have that kind of push back and forth in the workplace?

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Of course. Oh, that whole thing about the oh yeah, the whole ridiculous harmony thing about Asia makes me laugh. I don't know what reality these people live in, honestly.

SPEAKER_05 17:37

Well, to someone that doesn't speak Japanese, but it's been there.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

It does seem to be these tourists, they come here for people treated well. Of course they do, and they go back home and they talk about their some nonsense about how polite it is. Well, it's not nonsense, it's true at a superficial level.

unknown 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

I remember that reminds me of a story. Uh when I first moved here in 1999, there's this Japanese colleague. Somebody was telling him, Oh, Japanese are so polite and nice. He he he comes back with, oh yeah, Japanese are polite, but not nice.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

Meaning intentionally mean to people?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

No, no, no, no, no. Well, I think it is a country where um I think facades are very important. So I think impressing other people from other countries. And of course, it's appreciated. It's not an insincere.

SPEAKER_05 18:21

I'm I'm still curious about this. You're saying in the workplace there is that kind of back and forth like pushback with coworkers. Is it different than than in English? Because I mean there are a fair bit of cultural differences.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Uh let's see, I'm just trying to think back at the meetings. Well, I remember back in '99, you know, uh going to lunch with my colleagues, and they were mostly native all Japanese Japanese. I remember kind of being struck by how vicious, how viciously they uh talked about managers and other people at work. You know, it was just it was just really vicious after just a few days of work. I remember one guy, he quit after one week. And this is the country where you know the image is that well, people stay forever, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Not this guy, not in this company. Yeah, he quit after one week. He was he was uh upset at the way he was treated. Well, I I suppose there's more hierarchy, which I guess in meetings, you know, it is more explicitly respected. Kind of like the military, right? That doesn't mean people don't have their own thoughts. You know what they really think about director of the group, you know. And they do talk about it when colleagues at work.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

There is that misconception, I think, that just because they might not say it to everyone that they're not thinking these things.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, of course. And you know, when uh non-Japanese go to these companies, either you know, there are expats who work there because you know it's a big multinational or whatever. You know, there definitely is this um, I've noticed this uh sort of a little there isn't real communication. Well, there's some, but you know, not always a lot of real communication, I know this. Uh it's kind of this one confirmation bias talking to another one person with a confirmation bias, talking to another person with the same kind of confirmation bias. Yeah, some guy from the US, some white guy, you know, with some ideas about you know Japanese word cultures, he's read, he's got good intentions, all sincere, and all that kind of stuff, you know, wants to be sensitive and all that kind of stuff. Talking to some Japanese guy, usually the Japanese guy usually has um it it's a it's a big part of the the country to think that you know it's you know Japan's kind of unique and it's different and all that kind of stuff. So they want to believe that. They both want to believe each other's you know biases. So they're just kind of confirming their own biases.

SPEAKER_05 20:39

Let's come back to you. In China there was a term for the the Chinese that came back, the overseas Chinese, there was a term for that. I don't remember what that was. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_02 20:48

I don't I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_05 20:48

Yeah, is there a term for that in Japan?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Well, there's Nikkei. Sometimes I'll introduce myself as a Nikkei.

SPEAKER_05 20:55

And what is that?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah, it's a it's an overseas Japanese.

SPEAKER_05 20:58

Okay, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

And do you kind of so so one no? The US, Peru, Brazil, Canada are the big countries for it.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

And do you feel like when you're just talking to somebody new that they're picking up on that you're not that you haven't spent your whole life there?

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Of course, of course. It's immediate, yeah. A few months ago, like uh I was on a bike ride and I stopped at some rest stop and had a conversation with a stranger there. And after a few seconds, you know, he he this is a very typical kind of reaction. He he there's it's it's visible typically, not all the time, but typically on the face. Yeah, it's usually a little a look of surprise. You know, oh, gaiji, you know what gaiji means foreign. They'll look at me, they'll say, and they'll often say something like, Oh, sorry, it's kind of rude of me, but are are you Japanese? Kind of in that tone of voice, in that nice, polite, classic Japanese way. Now I'll say I'm an Ike and I'll give a little background. Then pretty much 99% of the time, they'll compliment me on my Japanese. Inside of me, you know, I'm kind of rolling my eyes upward. I mean, I'm a polite guy too, so I'll say, okay, thanks. That's a typical conversation. I have with uh people.

