AdventurePod English 3 – Transcript (Che interview part 1)
This is part 1 of our 2-part Che interview series.
[ Mp3 audio page | video page | Che interview part 2 transcript ]
=== BEGIN INTERVIEW ========
John: Welcome everyone. This is English Teacher John’s Adventure Pod English No. 2 [It’s really no. 3!!]. Today is – today is Saturday, April 8th. And we have a special guest today, my good friend Che. And we’re going to learn a little bit about Che today. So let’s try to listen to Che’s uh.. about some information about Che’s life and hopefully we can learn some English today. Welcome to the show, Che.
Che: Thank you very much.
John: Yeah. Very nice to see you.
Che: Good to see you.
John: Thanks for dropping by.
Che: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
John: Yeah. So tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What do you like to do, and all that kind of stuff.
Che: Well, I was born in California, northern California, near San Francisco. And I studied communications in Los Angeles.
John: And we’re communicating now.
Che: Exactly. So this is what I do, isn’t it? Simple as that. Did a few odd jobs before I began on my wanders, doing some snowboarding, working on snowfields, and whitewater rafting in Colorado. And I spent a number of years.
John: That was some nice adventures right there. Snowboarding and rafting. Wow. I’m jealous.
Che: Yes. Spent more than ten years traveling around the planet.
John: Ten years. Ten years. That’s more- ten months.
Che: No, no, no. Ten years, not vacations.
John: You were traveling around.
Che: Yes, yes.
John: So tell me. I know Che has been a friend of mine for a few years, so I’m going to extract some information from him. Tell us about recently. Where have you been? We are here in Matsumoto, Japan. Where have you been the last couple of years?
Che: Well, in the last couple of years, my travels have slowed down immensely. I actually spent the last two years just right here in Japan, like in Yokohama.
John: Yokohama, which is just.
Che: Yeah.
John: It’s a part of Tokyo.
Che: Yeah. It’s very, very close to Tokyo, actually. It’s actually the second biggest city in Japan, after Tokyo.
John: After Tokyo. And how far is it from Yokohama to Tokyo?
Che: It’s adjacent to Tokyo, really, so say 30 minutes by train.
John: Thirty minutes. So let’s put a little map showing Tokyo and Yokohama right here. See that? There is this. I have never been to Yokohama, but I’ve been to Tokyo and I hear Yokohama is a nice place. So have you enjoyed living there? What have you been doing there?
Che: I’ve been teaching English and I spent the first year teaching small children, aged from four to about 15, English there. And I spent the last year dealing mostly with college students and young professionals and some retired people that are just interested in improving their English.
John: Wow. And do you prefer younger, do you prefer kids, or middle aged, or high school students? What do you like?
Che: I think it is all fun, you know. You cannot.
John: It’s a very diplomatic answer. I like everything, right? The kids can take a lot of energy out of you.
Che: Yes.
John: I also teach kids. I know about it.
Che: A lot of running around the classrooms, a lot of games, so, yeah, the kids can be quite energetic. But they keep you very young at heart.
John: Yeah.
Che: And the discussions with the older classmates have been really, really interesting to learn more about Japan and its history and culture.
John: Are you teaching in a high school, or are you in some- what kind of environment do you teach in?
Che: Right now I am in a language studio. It is actually an international language studio where they are teaching Korean, French, Italian, and also English. And the classes are filled with about three to five students.
John: Small.
Che: Normally, yeah. It is a small setting. I think it is probably best.
John: Now how long does it take you to prepare for a class, Che? When you are laying out activities for your students, how long to put together a lesson plan?
Che: Well, I structure the kids’ curriculum at the Language Institute that I was working at, and we’re working from a textbook called “Magic Time.†And along with working with the textbooks, there is numerous types of games that we throw in to keep the kids interested in a lesson, as well. Preparation time? It differs from day to day, depending on how much energy and how much I actually did the night before. Let’s put it that way.
John: How much you were out.
Che: Partying the night before.
John: So what are your, in two years of experience here, what are your comments about Japanese students? What kinds of adjectives could you use, studious, or lazy? How would you view Japanese students?
Che: I mean, I guess it is difficult not to generalize in this type of a setting. I mean, the word that comes to mind first and is probably the most stereotypical, is shy.
John: Shy.
Che: I think people are very conscious of not wanting to make mistakes. But as we all know, in order to improve, in order to learn, we have to make mistakes. And so getting people comfortable to be able to speak freely is
John: Hesitant to speak out.
Che: Yeah. Hesitant. This is the biggest challenge as a teacher, I think. And for students, as well, to, yeah, not be scared to just be free and speak. That is the only way we are going to learn.
