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  • Hi guys!

  • Today I'm here with Chika.

  • Heeyy!

  • from Bilingirl.

  • and Melodee

  • (Hi!)from Melodee Morita

  • First of all, would you mind giving a brief introduction about yourself?

  • Ah, sure yeah. My name is Chika.

  • I grew up in the U.S., I was born in Japan

  • but I moved to the U.S. when I was in first grade.

  • Then, I lived there all the way through college,

  • graduated and came to Japan and started working.

  • So, I think in a couple years,

  • The amount of years I've been here, versus the states will be about equal.

  • Right now, it's a little bit longer in the States.

  • I'm Melodee, I grew up in the States my entire life.

  • My parents are both Japanese though so, at home,

  • I would try my best to speak in Japanese with my parents.

  • But I do have an older brother,

  • and he's very Americanized.

  • So, you've never lived here?

  • No, I've never lived here, yeah.

  • I've only visited.

  • By the way, we just met

  • (yes!) for the first time yesterday,

  • I met Rachel once before we had lunch.

  • (right) and Jun, who

  • is behind the camera,

  • I met for the first time yesterday too.

  • at Youtube Space so,

  • we're still trying to get to know each other.

  • Yeah, right, yeah.

  • We still don't, and even though

  • they've already told me a lot of stuff,

  • I forget everything so,

  • I'm gonna (you asked a lot of questions) ask the same questions

  • We're getting in this video

  • You went to school here when you were younger?

  • Just 'till first grade.

  • Actually, all of first grade and like

  • a month of secondary.

  • When you were adjusting to

  • re-entering Japan,

  • I guess that was when you were older?

  • Yeah. After college so,

  • my first experience living here was

  • entering a Japanese company and working here.

  • That must have been so difficult though,

  • I mean like, the environment, the people, the language,

  • everything?

  • Yeah, um.

  • It was never a culture shock, 'cause I had

  • visited Japan and I have relatives here so,

  • there wasn't anything that I

  • was like ''oh my gosh, I can't believe this!'', you know?

  • That this is like this, but

  • at the same time in a working environment

  • you know, like the meetings or--

  • Definitely.

  • You know, a little bit different,

  • and people communicate differently

  • so it did take a while to get used to,

  • but you always have people that support you

  • through the way, so that helped a lot.

  • That's true, I agree about like the whole 'meetings' things

  • cause in America people like, you know,

  • they cross their legs, it's kind of like

  • you know, chilled and laid back but

  • I think in Japan, or with Japanese people

  • you have to be really proper.

  • You have to make sure you're on time, just

  • always something that you should do but..

  • Just like, everything that you do I just get so

  • much more nervous in Japanese meetings.

  • And I have to feel like, super prepped

  • in order to be you know, presentable

  • and be able to put my thoughts out there.

  • I feel like I have to be a lot more prepared,

  • and professional and not as laid back

  • in Japanese, whenever I do meetings and stuff.

  • Right.

  • I think people feel that though, like with Kikokushijo,

  • people who have lived abroad for a long time

  • and have come back to Japan,

  • they kind of give you a break,

  • a little bit or they think,

  • "Oh, she just doesn't know."

  • like, "she lived in the States for a really long time",

  • So it's okay, so you kind of get a break.

  • I don't know if that's a good thing because sometimes

  • you feel like "No, I know this!"

  • Was it ever difficult adjusting to Japan?

  • Because there are a lot of cultural things I don't know about Japan,

  • just because I was away for so long

  • and just traditions and things,

  • and even you know, vocabulary.

  • Because what we use everyday

  • aren't like, complex words.

  • Right.

  • So, I feel like even though I am Japanese, I look Japanese,

  • i'm 100% Japanese, but there's like a chunk of me

  • missing, you know the 16 years that I wasn't here so,

  • I don't think people mind but

  • that's kind of an insecurity for me actually. Yeah.

  • Must be really difficult.

  • Yeah, I feel like people think I'm dumb

  • or I don't know anything sometimes, just because I should know it.

  • Like some Joshiki that we never really learned.

  • like we learn through, I guess textbooks or whatever

  • and regular conversations but we don't

  • learn like the ''rules'' that Japanese people live by.

  • So, I feel like if you

  • haven't grown up here your entire life,

  • those are things that you kind of have to

  • learn little by little from the people around you.

  • Yeah, more than like manners, for me it's just like, traditions.

  • When I first came back to Japan, i didn't know what Kouyo was.

  • The autumn leaves turning.

  • I didn't know what that was, cause we don't really have a word for it.

  • I see, I see.. it's kinda like Fall foliage..?

  • Yeah, like Fall foliage but when do we ever-

  • "Let's go look at the Fall foliage".

  • No one would say that, right?

  • So true..

  • Yeah, and you don't talk about that with your family or anything, so

  • I came back here, and that came up and

  • I asked my parents, I asked my dad.

  • I was like "What's Kouyo?"

  • and he was like "you don't know what Kouyo is?!"

  • And I was like "You never taught me!"

  • and so things like that, that feel like

  • that should be obvious, in that any Japanese person

  • should know, sometimes I don't.

  • and I mean, I've done a lot of catching up in the last eight years

  • I've been here but still.

  • (Right) There are these things that come up that I've never heard before.

