I have been blogging since 2015, talking about the life, languages, travel, wine, football and so on. All of them are written in Japanese. I didn’t have any idea to write in English until 5 days ago, because my writing in English is not good enough.
What made me change my mind was a small comment to one of my blogs.
Voice blogging in English
Last year, I started ‘voice blogging’ in Japanese, such as a podcast or YouTube. I record my talks and publish them. There is a new trend of Japanese bloggers, some of them are beginning to ‘talk’ rather than just ‘write’, then I followed it as well.
There is a very popular blog service in Japan which I also have been using, and they released a voice-blog service recently. When I first publish my talk with this service, I got a comment from a Japanese lady:
こんばんは
次回は英語も話して欲しいです
Hi, next time, I would like you to talk in English.
I have never had an idea to talk in English on my blogs, but I thought, “why not? I am not good at writing, but it may be easier to talk in English.”
So I did, and I had a comment from her again, saying:
i think i could understand what u said.
i really enjoyed ur voice blog in English.
i hope i will be able to hear your English again.
thank you!
(She wrote this in English)
https://ameblo.jp/hanatabito/entry-12440229066.html?frm=theme
Who should I talk to?
Voice-blogging in English was not easy but was not as difficult as I thought. However, when I was recording my English talks, I was always wondering “who should I be talking to?”
Should I talk to Japanese people who are learning English? Or should I talk to English speakers including natives?
That reminds me of the English-speaking people I ever met, and their questions about Japan and Japanese. Some interesting questions, funny questions, lots of questions and questions…
from easy ones like:
- Can Japanese people use knives and forks?
- Do you have to wash Japanese rice 7 times?
to big ones:
- Why do you still have the death penalty?
- How are they doing after Fukushima nuclear power plant accident?
…well, I am not a representative of Japan, but I always tried to answer them, not just to say “I don’t know”, although I am sometimes frustrated because I couldn’t give good comments immediately.
Anyway, their questions made me think deeply and profoundly…
Start blogging in English
I realized that I have lots of things which I want to tell you, English speakers, who might are interested in Japanese culture and society. So I decided to blog in English.
Lonely Planet says that Japan is like a ‘Galapagos’, it is so different from the other parts of the world. Sometimes, you may find it not easy to understand about Japanese people,….so do I.
I love my country and am proud of being Japanese. I will be very happy if I could give you some ideas to ‘decode’ their behaviour or society.
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