John: Good advice. Just go out and try it. That is the way to learn it. So do you think the kids, or the high school age kids, or the middle, the older adults, adults, who is shyer? Who seems to be quieter?
Che: I think the middle age students, somewhere around 16, 17 years old, they are very conscious of sort of being cool, I think, and not wanting to make mistakes. So they really close off, really close off. And it happens with adults, as well. I mean, it’s very hit and miss. Sometimes you get people that are very outgoing, and sometimes we’ll get people that are very introverted.
John: And you, yourself, you can speak some language, a little bit besides English.
Che: Yeah. I speak Spanish, some Spanish, and a bit of Japanese.
John: A bit of Japanese.
Che: Yeah.
John: Great. So let’s see. Japanese students are shy, which I found that the younger kids are not so shy. They will run around, and if you teach them some songs and things, they kind of remember the songs, and they shout them out. But like you, your experience, at some age, junior high school, high school, they really start to- they are very self-conscious about what they are saying and boys and girls, they do not want to embarrass themselves, it seems like.
Che: Yeah. Something like that. And I think it is really important to put children in this knd of environment at an early age because, of course, children are like sponges, yeah? They are just soaking up the information. So any exposure they have towards English is going to help them later on. And sort of them being with a gaikokujin early on is going to demystify kind of that association and maybe later, when they are older, they will feel more comfortable in the presence of a foreigner.
John: Yeah. You have taught students in some other countries. What other places have you taught in?
Che: I first taught in Taipei, Taiwan. And that was, again, mostly with kids. A good experience, just a couple months there, but it was kind of in an artistic setting, setting up theatrical productions and, yeah, it was really a rewarding thing to have a parents’ night, and see the kids do a bit of a play that I produced. And all the parents were out there watching.
John: I did not know that about you.
Che: Yeah.
John: I know many things about him. I did not know he was doing theatrical English in Taiwan.
Che: Yes.
John: How interesting.
Che: So that was something different.
John: So they have got to be out using the English because they are doing a stage production. They cannot really hide behind their desk in that setting.
Che: Exactly. Yeah. That was fun. And I spent a couple of months in Chonju, Korea, which is a few hours north of Seoul. And that was working at a university, and also the Language Institute, and mostly college students, which was great, because they wanted to do things, extra curricular activities outside the classroom, so a lot of coffee shops, bowling, parks and such.
John: I like doing some of that stuff with students. It has become something other than just a teacher in a classroom, meet them, see them in the park, do some activities with them. At first we are human beings, and second we have another relationship, whether it is brother, sister, or teacher, student, whatever.
Che: Exactly. And you see them more by slang or colloquial type of English outside the classroom. A lot of free expressions are thrown around. So it is real. It is real life English, whereas sometimes classroom could be a bit formatted and a bit bland.
John: Right. So Tokyo. When I think of Tokyo, you know what I do? I go aaahhhh. I do not like big cities and big, modern, fast-paced cities. I do not know if I could live in Tokyo. I view it as a crazy place. I go down there occasionally, once a year maybe. I have been in Japan just over two years, and I think I have been there three times. And to me it is a crazy place. I do not know. How do you find Tokyo life and what do you think about that? Have you enjoyed it?
Che: Yeah. I have enjoyed it very much. And it has been a fascinating experience. And, of course, on first impressions in Tokyo, it is a bit overwhelming, in the bright lights and people everywhere. It is so big.
John: And the subway, and the big neon signboards.
Che: Signboards. Yes. It can be daunting. You can feel very small and very, as many big cities, it can be very lonely if you are on your own walking through them. But with time, you get more comfortable, and you get to know which way to go to certain places. How to use the trains are very, very important because the train system is so incredibly good. Yeah. It will take you anywhere. And this is a great convenience about living in Tokyo.
John: What are some of the best things you have done in Tokyo? Should we do the best or the worst? Don’t you hate that? This is the best. This is the worst. But give our listeners, they might be interested in Tokyo. What are some of the good things to do in Tokyo?
Che: Well, I spent a lot of time going out to nightclubs and stuff around. During my travels I love- through the years I have spent a lot of time in rural communities with more trying to understand the traditional beliefs and values and everyday living in very small towns and such. So this experience in Tokyo is quite the contrast, quite the opposite, or more extreme from all that. So a lot of going out dancing, a lot of music events.
John: Are Japanese good dancers?
Che: I think they are very good dancers, yeah. And they are very alive. I think the club scene in Tokyo is ripe. I think it is exciting, and people are having fun.
