Japan Four - Text
This female subject was born and raised in Iwakuni, Japan, a town about an hour away from Hiroshima. She lived in Osaka, Japan for about five years before moving to Kansas to study English at Baker University, then Language Education at the University of Kansas. She was in her mid-twenties at the time of this recording in May 2002 and had lived in the United States for about three years. Recorded and edited by Kate Haugan. Running time: 00:05:11
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
"I was born in Iwakuni, Japan and it's, oh, pretty close to Hiroshima. It's about one hour trip from Hiroshima and I was raised and I lived there for eighteen years and I moved to Osaka to go to school then I graduated from college there then I worked for a year and decided to come to the United States to study English. So that was when I was twenty-three and I studied at Baker University in Kansas and, um, well at first I just wanted to study English but I wanted to study more about like language education so I decided to come to KU so I started my graduate study two years ago then now I'm here and still studying. I don't know when I'm graduating! When I enter in junior high school the English classes are mandatory for all students so that's how I started English. Hiroshima? Yeah, well, it's pretty difficult for me to talk about, because well I went to museum in Hiroshima about atomic bomb and it was just horrible it was pretty much about how the victims uh, looked like,and how their life was like after the atomic bomb. Well when I watch TV here there was documentary about World War Two and some scientists were justifying the bombing in Hiroshima but I just can't think that it was the right thing to do and, like, too many civilians got killed. So that's how I think about it.
"Namida no Joushaken" that means "Ticket to Ride" but they added like "namida" which is "tears." "Ticket for a Ride with Tears." Like they like put "namida" -tears- in everything like in English songs. I don't know why.
Transcribed by Kate Haugan