Recorded Friday, September 4, 2020.
Had a burst of inspiration last week and reached out to a fellow Twitter-er by the name of Hikosaemon. He agreed to be on my podcast and this is the result!
Hikosaemon has been in Japan for over 22 years and hosts his own news show live on YouTube every Sunday night at 10.30 pm Japan Standard Time. Other than his news show, he hosts other videos and blogs, makes his own music, and maintains a constant presence on Twitter. Today we were able to sit down and talk about life in Japan and China, what it’s like to learn Japanese and Chinese, and a few other things about living as an expat.
This is a shorter show, clocking in at around 71 minutes so I hope you enjoy!
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3.15 – Introductions and what Hikosaemon does
YouTube “vlogger” – Tokyo Tonight – live YouTube show, live chat, current topics in Japan and… live music?!
-Japan Business Time
-Website – flipcard, magazine, blog posts
-Soundcloud – making your own mixes
-Unseen Japan
-Tokyo Wave
5.30 – Blog posts about fluency in language
http://www.hikosaemon.com/p/best-posts.html
The blog post we talk about:
http://www.hikosaemon.com/2011/05/misconceptions-about-language-and.html
6.14 – Writing blog posts pre-Twitter
8.57 – Fluency in Chinese simplified / traditional
10.45 – Differences between learning Chinese and Japanese
six weeks to Japanese
13.05 – The Japanese language and difficulties in pronunciation
17.20 – Japanese honorifics
20.40 – Pronouncing Japanese – five vowel sounds and why it’s difficult for Japanese people to learn other languages
22.00 – Girlfriend-getting level of language
25.20 – Learning standard Mandarin Chinese and Japanese
29.00 – Hikosaemon’s name and what drew him to Japan in the first place
29.44 – Growing up in Singapore and first encounter with Traditional Chinese and Japanese
32.36 – Hiko’s name
35.27 – Adopting a Japanese name as a foreigner
36.16 – In Japan, caucasian foreigners are called “pandas” – the lustre of first arrival
37.30 – When you know you’re going to leave a country after the “panda stage”
38.44 – Hiko’s panda stageand growing out of it
41.25 – Walking down the street and dealing with crowds, scanning faces
48.15 – What’s changed in Tokyo since Hiko arrived
50.40 – Two major differences between Japan and China
51.59 – When Hiko visits Dalian, Hong Kong, Shanghai, the differences in how people keep aware of their surroundings
55.50 – The escalating phone conversation and being self-conscious
57.30 – Hiko’s version of Pharrell’s “Happy” and expression in Japan
-one of the people in the video is Mr. Jones who made a documentary “Big in Japan”
1.01.50 – Foreigners behaving bad
1.03.20 – Showing off but not being cheesy in New Zealand; major differences in culture in New Zealand and Japan – you can be into metal but still buy a popular children’s album
1.06.14 – Visiting Dalian, lingering feelings between Chinese and Japanese people but the feeling is dissipating in the younger generation
1.08.38 – Check out HIko’s work online at hikosaemon.com or on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/Hikosaemon