John: Japanese society you see during the day people just really kind of in this, everybody doing the same and very vanilla, very bland. So I do not go out. I have been to a few pubs, but I have not been to Tokyo clubs. So I would imagine that this is the chance for them to just break out of this kind of Japanese, a little bit kind of mechanized, what some might say robotic kind of existence. And then they break out into the clubs. Is it kind of like that?
Che: Yeah. I would say so. You go on the trains and people are very much, and around cities, and here in Tokyo, and people you would say are living in sort of glass bubbles, it is very hard to break into their world. People are staying to themselves. Maybe it is not so much unlike other big cities. People are very wary of others, and very conscious, cautious of others. But, yeah, in the nightclubs, people are outgoing. People are talking, and yeah. It is a way where you can meet more people.
John: What kind of music is popular in Tokyo?
Che: I think hip hop is like the music of the day. People are- but you have Trance, you have House, you have Break Beats.
John: Sixties’ rock and roll? That’s what I like.
Che: Sixties.
John: And seventies rock and roll. I do not listen to anything later than that. Do you hear any of that- my stuff?
Che: No. Sorry to say, I do not know of many places that actually do that. I think we might have to build a little bit of a time machine for John and like put him back into that zone. There is a place, though, that’s.
John: But some of the classics there.
Che: The last ‘70s and ‘80s called Mysteo’s [ph?], which is doing that. And that is a fun thing, very retro. They remember some of those past days.
John: Yeah. How about the weirdness of Tokyo. I mean kind of like very weird stuff. Now this is a family show, so let’s keep it clean. What kind of weirdness have you discovered, things that are just like what are they doing?
Che: I think a fun thing to do if you get out to Tokyo on Sunday, is to go out to Yogi Park. So get out at 102 [ph?]? Have a look around. You’ll see the girls dressed up in the Gothic clothing and sort of milling around near the station there, and a lot of people are taking pictures.
John: So they are in some kind of costume.
Che: Kind of like, yeah, maybe a Lolita meets Dracula type of look. It is very kind of dark, cutesy, early, sexy thing that they are trying to do. And it is something that you do not see anywhere else in the world, something quite unique. Yeah. It is clothes and makeup. It is a whole makeover, yeah, a whole makeover. Once again, a way for a society which is very sort of controlled and mostly everyday, for everyday existence, but on these special occasions, on Sunday, the school kids get a chance to basically show their inner personality, express themselves, which is what it is all about.
John: Yeah. Yeah. I think that is great. So is it just this one spot where they do that, or do you see them walking around?
Che: You know, I do not see it around so often, this kind of look. It is predominately in this area. But throughout Japan you see a lot of people practicing dance routines, so there is a lot of people doing sort of this old, great dancing type of moves, and choreographed routines. And that is something that you will see at different stations.
John: Yeah. That I like to watch.
Che: One station that stands out is Mizunokuchi. So that is a place you might see them at night, groups of guys doing these dance routines, which is quite interesting. Another wild thing is these rock-a-billies, which also come out on Sunday, which are kind of a throwback to your time. You are not that much older than Che, kind of a ‘50s kind of thing, where they go around sort of dancing in a big circle and their life [ph?] garb.
John: Shut up. I was not born in the ‘50s. I was born in the early ‘60s, 1962.
Che: Well, that is what he would like to avoid .
John: So, Che, about Tokyo, this is interesting. I hope the listeners and the viewers are enjoying this. I am certainly enjoying it. Give us a couple of adjectives. Two years in Tokyo, these things you have told us. Tokyo, in your mind Tokyo is.
Che: Disposable.
John: Disposable.
Che: Yeah. Disposable, ambiguous.
John: Ambiguous. I like it.
Che: And polite.
John: Polite. O.k. Disposable, ambiguous and polite.
Che: And if I was going to elaborate on that, disposable I simply mean people do not seem to use things more than once. It is like the moment they are getting a bit dirty, they are out. The moment they are not sort of running perfectly, they are out. There is no fixing anything, and there is constant fashion turnover with clothes, and electronics, and different things. Everything in Tokyo seems ultra new. So I called it disposable society in a sense. It is always like in and out. It is a place where people are constantly buying.
John: Is it only material things, or is it friendships and relationships, and boyfriends and girlfriends? They come and they go? Or is it clothes, and is it CD players and MP3 players?
Che: I think I am basically talking about inanimate objects.
John: Material things.
Che: Material things. I mean, yeah. If you want to go into a bit of the seedier side of maybe young Tokyo life, people
===== END OF Che interview part 1 ==============
[ Che Interview part 2 transcript | video page | podcast/audio page ]
