Japan Two - Text
Subject male, born and raised in Japan. Nine months in New Jersey at age 6, one year in Minnesota at age 17. Came to Kansas after graduating high school in Japan and was in his third year of theatre studies when interviewed by Paul Meier in 1999. Subject speaks of the roles he has played in English language theatre productions. Some speech training as well as exposure to American English has put some American twang over his otherwise good example of Japanese-American.
Running time: 02:37
Transcription of Unscripted Speech
I was born in Japan...1976 and I stayed in Japan 'till...the age of six, when I was just six years old, uh, my family and I went to New Jersey and lived there for nine months. That's where I started talking in English, and after nine months I went back to Japan and went to school there, uh, went to junior high, uh, started, uh English education at junior high, high school, and at the age of seventeen I went to Minnesota as a foreign exchange student. Before I went to Minnesota, I went to, hmm... Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona for one month, where I had like a pre-training of, of being high school as a foreign exchange student, and I went to Minnesota, stayed there for one year, graduated high school there, uh, I did some theater there also. I was uh, I acted. I was in Crucible, I was in Jesus Christ Superstar, and I was in one original play, um, at the Austin Community College. And after I went back to Jap--after I got done with one-year program I went ba--I went--back to Japan and I graduate--I graduated my Japanese high school, and I came back here, Kansas, as a student, and I've been staying here for three, this is my fourth year, and trying to get a degree from theater department and....learning English, and right now I'm trying to learn French also.
Unscripted Speech Transcribed By Faith Harvey 25 February 2008