SPEAKER_05 22:01

And does the tone of the conversation change once they ask that? Once they realize? Or is that so far? So early on. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

No, no, no, no. No, no, no. I mean Oh, okay. Yeah, no, it's pretty much what I get. I like it when they get it. Usually they do. I want to say a good 70, 80, 90% of the time they get it. So for example, if they talk about where they're from, they might ask me, Well, do you know where that place is? The prefecture? Which, you know, they wouldn't ask that. Right. But they ask me knowing that, you know, I may not know.

unknown 22:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Again, I like that. Yeah. I feel again, I feel seen kind of like in Chinese. I don't feel seen by the expats here, where they're only looking at my outside. That's the big contrast. Well, typically, uh, especially if they're not from North America, an immigrant country like that. That's something where from some other basically from almost everywhere else, where usually people have more um traditional notions of uh you know ethnicity and and race.

unknown 22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

You look like this, therefore you are then. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're supposed to match. Yeah. Their minds are supposed to match. And and truth is they often do, but uh not always right. And again, Canadians and Americans are okay with it, I think it's kind of natural, but uh not not so for everyone, for other people.

SPEAKER_05 23:17

Now that you're there there for a long time or forever or somewhere in between, is it a goal at all to like reach that scene state in Japanese? Because the scene state's not a language issue, it's more of people understanding that the outside doesn't need to match the inside, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Well, on that note, I'm reminded of um since coming back here last year, I've noticed last time I lived here was 2010. That was sort of uh that was a five-year stint. I was here from 2005 to 2000. Since that time, I want to say I've noticed an increase in people who look the well, they look biracial anyway, on the outside. You know, kind of maybe like dark skinned, and maybe their dad was uh uh uh black American or and uh and the mother's Japanese. And then they might be uh they might be working in restaurants or something, then I can hear them speak Japanese, and it seems pretty clear to me that they were born and raised here and they went to the Japanese public school system. And they're very Japanese on the inside, so their identity, their citizenship, often too, you know, they're totally Japanese, but on the outside they they might have blue eyes, but there's now a celebrity on Japanese uh TV. He's uh he's half African, his father's African, genetically, anyway. And I think his parents were divorced when he was really young. His mother's Japanese, he was sort of born and raised here. He went, he's totally Japanese on the inside. He can't speak English. He looks very like like a black American. If you saw him in the US, you wouldn't think you know he can't speak English, but he's on TV, he's on national TV. What I like about this guy that I'm talking about is that he's on national TV. I don't know how common, but he's on national TV. I see him maybe once every two weeks or so on TV. Nice guy, young guy, maybe his 20s. He got this big afro, by the way. So he looks totally not Japanese on the outside, on the outside. But his mannerisms, the way he talks, he's hundreds and native in Japanese. He's got a website, I think, where he says at the very top, he says, I can't speak English in Japanese.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

Are you comfortable in Japan?

SPEAKER_02 25:17

So it's some it's a mix. It really is. At one level, yeah, sure, you know, things it's it's safe here, as you know. You know, it's it's pretty, of course. Probably what the it's got to be one of the safest big cities in the world here. Yeah, there's some comfort, kind of uh kind of just visually just kind of blending in. It's kind of nice. Sometimes I talk to I mention to people that it's kind of nice to be able to go to all these various ethnic restaurants here, whether it's Turkish or Italian, where everyone kind of just looks like me. Well, most people anyway. Whereas even in a place like San Francisco, so diverse, right? There's a lot of uh segregation there. So let's say it's a Turkish restaurant. Typically, it's gonna be pretty much all white people there. Some white guys typically with their Asian girlfriend, maybe that's kind of about it. You know, despite the fact that San Francisco is 30% Asian or even more by now. It's always kind of um, I don't know what how to describe it, it's kind of a restrictive or like I'm not supposed to go to places like that, I'm supposed to only go to Asian restaurants, but in the in the place where you know where I'm it's supposed to be, it's it's my home, you know. Whereas over here, it's oh wow, you can go anywhere. It's kind of nice. That part's nice. There's also a lot of tension there for me because I know that people expect me to know all the little rules, and I don't. Or if I do know the rules, I don't always it's hard for me to be smooth and comply with them. Even like at Own Sense, you know, Hosprings. Yeah, I I know, I know how to do it, but even then, I still kind of worry. I look around me, see, I am I supposed to walk around kind of dripping wet, you know. You know, I always feel like eyes are on me. I feel like they can see, you know, that I I I'm not comfortable. I know they can't, but um, so there's some tension there.