  • And I'm not sure if you've been through this, but

  • I've been through a lot of words that

  • I kind of remembered differently, because

  • like 'TA.I.I.KU' and 'FU.N.I.KI' and stuff.

  • I always thought that it was,

  • F[U]U.N.I.KI in a sense. You know, that feeling.

  • But it's FU.N.[I]I.KI right?

  • Hm-hm, the way you say it, yeah!

  • So when I was typing on the computer,

  • I was trying to write FU.N.[I]I.KI and I was typing it so many times.

  • The kanji wasn't coming up, I was like ''Why is it not coming up?"

  • That's when I finally learned like, 10 years later,

  • I learned that I had knew it wrong the entire time.

  • So, there's little things like that.

  • Like TA.I.KU i always thought it was TA.I.KU

  • but it's TA.[I]I.KU

  • So those little things that we didn't

  • properly learn word-for-word from textbooks

  • Right, yeah. I had the 'FU.N.I.KI problem' too.

  • Yeah, I still say it the way--

  • Yeah, you do say it like FU.N.[I]I.KI right?

  • Yeah, but it's FU.N.KI (Yeah)

  • Have you had any embarassing experiences coming to Japan?

  • Where there's like a cultural, I guess like 'Joshiki'

  • that you didn't know about?

  • It was pretty recently but I went to a funeral--

  • Sorry, it's kind of a dark topic.

  • But um, yeah, a friend of mine whose grandmother passed away

  • and I went to the funeral. It was my first Japanese funeral

  • and there are things you have to wear, things you have to bring.

  • And I kind of knew some of the things,

  • but I wasn't quite sure and

  • and I should've-- I regretted not researching

  • it a little bit beforehand and

  • because that's not a place where you want

  • to feel embarrassed right?

  • Maybe like weddings and funerals and events like that.

  • But, you have to wear the mofuku, right? The funeral wear.

  • And there are rules as to how long the sleeves have to be,

  • how long the skirt can be, you can't have your knees showing.

  • And the reason why the sleeves have to be long is

  • because when you put your hands together

  • your sleeves come down a little bit,

  • so your wrists don't show.

  • Little things like that. I thought if you just wore

  • something black that was okay (not showy or anything)

  • Yeah, but I got there and nobody told me directly,

  • but I heard a little bit later that--

  • It wasn't anything negative but it was just like

  • ''Oh, maybe you should tell your friend for next time

  • that there is, you know..''

  • ''And if she was maybe a little bit younger''.

  • 'cause I'm 30 now, I should know those things.

  • But, I, you know.

  • My parents, yeah, and my parents had never had an opportunity

  • to tell me because unfortunately I had, you know, it's a good thing but

  • I had never been to a funeral before so.

  • There's a lot of things that even Japanese people in Japan

  • don't know, like for example if it's food

  • like misoshiru (miso soup) is always on the right side

  • and rice is on the left, but even people in Japan

  • who grew up in Japan sometimes don't even know.

  • They had no idea and then they post it on Instagram or something

  • and people are like "It's the wrong side!"

  • Oh, I had that happen to me.

  • I blogged, I was like "I made breakfast!"

  • and they're like ''It's the wrong way..''

  • Yeah, I had no idea until someone told me.

  • Yeah, it's those things.

  • Oh and like, I wrote a blog about my dad.

  • and, you know, the difference between 'dad' and 'father' right?

  • When you're talking to your friends you just say ''dad''.

  • So, in my blog I write it like I'm talking to friends.

  • So I wrote ''otousan'' and a few people were like

  • "No, at your age you should really say 'chichioya'

  • or 'chichi' " but on my blog I was like "Oh you know

  • my dad bought me a yukata.''

  • like ''My father purchased a yukata for me.''

  • Yeah, it's that barrier you know, you don't wanna sound too formal

  • and really tight but at the same time, I feel like

  • when Japanese people read it it's like "Oh that's incorrect,

  • you should never say it that way.''

  • But it's hard because within Japanese people

  • the standards are different too. Some people don't care.

  • Some people don't know. But other people

  • are very strict about that, so..

  • I always think like, whenever I'm tweeting I'm like,

  • I know on social accounts it's okay to be casual right?

  • So, 'tabereru' is okay but I also have a feeling that

  • someone's gonna say something.

  • And the thing that sucks about being Kikokushijo,

  • is that, when you make a mistake everyone thinks it's because you don't know it.

  • Not because you made a mistake.

  • like, "It's not a typo. She doesn't know".

  • and sometimes I don't know, but other times I'm like

  • ''I know that, it's just a typo!''

  • I'm on my phone, I'm tweeting really fast.

  • So about the miso soup, and all the technical things that people care about,

  • It's not because they just want to be strict

  • and, anal, if i can say that word. About it.

  • But it's just, there are reasons for it.

  • From my understanding, the reason why the miso soup

  • is on the right side is because that's what you tend to drink first

  • in the meal, so it should be easy for you to get to.

  • There's always a logical reason why we do these things.

  • But because we don't know it, we just know

  • that 'that's how it is', we're like ''Why?''

  • "Why do we have to do that?" But there's always reason to the 'why?'.

  • And that's kind of what I've been

  • learning while living here.

  • Right..that makes sense.

Hi guys!

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Culturally Half Japanese / Kikokushijo Interview PART 1 (ft. Chika and Melodee)

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    Daiki Teramoto posted on 2016/09/03
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