SPEAKER_05 27:10

I think yeah, yeah, because you're supposed to know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, I'm supposed to know, yeah, and um, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 27:20

Yeah, that was the freedom for me living in Asia, is a lot of times when I would be like, oh my gosh, I really don't want to offend anybody. I'd be like, I clearly am not from here, even though I could have been, but I'm like, generally speaking, they know I'm not from here. I'm gonna play the expat card right now. Not to offend, not to try to outwardly be awful, but I know I can kind of get away with something or try something, or hopefully they'll tell me if it's that bad. But there was that kind of relief of being different.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah, see, I don't have that card. And even when I try to show that card, which which is what I've tried to do sometimes, it's not it's not accepted.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Yeah. I get that.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

That makes it kind of hard to I do have a lot of tension here. I have some traumatic memories and um and you know, little things kind of bother me sometimes. But again, I I try to focus on the good things.

SPEAKER_05 28:12

Where are you more comfortable? In the Bay Area or in Tokyo.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Um, I wouldn't it's kind of it it's hard for me to kind of answer it in kind of a black or black and white kind of way. Uh when I do go back, I was there back in February. It was kind of a relief. You know, I can do anything, I can read everything. I can't read everything in Japanese. Uh all the advertisements. I can go to any store and just have a chat and talk and ask questions, not feel like, you know, not feel that I'm looking uh I'm coming across as stupid. I do often feel here that I come across as stupid. Uh whereas I don't feel that way in the States.

unknown 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

So there's a sense of relief. You know, I can drive there, I don't have a driver's license here. No, I I you know I know I know all the ropes over there. I know I know which neighbors to avoid and all that kind of stuff. You know, I'm in control.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Um, even though I'm a minority there, and that kind of causes some pain inside of me. Um but I I know what I'm doing over there.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

There is a woman that I interviewed for the book podcast, and she was born born and partially raised in Japan, and then lived in Los Angeles for a long time, and then moved back to Japan, and then just moved back to Los Angeles during COVID. And I I think she's I think she constantly goes back and forth now. And the interesting thing that she said is she's like, I live in Japan at least half of the year, sometimes a little more, but I can do that because I can go back to Los Angeles the other part of the year. So for her, it was the switching between the two that made her feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

So but you've you're not doing that, you're there there, even though you'll visit California because you have family.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Uh well, I don't know. I don't know how long we're gonna be. I mean, there are times you know, I I definitely feel like going back. Yeah, it's more space and I can do anything, and um I don't have to divide up the garbage, you know, into 20 different categories.

SPEAKER_05 30:15

It's so stressful. Oh my gosh. I felt like I needed a good degree to to look to figure out the chart.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

It gets to the point where I'm saving up my garbage so I can go to the train station and just double.

SPEAKER_05 30:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Convenience stores like dropping it in the non-segregated convenience store trash can is the awful, awful workaround to that, and it's not it's not a good idea. But it's it's sometimes you have to, because it's like, what is this thing and where does it go?

SPEAKER_02 30:45

I just don't know, and I don't feel like looking it up and it's complicated, and you know, I mean those people will check the garbage people, those things like that, you know.

SPEAKER_05 30:53

Yeah. Well, we've got a a a global audience, small as we may be, we're growing. Is there anything you'd like to know about other folks and their experiences with this kind of duality? I don't know, it feels more than a duality.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I I guess I'm wondering not so much a question. I mean, there are so many different kinds of uh human experiences, you know. Yeah, everyone's different. Uh just because you're part of the majority ethnic group, you know, doesn't mean there isn't individual you know, there aren't individual differences, of course. I guess I I do feel like saying though that the language I think it's it it's it's it's mostly an in well, yeah, mostly an internal thing. It's inside the mind of a of an individual. So what I'm talking about is, you know, I have thoughts and feelings that I may want to express in a given language. Let's say I express it in ja well, I try to express a complicated thought and feeling in Japanese, but I know when I say it, even though it sounds okay, and um the grammar and pronunciation, pronunciation might be okay, it's I know it's not expressing what I want to express, and it's different from what I would have expressed in English. I I don't think people often realize that you know there might be such a gap, and that I'm the only one who knows about that gap because I know my own thoughts and feelings. But what I'm saying is that people tend to be too prejudiced or biased towards believing that the output, the sounds you make with your mouth, that's all there is. So that if you say something in Chinese or Spanish or whatever, it sounds kind of good that oh wow, your Spanish or Chinese is good. That's not necessarily true because it doesn't express what you're trying to say. You know what I mean? It's not like figure skating. Figure skating, you know, other people outside of you, the people in the audience are better judges of whether the little Torah things were, you know, were good or not. Because they see it it's a body thing, it's a physical thing. Yeah, the language is another thing where it's it's ultimately about to what extent can you express what you want to express, and only one person, the person who's trying to do it, knows about that gap. Other people can't see it, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean? I do forget that it's uh to me, it's a very stupendously obvious point.

SPEAKER_05 33:19

But it's not, it's not when I used to teach beginning classes in English language beginner classes. So many of the teachers would come into the teacher's room and be like, Man, they're just not that they're stupid, but they're so simple, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, they're not simple, that's all they can say right now.

unknown 33:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 33:36

You know, most people do have more thoughts than they can say in a beginning level class.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

That's true, that's true in your native language as well.

SPEAKER_05 33:43

Great, yes, but it but it's something I had to say out loud. Yeah, it's something I had to say out loud to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Well, the opposite we just said, where you know, it may sound okay what you say in that second language. So people compliment you. Oh, wow, your Chinese is so good. It's not really, maybe in a certain situation, because it's not what you really want to say. It's not what it's nowhere near as rich as it would have been were you speaking in your you know, uh native language.

SPEAKER_05 34:07

I feel like a lot of times people say, Oh, your blah blah blah is so good, your language is so good. They say that when you can use idioms or when your pronunciation is good.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 34:15

But are they rarely commenting on the meatiness of the comment or if it yeah reflects what you really wanted to say and how they're not thinking about what you want to say, they're not thinking about the invisible stuff that's going on inside of your mind. Exactly. Yeah, and how could output yeah, no, that's a really, really good point. But yeah, but language, it's an expression, but it also limits us when we're not when we don't have the right language to say what we want to.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Yeah, and even again, even in your own native language, um it's it's it's it's just the tip of the iceberg of your of your uh subjective experience now.

SPEAKER_05 34:55

Well, that's a heavy one to leave us on. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Okay. So that we know we understand I know I'm a therapist, so I I think in that way.

SPEAKER_05 35:02

No, it's it's true and it's beautiful, and it's something to keep in mind because a lot of us, no matter how good we get at additional languages, are not going to get to that point where we're not saying, oh man, I that's not exactly it, but that's the best that I can do right now.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

You know, and so for complicated things. Yeah. For simple things, it's okay. You know, often you can get to a certain level where yeah, you're you can fully express what you want to say. For simple things. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 35:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But from I bet I'm guessing emotions and abstract things are some of the hardest parts. So thank you so much again for coming on. I'll put all the information we've talked about in the show notes for the listeners. And um, yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Oh, yeah, thank you. Thanks for your time, thanks for the opportunity. It's good to see you again.

unknown 35:49

Oh yay.

SPEAKER_05 35:55

A very special Arigato Gozimas. Thank you to Ken for being so open and honest about his language and cultural experiences in Japan during this conversation. Also, thanks to Damon Castillo for the song California Minute from the Mess of Me album. So far, you've only heard snippets of the song, but you can hear the full song in just a minute. This podcast is brought to you by me, Steffuccio.com, where I offer podcasting services like group accountability workshops, podcast editing, and soon more. You can find the full show notes to everything we talked about here at stefffuccio.com forward slash geopaths language forward slash 32.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

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